Less is more when it comes to answering RFPs

At first blush you might think, “Let’s aggressively work every RFP that we hear about.”   You’re not alone.  Many sales organizations (including ones I’ve been part of) have had this attitude at some point.  The thinking seems to be, “the more hooks you have in the water the better chance you have to catch something.”  This is NOT the way to win the most business, let me tell you why.

First let’s discuss why companies issue RFPs.  Certainly RFPs are issued when a client sincerely wants to compare different vendors and they intend to implement with one of them in the short term.  In this situation I think that every vendor mostly has a real shot at winning the business.  This is probably what most of us think of when considering RFPs.  Other times though, a client has a preferred vendor for the business and they issue an RFP because procurement is forcing them to at least check the box that they spoke to another vendor.  The chance of winning these RFPs is generally low (unless you are the preferred vendor).  Some clients issue RFPs almost as a market survey; they are generally curious about what is out there but, as of now, they have no real ability to buy or implement a new solution (no budget is allocated to buy/implement).  Lastly, some clients issue RFPs to gain insights on how a solution should be constructed and to gain a lot of free research on the pros and cons of different architecture/features/design.  These clients take all of those insights and then build the solution in house.  Over my 30 years of sales experience, I can think of 2 companies that I have educated on multiple occasions via RFPs.  I’ve been burned too many times to think it’s a coincidence.  Would I automatically reject an RFP from these companies?  Not necessarily, but I would give it a long hard look before I proceed.

Based on the above paragraph you can now see that all RFPs are not created equal.  Only in the first and perhaps the second case do you, the vendor, have a real chance to win the business.  Obviously no client will come to you and say, “Hey, spend a lot of time on this RFP but you have no real shot at winning.”  This is where your sales rep is crucial.  This person must gather intelligence on the RFP (preferably before it is issued).  Does the client have a budget to acquire and implement the solution?  What is the decision timeframe?  Who is the preferred vendor (if any)?  What is our RFP track record with this client in the past?  Is this client known for building in-house?  Why is it important to know about the RFP before it is issued?  It shows that your sales rep is plugged into the client’s organization and knows what is going on.  It lessens (but does not eliminate) the chance that procurement wants you involved to check the “we spoke to another vendor” box.

Sales Engineering teams have a finite bandwidth.  Besides RFPs there are: new features to understand, custom demos to work on, training, early requirement gathering, etc.  Usually SEs are very busy.  Working an RFP can make perfect sense but it will be at the expense of something else, is it worth the effort?  It also happens that SEs might be working multiple RFPs simultaneously.

I’ve often compared working an RFP to running a marathon.  You would never run a small marathon the day before you had a big important one.  Working RFPs is the same.  Prioritize the RFPs by your ability to win them and the value of the deal.  Put your best foot forward for these priority RFPs.  Don’t sacrifice quality on a high priority RFP just so you can answer more lesser RFPs.  The key is high quality; that’s what wins you the business.  It’s also good practice to have the sales rep assigned a writing role in the RFP response.  They need skin in the game too.  It is a lot less likely for the sales rep to push an unqualified RFP if they also have to write the response.

It takes some effort but every sales team should be diligent about the RFPs they pursue.  There are times you should push back if answering a low priority RFP conflicts with some other high priority RFP.  With that said, it’s hard to know the RFPs you are going to win and the ones you are going to lose.  Even with prioritization you will likely still work many many RFPs.  That’s life in sales engineering.  Feel free to reach out and discuss RFPs with me.  I’ve answered hundreds of them and I have a lot of hard earned experience.

Please reach out to peter.j.accorti@gmail.com if you want to discuss these kinds of issues.