Definition
What is the specification window?
The specification window is the period, upstream of an RFP, during which a designer (an engineer, an architect, a technologist) writes the technical spec and chooses the products that will be named in it. It usually lasts a few weeks and closes well before the call for bids is published. A product that does not get in will later have to be defended as an equal, with lower odds and a higher cost of sale.
Where it sits in a project
A project's real calendar is longer than the one a manufacturer sees. The designer receives the mandate, studies the options, writes the spec, obtains the approvals, then the RFP comes out. The specification window is when they compare products, read data sheets and choose the ones they will name.
In a scenario with fourteen months between the mandate and bid opening, it lasts about six weeks and sits nine months before the RFP. Most manufacturers discover the project when the RFP comes out, once the decision is already written.
The person who specifies is not the person who buys
The designer does not pay for the product and does not order it. Yet they engage their professional responsibility by naming it. So they are not looking for the best pitch: they are looking to reduce their risk.
What they want to find is precise: complete, verifiable technical data, up-to-date attestations and certifications, drawings they can integrate directly, confirmed availability and comparable projects. The buyer comes in later, with a spec already written that limits their room to manoeuvre.
What gets a product into the spec
- The downloadable guide spec. Specification text ready to drop in, in the format designers use: you write the paragraph that names you yourself.
- Technical files that can be used as is. Drawings, models, assembly details. A designer will more readily pick the product they do not have to redraw.
- Up-to-date, dated attestations. An expired attestation on a website can be enough to rule the product out.
- A reachable technical contact. Someone able to answer a calculation question the same day, not a sales form.
Suppose a fictional coatings manufacturer bids on twenty RFPs a year without being named in the spec. Each technical bid costs it about $2,800 of internal time: reading the spec, checking compliance, calculating quantities, getting supplier prices.
Those twenty bids represent $56,000 a year. With an assumed close rate of 10%, two sales have to absorb the cost of the other eighteen. The same time, invested upstream in a guide spec and clean technical files, then serves on every project that follows.
We read the specification window as a calendar problem before seeing a price problem. A company that tracks its close rate on bids never sees the projects where a competitor was already named. The first figure we ask for is therefore the share of last year's bids where you were named in the spec.
Our work covers what the designer finds online when they search: product pages built to be verified rather than to sell, technical files that can be found and content that answers the questions your technical service gets every week. The technical content of the guide spec and keeping the attestations up to date stay with you.
Not to be confused with
- RFP
- The RFP (call for bids) invites bidders to price a spec that is already written. The specification window comes months earlier: that is when the spec gets written and the products get named.
- Approved equal
- The approved-equal clause lets a bidder propose a product other than the one named, subject to the designer's approval. It is an expensive catch-up after the window, not a second chance of equal value.
Related concepts
- B2B buying group
- Transposed sales cycle
- Feasibility content
- Purchase trigger
- Product data maturity
- Sales pipeline
- Cost per signed quote
Further reading
- Manufacturers: getting your products specified before the RFP
- Product data: organizing your online catalogue
- Feasibility content: reaching buyers before they request a quote
- B2B marketing: how to reach the people behind a buying decision
- Quote-based sales: calculating your cost per sale
Related services
Frequently asked questions
How do we know if our products are specified?
Reread the specs of the RFPs you answered last year and count the ones that named you. Few companies track that share. A low close rate combined with a low spec presence rate points to a calendar problem rather than a price problem.
How long before we see an effect?
Your project cycle sets the delay. If the window sits nine months before the RFP, work started today can produce its first effects about a year later. Your competitors face the same delay, which protects a position once you have won it.
What is a guide spec?
Specification text ready to drop in, written by you, in the format designers use. It describes the product in verifiable technical terms rather than sales arguments. The designer saves time, and you write the paragraph that names you yourself.
