Comments on: What Values Does Your RPF Process Telegraph? Why We Don’t Respond to RFPs

By: Michelle Malay Carter

Michelle Malay Carter — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:43:50 +0000

David,

Thanks for the comment. Good advice and great idea putting an RFP database together.

Michelle

By: David Kutcher

David Kutcher — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:41:50 +0000

Pick and choose your battles. Some organizations want your expertise, other organizations want you to complete the work as described. Not every RFP that you are qualified to bid on is the right RFP for you to respond to, the trick is never feeling like you don’t have enough RFPs to bid on and being selective about the ones you spend the time crafting your proposal. Being selective allows you to truly shine on those that you really feel good about and to show them why you are the best candidate. I think the people that really grip and get frustrated with the RFP process are those that try to respond to any RFP that they’ve come across that they might have a chance at winning, then get discouraged when they lose. My advice is always the same: go to the RFP Database at http://www.rfpdb.com and trade in the RFPs that you don’t feel good about for RFPs that you do!

By: Michelle Malay Carter

Michelle Malay Carter — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:12:33 +0000

Gene and Heidi,

Thanks for stopping by. Again, I think we are suffering at the hands of a reactionary process set up to compensate for poor systems – another toast scraping method. Wouldn’t it be great if we could fix the toaster?

Michelle

By: heidi

heidi — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:29:39 +0000

I could not agree more about the inverse relationship and the frustrations of pigeonholing.

My husband and I both have companies in the capital of our state. So, we do many RFPs for state government. We are at a point now where we only do them if we know someone on the “inside” and have a good relationship with that person.

Personally, I’m fairly suspicious of RFPs, which often seem to be written with a particular vendor in mind. This suspicion is deepened when my husband is asked to help help tailor an RFP so that his company will get it. Funny thing is, one reason for RFPs is to prevent favoritism, right?

Additionally, many RFPs do not have a way to show a client what my firm could do for them. Sure, I can usually send samples of past work, but that work may have no relationship to what this client needs. There is often no clear statement of the underlying issues the client wants to solve, or a chance to brainstorm the best approach.

So, I must commit to a price, a timeline and a course of action before the needs assessment begins. It is out of order and frustrating.

I look forward to hearing how to fix this one.
h

By: Gene Anderson

Gene Anderson — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:59:35 +0000

I can’t agree MORE… it’s hard to see the forest of your making (organizationally or problematically speaking), when your nose is firmly pressed up against the tree whose seeds have been sown for years. Often, RFP’s are issued to ‘confirm’ problems that exist, and champion solutions that have already been visioned by the RFP’s author/sponsor.

Several of the most successful RFP responses I’ve been involved with were ones in which we were technically ‘unresponsive’. Meaning, we proposed a course of action, that was NOT what they asked for, but was designed to get at the core issues that they faced.

Responding to RFPs is can be a huge time sink, and the rewards of winning can be meager at times. It’s important, to pick your ‘battles’ so to speak, and go where your skills, and abilities can truely add value, and that ‘new lens’ that is needed.