EP120: 5 Red Flags to Let You Know You Need an RFP Audit—with Ted Koval & Lisa Rehurek
Are you struggling to win business with RFPs but can’t figure out why?
If so, you can hire a company like ours to look through past proposal responses and identify what’s tripping you up.
Or you can conduct your own RFP mini-audit.
On this episode of the RFP Success Show, guest host Ted Koval, Proposal Manager at the RFP Success Company, interviews me around the five red flags that let you know you need an audit of your RFP process.
I share my peanuts versus M&Ms analogy for making your proposal stand out, explaining how to address the agency’s needs, answer their requirements and speak to your differentiators in an RFP response.
Listen in for insight on getting your proposal team in sync and learn how to leverage an RFP audit to improve your processes and consistently craft a winning response!
Key Takeaways
What’s involved in doing an audit of your RFP responses
5 red flags to let you know you need an audit of your RFP process
How an RFP audit identifies why you’re losing bids
My peanuts vs. M&Ms analogy for making your proposal stand out
How it impacts your response if the proposal team is not in sync
What it means when your SMEs don’t respect RFP deadlines
Why you need a documented go/no-go decision-making process
What issues proposal teams run into when they lack a content library
The power in addressing an agency’s needs throughout your RFP response
How to answer the requirements AND speak to your differentiators
Why it’s important to get feedback whether you win or lose
How graphics help evaluators read your RFP response
RFP Success® Show EP120 Transcription
You're listening to The RFP Success Show with eight-time author, speaker, and CEO of The RFP Success Company, Lisa Rehurek. Tune in each episode to learn what today's capture and RFP teams are doing to increase their win percentages by up to 20, 30, and even 50%, and meet the industry trailblazers that are getting it right. Let's get started.
Ted Koval (00:24):
Welcome to The RFP Success Show podcast. My name is Ted Koval and I'm a proposal manager here at The RFP Success Company. I'm your guest host for today's episode. I'd like to introduce to you our guest for today's episode, Lisa Rehurek. As you probably know, Lisa is founder and CEO of The RFP Success Company and the usual host for The RFP Success Show. We thought we'd mix it up a bit today and put her on the other side of the table to talk to her about the five red flags that let you know you need an audit of your RFP responses. Hi, Lisa.
Lisa Rehurek (00:58):
Hi, Ted. This is so fun that we're flipping the script here and I get to be on the other side of the fence. I love it.
Ted Koval (01:04):
It is. It is. This is a interesting and fun change of pace, especially after you've been the host to what, 118 podcasts or so?
Lisa Rehurek (01:14):
Yeah. Well, it's for sure at least 100, because we know that that 100th episode was just a rockstar episode, right?
Ted Koval (01:22):
Well, we all have found that out. You're right about that. It's become legend, but I suspect this one might be going to rank up there pretty soon as well. It's really an amazing accomplishment though, what you've done. It reminds me that there's so much information out there on your podcast for folks to listen to and learn about managing the RFP process, so a wealth of information.
Lisa Rehurek (01:42):
I love it. Thank you very much. Yeah, I do think we're close to 120, 115, 120 episodes. And for those of you who don't know, Ted was a guest on episode 100. If you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to it. He was fabulous. But we always joke internally how that certainly is the best podcast guest we've ever had.
Ted Koval (02:01):
Well, I think that today's might trump that with the best guest we've had. All right, Lisa, let's talk about the five red flags that let you know need an audit of your RFP responses. From the work you've seen with companies that hire RFP Success, you help them to do better and win more. Before they contract with us to help them respond to an RFP, some companies, they come to us to help them assess their RFP processes or lack thereof. It's a key offering that we provide. Before we get going, can you provide some background of what an RFP audit entails?
Lisa Rehurek (02:40):
Yeah, absolutely. We've got a couple of different things. We've got this audit and then we've got a diagnostic, and they're two different things. And what the audit is, is the audit, really, we dig into several of their RFP responses to see what kind of themes there are going on that might be tripping them up. And usually they come to us because they say, "Hey, we've been losing a lot, or we're struggling to win anything." And so we go through with a fine tooth comb and we say, "Okay, here's where we think you scored low, here's where we think you did well, and here are some opportunities."
(03:17):
I just did a speaking engagement for WBENC, which is the Women's Business Enterprise National Council that certifies women business owners. And I encouraged them, "Take some of the tips that we're going to give you today and go do your own little mini audit. Or of course you can always call us. We would love to do it, but you can do your own little mini audit too and we're going to give you some ideas today on what you should be looking for."
Ted Koval (03:43):
All right. Excellent. Good background on that. So my first question then to you is what The RFP Success Company's audits reveal as to why some companies lose more bids than they're winning?
Lisa Rehurek (03:55):
Yeah. I love this question. Audits are my favorite thing to do, because it's just so powerful for us to be able to give information back us. Us as the experts, we've been doing this for a long time. We've been doing audits in The RFP Success Company for a little over four years, but myself, 25-plus years, Ted has I don't even know how much experience, but probably close to that, 20-plus years. We know what we're looking for. And so audits are so fun. I just love them so much. But what's interesting is that we see a lot of the same high level themes throughout.
