8 Common Specification Mistakes (and How to Fix Them!)

Let’s talk about common specification mistakes that non-federal entities make during procurement.

For most people with basic writing skills, writing product specifications sounds simple: you just describe an item, right?

Unfortunately, there’s more to it than that.

The trick is striking a balance between giving enough of a description that you get what you want with not “unduly restricting competition,” which the federal law prohibits.

During my time at the state agency, my job was to provide regular technical assistance to school districts, as well as conduct procurement reviews, so I’ve seen a lot of written specifications.

While most people want to do the right thing, they struggle to find that balance.

I really think not enough emphasis is placed on how the words we choose affect our contracts in the long run, so we’re missing the value of well-written specifications. If your goal is to get what you need at the best price, then nailing your specifications is a must.

Below are the top eight most common specification writing mistakes I’ve seen when working with school districts and how to fix them.

Mistake #1: the description is too general

Take the description below as an example. 

I’ve legit seen this exact spec on a bid.

However, you need to give the vendor more information about what kind of pancakes you want. If I am a vendor, I would look at that and think I could substitute any pancake I wanted because all you care about is whether it’s a pancake.

Do you prefer white or whole grain? Any particular flavor or just plain? How big should each pancake be? Individually wrapped or bulk?

Give the vendor enough information that if they don’t carry the brand/item you originally asked for, they know what they need to look for in an alternative for “or equal” purposes.

To fix this, add more detail about what you’re looking for in a pancake:

Therefore, the description now contains a little more details to provide the vendor the information they need.

Mistake #2: the description is too restrictive

Alternatively, take the description below as an example of this type of specification mistake.

This one contains more identifying information, but it’s too much.

If another company came out with the best mini maple pancake you’ve ever tasted that’s cheaper and met everything in this spec EXCEPT it had 280mg of sodium, you’re telling me you wouldn’t accept it? Doubtful.

This spec is very similar to the suggested spec written by the company, and know why they specified 270mg of sodium? Because their competitor, another well-known breakfast company, produced one with 320mg of sodium.

By sneaking that into their suggested specification, they’re getting you to limit the competition. Keep in mind “limiting the competition” is a finding on a Procurement Review, so you could get yourself into a pickle by using these unnecessarily descriptive specs.

Remember, the point of a written specification is not to describe what you HAVE or a product you SAW, you are describing what you NEED.

Be sure you only include non-negotiable aspects into your specifications. You never know when a vendor can find you a product with the same specs that costs less!

That said, you absolutely can put nutrient limits, as well as other requirements, into your specifications, just make sure they’re justifiable. Here are a few reasons you might put specific limitations in your specs:

• You could put a sodium cap on your hot breakfast entrees in order to meet your sodium limits. Just make sure it’s reasonable and you apply it across the board to all similar items.
• The district I work in doesn’t serve artificial colors, so we often write that into our specs when similar products on the market do contain artificial colors.
• You might have a high population of students that don’t eat items made with gelatin (halal, kosher, vegan), and you want to maximize the options available to them.

These are all good reasons to include a limiting factor! Just make sure you’re being fair and be prepared to explain it to a vendor (and your state agency) if a vendor complains.

To fix this, remove any aspects that you don’t need in a pancake

This one now contains enough information for the vendor to know what you need without going overboard that you restrict competition.

Mistake #3: the description is copied from the manufacturer’s website or product sheet

If only it were that easy.

However, copying a manufacturer’s description is the same as allowing a vendor to write your specs, which is not allowed.

To fix this, read over their version of the specification and decide which parts are necessary to keep. Next, you’ll want to write your own specification that uses these necessary parts in your own words and formatted to match the rest of your document.

Mistake #4: the description contains brand names, trademarked information, or any other company-specific information

Here are a few examples:

Cheerios is a brand name, so a vendor could complain that you’re not being open and fair to other brands.

In truth, your students might not accept any other product. That’s fine; if a vendor wants to sub a lesser-known brand, you can taste test with students to see if they truly prefer Cheerios. However, you’ll have to remove the brand name from the description or add “or equal” right after it.

Cool Ranch® is a registered trademark. Therefore, you’re clearly talking about one specific company, which you shouldn’t do in the description since it could be viewed as being unfair.

Even though “dragon punch” isn’t trademarked (that I can tell), it is a company-specific flavor. Since other companies do make tropical flavored vegetable juices that meet the rest of the spec, removing the reference to “dragon” will open up your options to be more fair and possibly get better pricing.

To fix these, remove the brand-specific information and get at the heart of what the product is. If you can’t quite put it into words (I mean what are Cheerios anyway?), the product’s website or even packaging often provides some insight.

Mistake #5: the preferred brand is a private label

Take this as an example:

I saw this specification mistake A LOT.

Private labels are unique to a specific distributor or group of distributors. Ones like Sysco, Gordon Foods, and US Foods are all pretty obvious, but keep in mind there are other private labels that go by less obvious names.

