How to Respond to an RFP: Your Guide to Success
Responding to an RFP can feel like an overwhelming and complicated process. Thankfully, there is a formula you can follow to make sure you get it right and win more contracts. With thousands of RFPs available at any given moment and billions of dollars of revenue up for award, there’s no time like the present to start responding to RFPs.
What is an RFP
First things first: an RFP is a formal request for proposal where an organization invites either a select few companies or any company to submit a proposal for the work. This may be for a one-time contract for services or products or a multi-year contract for ongoing support and products. Organizations release RFPs to conduct due diligence and make sure they find the right company for the work. Because they are competitive, RFPs often have a set of rules that must be followed in order to win the contract, and they ask specific questions to help with evaluation.
Where to Find RFPs
If you’re ready to start responding to RFPs, you’re probably wondering how to find them. There are several bid aggregator sites that compile mostly public RFPs, such as for government agencies or nonprofit organizations. BidSync is the most comprehensive site for finding RFPs, and you can also review the federal site for finding federal government RFPs. If you’re looking for contracts in a specific region with a specific governmental entity, you can quickly find their procurement information by searching the entity name and “procurement”. For example, if you’re hoping to work with Colorado state parks, you would search “Colorado State Parks Procurement” and find the state’s purchasing department. From there, you can learn if they have their own procurement portal where they release RFPs, which you can monitor.
Finding RFPs for private entities is a little harder. For this, you’ll need to focus on your marketing and business development efforts. Private companies (i.e. anything that’s not a government organization) don’t have to competitively bid their contracts in the same way as the government, and they can invite a small group of potential vendors to submit proposals. This means you’ll need to use your marketing efforts and sales team to work with the potential client in order to make sure you are one of the companies on their list.
Reading the RFP
When you finally receive the RFP, you’ll need to read the entire document (yes, even if it’s hundreds of pages), to make sure you can agree to every detail in the contract or propose an alternative. Before you spend hours reading the entire RFP, however, you can skim it to learn if it’s worth responding to. Here are the key topics to watch for when reading an RFP.
Submission Deadline.
The deadline to submit your proposal will impact your ability to respond. If you don’t find the RFP until 2 days before it’s due, you most likely aren’t going to win. Most RFPs don’t allow late submissions, so make sure you note the exact time it’s due and submit your response with plenty of time.
Q&A Deadline.
Almost every RFP has a period where respondents are allowed to ask questions. Use this time to formulate any questions you have about the scope of the work required, the proposal itself, or the customer’s needs. Many RFPs are equally as strict about the Q&A period as they are about the proposal deadline itself, so make sure you submit all questions by the deadline using the method they outline.
Submission Information.
Every organization has a different method for receiving the proposals. Some accept a simple email submission, others have a specific portal, and there are many organizations who still require physical hard copies. When reviewing the RFP, search for the submission information to discover how you’ll need to prepare your proposal.
If you have to mail physical copies, it’s best practice to ship at least two business days before the deadline if you’re shipping via priority overnight. Wait any longer, and you risk your package not arriving.
For online submissions, review the portal before the day you plan to submit so you know how to navigate around and can address any technical issues, such as your login information not working. It’s also best to try to submit proposals 24 hours before the deadline if it’s through a portal. You don’t want to wait until minutes before the deadline only to discover that your file size is too big or you misread the timezone.
Scope of Work.
This is where you’ll spend most of your time reading. This section of the RFP outlines the products or services that they are hoping to acquire. Here you’ll learn if you’re qualified to support the contract and details on specifically what you’ll be doing.
Format Requirements.
In addition to the submission requirements, many RFPs outline a specific format that they want proposals to follow. If that’s the case, you’ll need to scrap your standard proposal template and instead follow the outline that they provide. This will often include specific questions that you need to answer and any forms or other documents that you need to provide. This section may also note if there is a specific page limit that you should follow.
Contract.
The contract details the legal requirements of the contract. You’ll need your attorney to review it to confirm that you agree to all of the terms. Some organizations allow you to propose alternate language or a contract of your own. Each RFP is different, which means you’ll need to read closely to learn what they accept.
Q&A Period
As noted above, most RFPs have a question period where you can ask anything related to the RFP. Once you know the deadline, you can figure out how much time you have to read the RFP in order to compile your list of questions. This is the perfect opportunity to learn more about what they need and how you can support the project.
Creating Your Response to an RFP
Once you have read through the RFP and confirmed that you’re responding, it’s time to start creating your response. If the RFP has a format that they want you to follow, then the first step is to copy all of their sections and questions into your proposal template. It’s easiest to go ahead and format your content at this stage to start to see how the final proposal will look. If they did not provide a format as part of the RFP, you’ll need to create your own while including all of the information they will need to evaluate your response.
After creating the template, it’s time to start pulling together your content! If the RFP has specific questions, answer each question in detail. Create content that tells a story for why you are the best company for the proposed work. Include callouts, graphics, and bullets to make it easy to skim, where possible. Make sure you conduct a final round of edits to catch any mistakes.
RFP Presentations
If your proposal is a success, you will likely be invited to present your proposed solution to a team of evaluators. If you have already developed themes you want to highlight in your proposal, you can use those again here in your presentation. Sometimes you will be given a set of questions or an outline to follow for your presentation. Use those to comply, and incorporate your unique positions throughout your presentation. The presentation is typically the final round for winning the contract, and the list of possible vendors has already been narrowed down. If you made it to this round, give it your best shot to win. Practice the presentation at least 7 times before you present and practice responding to any follow up questions you think they might ask to really knock it out of the park.
Best and Final Offer (BAFO)
Sometimes organizations will request a Best and Final Offer before or after the presentation (or not at all). When a BAFO is requested, it most often is a request for a lower price. Sometimes organizations will also try to negotiate on another element of your proposal, but most often, the goal of this round is to have vendors lower the price. Where possible, research ahead of time to try to learn if the organization you’re responding to follows this process, and account for this in your first round of pricing.
RFP Debrief
After the contract is awarded, whether you won or lost, it’s best to debrief on the RFP process. Create a list of questions to discuss with your proposal team, and determine what went well, what didn’t go well, and how you can do better next time. If there were issues with the process or you scrambled to find content for a specific section, you can note it in the debrief and take action to improve it next time. This is also a great opportunity to FOIA proposals if it was a government agency to learn how competitors responded and how you can better position your offering.
Conclusion
RFPs are a lot of work, but if you follow the steps above, you’ll find that you’re better positioned to create a compelling and compliant proposal.