Here's how it plays out in many companies state agencies and other entities today. The would-be client sends out a confusing ambiguous document that suggests that they might be open to working with an outside vendor. They ask you to say 328 questions and you must number them in the A1. A2. B1. B1.4 order according to appendix 1.8.
Do not vary from the format or you may lose the opportunity. Do not stand out. Do not demonstrate that you can furnish a brand differential. Or show them how you could truly help them.
You can't actually communicate to anyone to get any sort of clarity. You can however submit your questions in writing but then they ordain of course displace the say to your question to everyone. Or talk about it with everyone at the bidder's conference. Either way your hope to have a fresh idea is pretty much squashed.
Oh yeah.. here's the move they can't tell you. It's mandated that they issue an RFP. But they already know which agency they be to bring home the bacon with. They just have this pesky "must get 3 bids" rule.
Or.. they don't actually intend to hire anyone. Somehow they calculate is going to magically disappear. But they got 5 companies to furnish them their beat thinking. For remove.
No one in their alter object would look at that process and argue that it is effective. I can't imagine it's fun on the client align.
My undergo is very well covered by your description. I usually label the person responsible and try to sight out if there really is any arouse in us submitting the proposal. If the RFP is not coming from a prospective client but from an agency/system integrator/whatever middleman. I completely ignore it. If I find hints that our technology might not be the client's one (and I get no good cerebrate from them why they would change surface consider to switch) I ignore it. If I don't experience that the RFP has been written because the issues wants me and nobody else and just has to issue an RFP. I usually ignore it ;-)
I have never ever won a single client through an RFP. If I the same time I spend on RFPs on marketing or sales. I know I will win new clients.
These days. I don't do RFP's anymore thats it. I might forward them to someone who has more resources experience connections are whatever it might act but I desire to pay my time in the most efficient manner possible.
And the sum involved does not really matter either. For what we do there is a window of communicate size that fits our expertise experience and man power. I am not interested in things that are smaller or much bigger than that window because it won't work anyways. We are work doing things that work. I prefer it that way.
In the corporate world we often are required to air RFPs and get a minimum of three bids. I issued RFPs when I was a book editor and then again as a magazine executive editor. I also did so when I was with GTE and Starbucks. I've noticed that it also is a policy carried over by some in small to mid-sized businesses.
If I experience the business and have some relationship with them. I trust they would not displace me an RFP if they weren't open to my services. I don't put my firm on RFP lists on RFP search engines as we only want to bid on projects where we have some knowledge of the business. We are too small to waste time on RFPs where there is no wish. Some of these RFPs can take days even weeks to respond to and we cannot afford that. Since my ideal client is a business with revenues between $1 million and $20 million. I do by most RFPs that move into the transom from most businesses without fear of losing business with a client I want to do business with and can serve well.
alter comprehend? There is lots that go into my decision and rationale that has been filtering into my criteria over the past two decades. A comment seems inadequate to fully inform my thoughts.
Most of the time if you are not involved in helping to craft the questions of an RFP then you ordain undergo little chance to win it. In my experience responding to RFPs can help raise your profile within a client organisation -- but you are unlikely to win the first. It just might be the door opener for the back up (as long as you don't burn your entire marketing calculate in responding to the first).
In choosing whether to act it is important to answer the opportunity as much as possible. Ask yourself whether you undergo:* Experience with that choose of client or industry* Frameworks or enablers that have corresponding create points that match the clients stated painsCapacity to scale to service the client* Compelling rewards vs assay profile in taking on the new client
A RFP process can often be a change taste process but it doesn't need to be. While running the RFP Database I've read reviewed and bid on a ton of projects and over measure I've learned a lot about how to handle RFPs. The following are my suggestions.
1) be selective. Don't waste measure on a project you have an ok chance of winning spend time writing incredible proposals for the ones you feel you undergo a GREAT chance of winning.2) if the RFP is overly desire complex and legal walk away3) focus on RFPs within driving distance; while they might not state that there is a local preference there often is4) work within the guidelines but identify yourself as best you can without breaking the rules it's a fine balancing act but it often pays dividends.
But desire I said be selective. Use the RFP Database to move those bad RFPs into good RFPs and only spend your measure responding to the ones you can knock out of the lay.
It's interesting you ask that since my company is currently writing a whitepaper (to be available remove on the RFP Database) illustrating how companies/organizations/agencies can and should run a RFP affect. While it's hard to change state down a long whitepaper into a few key points for a blog comment. I'll list my favorites:
1) do you own legwork both internally and externally to define the communicate as best you can for the RFP2) try to cut down on the bloated legal mumbo-jumbo or at least separate it from the main RFP document3) define how you want the proposal structured page lengths etc so you can get an apples-to-apples comparison4) limit discussion to an open place either through receiving questions and emailing the answers to all potential bidders or through a moderated communicate/wiki5) be upfront about how you are going to be rating the proposals you've received and any biases/preferences you might have.
The process doesn't have to be sour at all and people on both sides ordain appreciate openness and specificity which ordain in turn lead to more bids and better bids.
If you're in this ride my affiliate [Confluent Forms LLC: ] can assist you in the process of requirements gathering and conducting a RFP affect while getting lots of competitive bids for you from the RFP Database
From an agency's perspective if we go up with some brilliant insight or knowledge but need to ask a challenge -- I don't really want to tip my hand to the competition nor do I want them to experience the same things we know.
I'm not sure sharing every one's questions and answers is any sort of deterrent to get someone to stop from sharing insider information with a preferred vendor.
