I’ve seen several in my day… the RFP (more formally known as the Request For Proposal); everything from one-sheeters to novellas – wacky Craigslist posts to formal fill-in-the-blank protected Excel documents. The RFP can come in many forms—some good, some awful. This post will hopefully guide you in the RFP preparation process to make sure that your RFP is clear, contains the most relevant information and ultimately gets you the results you’re looking for.
First Impressions Matter
There is a good chance that your RFP is the first impression of what it may be like for vendors/agencies to work with your company. Make it count. Do you best to imbue some personality and corporate culture into the RFP content. In addition to the potential scope of the project, smart vendors evaluate communication style, professionalism and courtesy before they decide whether or not it’s worth their time to respond to your request.
RFP Outline
In order to give you a head start on your request for proposal process, I’ve prepared what I consider to be a solid outline for most RFPs. Feel free to use and adopt as you see fit.
- Background – Keep it Brief
- Goals
- Project Requirements
- Vendor Expectations
- Timeline
- Budget
- Questions
There’s usually no need to provide paragraphs full of detail about the history of the organization, biographies of your board of directors or information about the locations of your offices. You probably already have a website where I can look up most of that information. Not to mention, don’t you want potential vendors doing a bit of homework on their own? Keep background info relevant to the project as it relates to the RFP, and don’t forget to give people a sense of what it may be like to work with you.
This is a big one. The goal should not be a redesigned website, a mobile application, a direct mail campaign, virtual event, etc. The goal should be what your business is trying to achieve by developing a redesigned website, a mobile application, a direct mail campaign, virtual event, etc. Try to make your goals (typically no more than three or four) clear and follow SMART criteria. It is also helpful to focus more on what you’re trying to achieve via the project than what you expect the end product to look like; this gives your agency partners more space to explore and share their creative approach to achieving your business objectives.
What requirements will your vendor be expected to adhere to during the execution of your project, e.g. launch dates, technology platform, legal clearances, brand guidelines, certifications, etc.? The more detail you can provide here the better. This will help vet unqualified candidates as well as deliver more accurate estimates. The more assumptions you receive in your proposal, the harder it will be to compare apples-to-apples.
What do you expect vendors to deliver in their proposal and/or pitch? As this post on writing better RFPs states:
If you don’t specify the information you need from the vendor you’ll end up getting a hodge-podge of information, some of which might be useful to you, most of which will be boilerplate.
A quick note about spec work, i.e. any work done on a speculative or unpaid basis. I would advise against asking agencies to provide you with any spec work as a means of illustrating their capabilities. Case studies of past work they’ve done should suffice. For more on spec work, I’d suggest this post from web design guru, Jeffrey Zeldman.
Provide a clear and reasonable timeline for the RFP process, and stick to it. Provide your vendors with enough time to prepare a proper presentation (a month is usually fair depending upon how busy an agency may be). Outline dates for vendor question submissions, answers, proposal submission deadline, finalist pitch meetings and vendor selection.
Admit it, you have a budget. You’re just unwilling to share it in your RFP. Understanding budget parameters will help potential agency partners develop the best solution to meet your budget. There’s not much point in telling you how fabulous that Mercedes handles if you can only afford a Volkswagon.
Always solicit questions from your potential vendor. No matter how well you’ve crafted your RFP, there will likely be information that was omitted or was unintentionally unclear. The initial Q&A session will also give you an opportunity to see whether your potential vendors have actually read and understood what you wrote in the RFP; if they’ve done their homework; and show how good they are at asking critical questions or bringing up insights that may never have occurred to you.
Hopefully this information will point you in the right direction to make your next RFP a better one. For even more on improving your proposal process, check out, “9 tips for running a more considerate procurement (RFP) process.” As always, any additional tips for improving an RFP or feedback are welcome in the comments.
Tags: Advertising, marketing, rfp
I’d like to add #8, which presents itself all the time (maybe after the RFP, but certainly with respect to #7): Do not restrict access to decision makers in the proposal process. There is no faster way to turn off a really great agency than to tell them that their questions will go unanswered by the people who have the ability to answer them. If decision makers are not present to answer questions because it not considered a productive use of their time, I ask, “is getting back an incomplete proposal a productive use of their time?” Really good agencies will not make this mistake and will instead decide not to propose out of respect for both your time and theirs. An incomplete proposal is a waste of everyone’s time.
To those preparing an RFP, consider the process an opportunity to build consensus with your team and your managment. By circulating your draft RFP and requesting input you can raise awareness, build support and avoid time-consuming delays. A good RFP should shorten your review process and eliminate the difficulty of comparing apples and oranges..