Laura’s Winning Ideas

I just packed a box of documents, and remembered all we’d learned about shipping proposals. We usually use 3 ring binders for proposals.

Originally, this was for our convenience. Last minute page changes were easier with 3-ring binders than with other binding methods that required special equipment. In a pinch we could put a whole team around a table and switch out pages in seconds.

Then, we started seeding the debrief questions so we could find out more about the impression we made with clients.

The bad news was that we found 3-ring binders could be a problem. With the shifting around during shipment, the binders could come unhinged, causing pages to pop out of place.

The good news was that customers favored 3-ring binders once they got the proposal together.

Two reasons:

First, the 3-ring binders allowed reviewers to secure notes and extra materials in the binder by just hole punching sheets and added them to the binder. We hadn’t expected reviewers to do this, and found several times that this was a common desire. They didn’t like having inserted notes sticking out the edges of proposals with closed binding.

Second, the reviewers felt that 3-ring binders were a higher quality binding. It was more utilitarian than a closed binding, such as velo-binding or spiral binding, which somehow lead to an impression of greater value.

So, the challenge was simply to solve the shipping problem. After a few tries, this was the method my staff devised, which I used to pack up a box of 3-ring binders this week:

Materials needed:

1/3 - 1/2 cup styrofoam packing peanuts per proposal
1/3 to 1/2 plastic bag per proposal (plastic grocery sacks work well)
packing tape
sturdy box(es)

Hold the notebook upright, with the binding edge down, back and front covers pointing up.

Stuff the gap between covers with packing peanuts, clamping the covers with your free hand. While still holding covers together, insert in plastic bag. Continue clamping covers together from outside the plastic bag and use the tape to bind the proposal so the peanuts can’t slip out.

The peanuts keep the pages from shifting and pulling open the binding. The plastic bag protects the proposal from water damage should your box get wet. The plastic also allows you to bind the covers tight against the peanuts, without making a mess out of the proposal with tape.

With practice, you can get 2 or 3 proposals in each plastic bag. Place the bags in the box with any gaps TIGHTLY packed with crumpled paper (not peanuts - everyone hates having those fly out when they are unpacking).

You can also use waded up paper instead of styrofoam peanuts. I think the peanuts look like you were really paying attention to this shipping detail, and I prefer that impression.

When you use paper wads for packing, be sure to consider the appropriateness of the printing on the waded up paper! When I received packages from abroad, the newspapers used for packing were always of great interest and we uncrinkled them to read what was going on in that locale. Be sure a customer is not getting a thrill by reading discarded correspondence about a project or proposal!