10 Good Practices for Responding to RFPs Inspired by Everyday Life
Date
January, 2025
Reading time
7 minutes
Category
Best practice
Peggy Herman
Co-founder and Managing Director of Bee4win, where she oversees the company’s consulting and pre-sales service activities. Since 2002, she has managed numerous public and private tenders, ranging from a few tens of thousands to several hundred million euros, in sectors as varied as IT, energy, industry and events.
An expert in pre-sales, Peggy continues to provide bid management and writing services, coaching and training. She has also been conducting studies on best practices in this field for over 10 years. Committed to the development of the pre-sales profession, she is president of the French-speaking chapter of APMP and a frequent speaker at events including the Bid and Proposal Conference Europe and Bee4win’s customers.
Key words
#Goodpractice
#Tenders
#Competitiveadvantages
Eight years ago, I started giving courses to students in the second year of a Master’s degree in marketing and communication on the subject : “How to respond to RFPs in a communications agency”. To make the subject captivating and easier to understand, I looked for ways to illustrate some of the best practices of our profession with concrete examples that are close to our everyday lives.
In this article, I’m going to share 10 of these best practices with you, grouped into three themes: everyday choices, sporting competition and personal challenges. These examples will help you to better understand how to maximise your chances of success when responding to invitations to tender.
It's all about choices
The best way to understand how a customer makes a decision is to think about how we behave when we are in a buying situation ourselves.
Whether we’re talking about buying a chocolate bar or proposing a solution to a customer, choices are rarely made at random. The decision-making process is based on a set of conscious or unconscious criteria.
1. Identify the client’s needs and decision criteria
When we choose a product, such as a chocolate bar, our decisions are often influenced by immediate needs: a chocolate for a cake is not the same as one for a children’s snack or an evening treat. These choices, sometimes unconscious, depend on criteria such as price, quality or allergies. In pre-sales, it is crucial to understand the customer’s real needs, even if they are not always expressed.
Our challenge is to guess which criteria, rational or emotional, the buyer will prioritise at the time of purchase. Sometimes these criteria are clear, sometimes not. If they are not, they can be guessed by analysing the buyer’s needs and by looking at similar buying behaviour. Furthermore, the buyer himself may not have a precise view of his criteria, and some may emerge or change as he discovers the solutions on offer. In an invitation to tender, several solutions may meet the criteria, and the decision will often be based on secondary, more subjective and emotional criteria.
2. Identify and make the differentiators of your solution visible
In the supermarket, some chocolate bars are distinguished by elements that are not immediately obvious, but which can make all the difference: attractive packaging, local and organic ingredients, or original promotions. The same goes for a business proposal. To convince a customer to choose your solution, it’s essential to highlight the elements that differentiate you from the competition. Whether it’s a unique feature, an additional service or a personalized approach, these elements must be clearly visible and presented in a powerful way.
3. Make your offer look attractive to stimulate the desire to buy
The better a product is presented, the more desirable it is. Attractive packaging attracts attention, just as a well-structured, visually pleasing proposal can arouse customer interest. If you have to respond to a call for tenders or propose a solution, the presentation of information must enable the customer to immediately understand your strengths. Never underestimate the importance of appearance and presentation: they convey a message of professionalism and quality.
Sport: the spirit of conquest
Let’s talk about sport now. Sport teaches us valuable lessons about strategic preparation and competition management. In pre-sales, this spirit of conquest is crucial to success in a competitive environment.
4. Have a winning spirit !
As in any sporting competition, staying focused and confident in your abilities are crucial to success. Believing in your chances and in the quality of your offer is essential. If you don’t believe in it yourself, how do you think you can convince the client to choose you ? In this case it is often better to do a Nogo.
However, optimism is not enough: a solid strategy is needed to maximize your chances of victory. The fable of the “Hare and the Tortoise” teaches us that speed or overconfidence do not always guarantee success. In pre-sales, this means that we must always define our response strategy and the actions to be taken, even when we think we are one step ahead of the competition. The spirit of conquest must translate into continuous work, regular questioning and a desire for constant improvement.