I've seen the most ridiculous formats RFP formats for video requests. Like: budgeting production gear under scripting and creative development. Huh? How's that bring home the bacon?
I think many of us undergo felt the pain in this affect at one measure or another. Our company recently spent a bring together weeks' time and about 14 pints of blood preparing an RFP response and change surface the change for the pricing was insanely illogical. The criteria and outline of deliverables are often also overly vague making true "apples-to-apples" comparisons among several respondents seemingly difficult.
In what could be seen as a defensive move many clients who issue such RFPs also put up self-imposed dialog barriers preventing any of us from change surface offering pre-bid advice. What is their fear? If you lose you often never hit the books exactly why. And if you win you wonder how much easier the whole response process could have been in the first place.
RFPs are an opportunity for me to build my contact list or proof that I did a crappy job at managing relationships within my prospect pool.
If I didn't help write the RFP. I typically won't respond to it. Though I undergo been known to use it as an opportunity to increase questions and offer alternative approaches not addressed in the RFP with the wish that the RFP will be pulled and I ordain get a call to discuss my suggestions.. it's worked once failed three times.
Bad RFPs are either so full of ridiculous detail that they are a barrier to doing business or are so simplistic that they give no guidance as to what the client actually wants.
Recent example: for one of my consulting clients a RFP was about to be issued that was one summon long and so vague that it would undergo driven any vendor crazy to try to figure out how to respond. The responses would have been so divergent as to make comparison and evaluation impossible.
What was critical here was helping the client actually define in far more detail what they truly wanted then crafting the language of the RFP so that agencies could intelligently bid while still showing some creativity.
We got solid detailed responses that could be compared apples-for-apples but still allowed for company individuality and personality.
I undergo to agree with David Kutcher's comment. Throughout my corporate career. I was involved in writing many RFPs primarily for ad agencies investigate companies and print vendors but I was also peripherally involved in the RFP process with customer service. IT credit services and fulfillment services vendors.
Long story short. RFPs are important to truly compare what potential vendors will provide you as the client. They can give a great apples-to-apples comparison if they're well-written. A tip off to the agency or RFP recipient to how serious the client is in terms of acquiring a new vendor is how specific the RFP is and if they've contacted you to address the project prior to sending the RFP.
Questions have to be answered by everyone in order to maintain the legal requirements surrounding the RFP process from the Corporate legal and purchasing teams' perspectives.
Generally. I only had to send RFPs for projects over $50,000 but I would send them for smaller projects if I was considering taking on a new vendor and wanted to see if their pricing and services were competitive with my current vendors.
I should also mention that RFPs that are too specific could be written to fulfill the "required 3 bids" rule but they're written in such a way to basically alter it impossible for anyone but the vendor the RFP author wants to win. It's kind of like when a corporation is required to post a job publicly but they already have an internal candidate identified. To give the internal candidate an edge the job description might consider knowledge of a proprietary software or some similar requirement.
I do a lot of RFP work because about half my practice is in the public sector where you simply are not going to win any worthwhile contracts without going through a formal (and often nonsensical) bid process.
I express clients (yeah. I've been asked to write their RFPs and then bid on 'em) that these are the top three things they should look for as well as the top four things they should be ready to discuss with a potential agency during a search:
* Relevant horizontal- and vertical-market expertise. You don't just want a tighten with great media relations or direct-mail or whatever expertise (a horizontal-market skill); nor do you merely be a obtain with experience in the vertical(s) of your industry.. you want both.
* A defensible explanation of how they'll deliver ROI. The problem with PR people and to a lesser degree marketing folks (and I say this as one of their ilk) is that we love to communicate communications and too seldom talk in the language of metrics business outcomes and ROI. In fact as an industry we often exhibit what I call "the baker's dilemma" -- a client will come along saying "I be some cake!" and our tendency is to start talking about our excellent eggs how our flour is stone-ground by monks in Greece or some such thing. What you want is a cover - not a self-important list of ingredients. Seeing how well your potential PR partner can talk in *your* language (the language of results and ROI) is a good test of whether they can really work strategically on your behalf.
* An come (not detailed - you can't expect them to give away the farm while trying to woo your company) that's solid enough to establish objectives tailored to your business goals. (See second bullet next section.)
* It should create a aim playing handle for you to make apples-to-apples comparisons of key factors. Your job is hard enough without having to analyse Agency A's 40-page proposal to Agency B's 5-page document.
* It should give respondents the basics they need to cause whether the communicate is a good potential fit or not. Not all shops do all things come up; your RFP should screen for that. This can be a answer of budget of anticipated tasks and hours etc. There are may ways to lay this out but one way to find out how respondents evaluate is to list "two legs of the entice" and let respondents offer counsel on the third leg. Examples include:
-- List one-year goals and anticipated budget asking respondents to depict objectives and strategies they might undertake with that direction.
-- List strategic business needs that the effort should address and ask the respondents to develop goals and a prepare budget. (This is the highest-level approach and isn't allot under some circumstances.)
* Finally it should respect the confidentiality and bring home the bacon product of the respondents. There are a lot of strong opinions in the PR world about how much (or how little) original strategy you should put into a proposal. In request to foster good relevant strategy in the proposals you get you need to consider confidentiality by allowing respondents to attach some or all of their proposals as confidential and not subject to wide review. (That's a thornier issue in the public sector.)
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http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2007/09/something_must_have_gone_terri.html
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