For example, Gordons packs their spices under the label “Trade East”, but no other distributor has access to that brand.

The distributor my district uses is an independently-owned company, and they use a private label called “Frosty Acres” which is only available to other independently-owned distributors.

I once had a distributor tell me that when they see specific private labels named as the preferred brand, they don’t bother to bid because they’re assuming you want that specific distributor to win. Therefore, you could be inadvertently losing out on competitive pricing by making this mistake.

To fix this mistake, instead state “Private Label” under the preferred brand if you’re looking for generic.

Again, writing specs isn’t about describing what you have, it’s describing what you need, so be cautious when you list a brand simply because that’s what you currently have – you could be specifying a private label by accident.

Mistake #6: the spec doesn’t list a preferred brand and manufacturer number

While there’s nothing that requires you to list a preferred brand and manufacturer number, it often benefits you.

Just listing a description for everything without a preferred brand and manufacturer number will make it much more difficult for the companies to bid.

That would be like sending my husband to the grocery store to get “Greek Yogurt”, and getting mad when he brings back a brand I don’t like.

That preferred brand and product code are their insight into what product you’re referencing. Without listing this information, they have to guess what items you’re talking about.

For example, those of us in school nutrition know that a filled tortilla with chicken chili is a Crispo, but the person filling out this bid who hasn’t stepped foot in a school cafeteria in decades – he might think “filled tortilla? Like a taco? quesadilla? burrito?”

If this is a small bid for say, just ice cream, leaving off the brands and codes might be okay. For a full food bid with 400 items, you might not have any bidders, or you’ll be upset when they don’t give you the products you had in mind.

To fix this, add at least the brand you want. I try to add the product code too just to make it really obvious to the vendor what I want.

Mistake #7: the preferred brand doesn’t allow for an “or equal”

This is one of the few procurement concepts that’s continually repeated by USDA and State Agencies, so you would think it wouldn’t happen much, but it does.

I mostly saw it when procuring very specialized pieces, like equipment or software, or simply left off when quickly getting a quote for something.

To fix it, add “or equal” or “or pre-approved equal” to your bid or quote. For bids or quotes with multiple line items, you can add it to each line item, to a header column, or within the instructions.

Mistake #8: the estimated quantity or usage isn’t close to reality

You should definitely put a clause in your contracts stating that you are not obligated to purchase any particular quantity and that any quantities listed are only estimates.

However, that doesn’t alleviate you from needing to give a good ballpark guess. I’ve seen specs that list “1” or “100” for every item when I knew that wasn’t accurate.

Vendors use this quantity for several purposes:

• Volume Discounts: They might be able to give you volume discounts if you purchase it in larger quantities.
• Subbing an Equal/Special Orders: Distributors have limited space, so they look at your usage to determine whether it will be worth it to give you the item you spec’ed or whether they are better off substituting an equal item. If you’re only planning on buying 4 cases the whole year and they already carry something similar, they are probably going to just substitute the equal item. If they don’t carry something similar, they’re going to have to special order it, and they’ll need to plan for that.
• Order Minimums: For direct from manufacturer shipments, they need estimated quantities to determine whether you meet their order minimums. They aren’t going to send you a whole 18-wheeler with 2 cases on it. Distributors are held to order minimums too, so they need to know how much you need to determine if they will meet their order minimum.
• Cost/Benefit Analysis: For a vendor bidding on a new contract, they’re using your estimated usage to do a cost-benefit analysis, i.e. – how many more staff/trucks will they need to service you vs. how much income it will bring them. If you grossly underestimate your usage, they may decide not to bid on you because they don’t think the contract will be worth the trouble.
• Starting Inventory Levels: The vendor uses your estimated usages to stock up for your first order. For example, if you operate 10 months of the year and estimated you will use 400 cases during that time, they’ll estimate you will order 40 every month.

Remember, you are not doing your vendor a favor by estimating usage… you’re doing YOU a favor.

Unless it’s a new vendor you’ve never worked with before, they tend to know who gives them accurate usage estimates and who is way off. If you’re one that’s always way off, they aren’t going to trust the numbers you give them, and YOU will feel the impacts:

• Volume Discounts: you might not get every volume discount available.
• Subbing Equals/Special Orders: if the vendor can’t trust that you’ll truly purchase roughly the volume you estimated, they are less likely to bring in an item just for you because they might get stuck with inventory you don’t use.
• Cost/Benefit Analysis: when deciding whether a vendor wants to work with you, they will factor in the fact that you do not provide them with reliable estimates. They may end up having to factor this into their pricing for you to account for the fact that you end up costing them money when they’re left with unused inventory. It could also be a factor in a decision just to not bid on you at all, which will result in less competitive pricing.

To fix this mistake, try to come up with a better ballpark estimate for how much you will order. This takes a little more time, but is worth it in the long run. See more on forecasting here.

Summary

There you have it! The next time you write a specification, you’ll be able to avoid these common specification mistakes.