5. Search for information about your competitors and their strategy
In sporting competitions, particularly at the highest level, to have a chance of winning, it’s crucial to understand your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, in the pre-sales phase, knowing the solutions offered by other players in the market is essential for better positioning. A good competitive analysis enables you to exploit your advantages more effectively and counter the strengths of your opponents.
6. Define your response strategy according to your competitive advantages
A successful sports team leaves nothing to chance. It relies on a well-defined strategy, based on an analysis of objectives, strengths and weaknesses. In pre-sales, it’s the same thing: an objective without a plan is just a wish. It’s essential to define a clear strategy that meets the customer’s needs, while highlighting the competitive advantages of your solution. This means analysing your strengths, whether in price, technology or service, and identifying your competitors’ weaknesses that you can overcome.
But defining your response strategy is only the first step. Throughout the process, you will need to adjust and refine this strategy as and when you come across new elements that are likely to have an impact, whether it be it customer needs, your offering or the competition. As in sport, there’s no point getting bogged down with a strategy that isn’t working. If a competitor changes tactics or you spot a new opportunity, you need to be ready to adapt. Just like a time-out in a match, it’s crucial to pause, assess the situation and realign your strategy to stay competitive and maximise your chances of success.
7. Clearly define each team member's role and coordinate with each other
In a sports team, each player has a precise role, and coordination is essential to achieve the common goal. In a regatta, each member knows exactly what to do and when, under the direction of the skipper who sends the instructions and gives the signal for each new manoeuvre. Similarly, when responding to tenders, the bid manager plays a key role in directing the team. And a team where all the necessary skills are present, well used and well coordinated will be much stronger. This organisation guarantees efficiency and ensures that all tasks are carried out smoothly and consistently.
Let’s take up the challenge!
You’ve probably taken up challenges in your life: having a house built, going on a long trek, changing jobs, ... Each challenge is an opportunity to get to know yourself better and to progress. Responding to a call for tenders is the same thing: a challenge that allows us to grow, evolve and better understand our strengths and areas for improvement.
8. Choose an achievable challenge and prepare for it in advance
In a challenge like climbing a mountain, preparation is essential for success. You have to get trained, find out what the conditions are going to be like, and have the necessary equipment ready. It’s the same when responding to an RFP: if you have templates, boiler plates and you know where to find it, you will save time. Careful preparation saves you time and makes it easier to deal with unforeseen events. Whether you’re taking up a personal challenge or responding to a call for tenders, define your objective clearly, plan your route, anticipate obstacles and make sure you have the right people to support you.
9. Follow the progress of the response
Just like climbing a mountain, it’s essential to monitor the progress of your bidding project. Regular check-ups ensure that the team stays on track and that the response meets the customer’s expectations. This monitoring allows you to adjust your strategy if obstacles or unforeseen events occur. Sometimes the situation is such that continuing can really put you at risk. In this case, it is sometimes more reasonable to give up and turn back. The same applies to bidding: if the contingencies are too numerous, the difficulties too great or the risks too high, it’s sometimes better to decide not to bid and focus your efforts on other RFP where the chances of success are higher.
10. Learn from your past experiences
All surfers fall before they master the waves, but it’s by learning from their mistakes that they progress. In pre-sales, every proposal is an opportunity to improve. Analysing what has worked well and what can be improved allows you to progress and avoid making the same mistakes again. We should not necessarily try to change too many things at once, as we may find ourselves facing an impassable wall. Habits are often deeply rooted and difficult to change.
It’s also important to celebrate key moments, such as submitting a bid or winning a deal., These breathing moments, like the lessons learned from bid after bid, will help you to reduce the moments of doubt, difficulty or pain and increase the moments of joy, sharing and fulfilment in your professional life.
Conclusion
I hope that these examples have convinced you of the importance of applying these 10 best practices in bidding, which we all implement naturally in similar everyday situations. I’m sure, we can find many more best practices from our everyday life.
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