Your Proposal: Don't Phone It in

Published on September 10, 2009

Tags: Collaboration, Small Business, Writing

Many companies treat a request for proposal (RFP) as if it's a necessary and tedious evil—something you whip together or repurpose from an existing document with cut-and-paste indifference. But Gwyneth Dwyer believes to do so is a mistake. "An RFP is a key step in engaging an outside marketing partner," she explains in an article at MarketingProfs. "Don't underestimate its importance."

With that in mind, here's some of her advice for getting the most out of an RFP:

Create a document that's worthy of your brand. "Is it well structured and clearly written?" Dwyer asks. "Can recipients scan it and understand what you're looking for?" Then she poses a few more questions:

"Is it free of jargon?"
"Does it include a checklist of response requirements?"

Simply put, high-quality RFPs generate high-quality responses.

Prequalify recipients. Research potential partners by visiting websites, speaking with principals and viewing portfolios. "Send your RFP only to those organizations that have a reasonable chance of doing business with you," advises Dwyer. "Doing so is not merely courteous and professional, it's also efficient."

Selective distribution also increases the chances that a recipient will participate in the process: If you've sent your RFP to dozens of companies, many might consider it to be a waste of their time.

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Comments

by Jeff Thu Sep 10, 2009 via web
I agree RFPs are indeed tedious to respond to, but are necessary to many businesses. Trouble is that when your company receives one from a company that you have not had a strong relationship, your firm is more than likely in the "not in column A" status; your responses will be compared to a pre-selected company that is already in "Column A." What you need to do is engage the RFP sender to modify and change the questions that your solutions now become the best answers to the problems they are trying to solve. A great series of books on that include ways to turn an RFP around so you become the company in "Column A" are: The New Solution Selling: The Revolutionary Sales Process That is Changing the Way People Sell (Keith Eades); and The Solution-Centric Organization (Keith M. Eades, Robert Kear). There is also a Handbook for The New Solution Selling book for the sales team.
by Paul Thu Sep 10, 2009 via web
As a marketing agency that works closely with clients, RFPs are a complete waste of time. RFPs create a fixed set of criteria to answer to and do not allow creative ideas (any type including truly rewarding solutions) from being developed. The incentive is on delivering on the identified criteria in the fastest, most economical way possible. The worst of these is when you are asked to develop a solution as a part of the RFP process and they can select someone else' submission and take your solution, or a part of it. Nice.

We work with clients that look to us to not only solve their immediate needs, but work closely with them to anticipate problems, go the extra mile and innovate on their behalf. Try putting that into an RFP.