(04:30):
Of course, everybody has their own nuances and individual things that we find in the audits, but there are some common themes that we almost always see. First one, too much focus on themselves versus the solution. And this is going to feel counterintuitive because it's like, "Well, they're asking us a question about ourselves. Why is that too much focus on ourselves?" Because frankly, the client doesn't care about you. They care about your solution. There's a moment where they'll care about you, but they want to know your solution. And way too much focus on yourself, you as a company, versus your solution and how it's going to solve the problem for the client.
(05:10):
Another one that we see is not answering the questions. That sounds really weird because you're like, "What do you mean, not answering the questions?" but almost every single audit that I've personally done... You know that whole adage of you listen to answer to respond instead of listening to actually hear what they're saying? It's the same thing. People read that question and they go to their library or they go to a past RFP and they drop in some stuff that doesn't actually even remotely answer the question.
(05:43):
This is one thing that's really easy for you guys to do yourself. Go through and see, did you actually answer the questions? I bet you're going to find some no. Also, really understanding how to tie in your differentiators or your secret sauce to make you stand out, and then just knowledge of the client to make you stand out. I have a quick little analogy, if you would humor me, Ted.
Ted Koval (06:08):
Yes, please.
Lisa Rehurek (06:09):
I actually just mentioned this to him earlier. So this is my new analogy, is that if you think about a peanut, so if you like peanuts, unless you're like a peanut connoisseur, the chance of you knowing exactly what brand you love, that you're dedicated to, that stands out, is probably pretty low. A peanut's a peanut a peanut, right? So you are going to go get a peanut. So that's great. Most people respond with their peanuts. Whoa, that's probably a little bit too risque in that little...
Ted Koval (06:40):
Now it's a family show, isn't it?
Lisa Rehurek (06:43):
Family show. But most people think about the peanut, they think about, "We've got to answer the questions. We've got show that we're qualified." All you get there is the peanut. Now if you cover that peanut in chocolate, you're going to get little bit more interest here. Now that peanut becomes a little bit more interesting, right? It's just a little more interesting. There's complexity to it. There's a little bit more dimension to it. But then if you coat it with a candy coating, like an M&M, now you're going to really stand out, because I know that there's companies out there that try to replicate M&Ms, but at the end of the day, we still call it an M&M.
(07:19):
M&Ms have the market on M&Ms because it's their secret sauce. So when you're thinking about responding to an RFP, what is your candy coating? Have you just included the peanuts? Have you maybe added some chocolate covered peanuts? Maybe. But I guarantee you a whole lot of you are not adding in that candy coating.
Ted Koval (07:44):
I love it. I love it. I'll tell you, I will never look at an M&M the same way in this job. That should become the official candy of our company. So, love it. What I really found interesting about what you said is that these seem like natural things. For example, answering the requirement or not answering the requirement or not fully answering the requirement, and the key is, if you don't do that, you're never going to make it past the bid opening day. So these are things that seem are kind of like those, "Well, of course," moments, but we see it in the audits that we do.
Lisa Rehurek (08:21):
We do. And the other thing, Ted, is that I ask a lot of questions. Whenever I meet an evaluator, somebody that is evaluating now or has evaluated in the past, I ask them, "What are the top mistakes people make in responding to RFPs?" Everything that I said is always on their list, always. They don't answer the questions. They talk too much about themselves. Those are the top two things we hear. So it also sounds easy when you're hearing it here, but when you're in the throes of an RFP, it's hard to do.
Ted Koval (08:51):
It is. Very much so. A very good point. We all know it takes a village, Lisa, and then some to get an RFP out the door, but what impact do you see when it's clear that sales, the proposal managers, the writers, and anyone who's involved in the proposal response, they're just not in sync. They're not speaking to the same win themes. They don't have the same response strategy. They don't have the same approach to the RFP response. What is that telling you in the audit?
Lisa Rehurek (09:22):
We can tell almost immediately in an audit that there's disjointment going on, and it's telling us that they're looking at this as a transaction. They're looking at this as just a task on the task list, "We've got to answer these questions in the RFP and submit it," and they're focusing only on the qualifications, on the peanut. And it sounds canned. It sounds just very generic and canned. So it's not tailored at all to the client.
(09:55):
That tailoring to the client is so imperative because that's where you build trust, when you tailor it to the client and they feel like you're speaking directly to them, but you can't do that if you have all of these people running around without a process. So it tells me that their process is disjointed. It tells me that they likely don't have the right people in the right positions, and it also tells me that it's very likely that they did not have a strong bidding strategy and/or everyone was not involved in that conversation.
Ted Koval (10:27):
Interesting. That's very interesting. That's really telling to that, when they're not together. And conversely, the key, when you see a well-oiled machine where everybody's firing, everybody's getting it, on the same page, how well the RFP response can come off.
Lisa Rehurek (10:45):
Yes. And it makes a big difference for the person reading it. They can tell. I don't know if you've ever read a book that is just all over the place, where you're like, "What are they trying to say here? They didn't come back to this point that they said they were going to, or they were starting to tell a story and they didn't close the loop." I mean, it's really frustrating, and once you frustrate those evaluators, you're dead.
Ted Koval (11:09):
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And I've been on that side. I've been the evaluator with these stacked on my desk and it's not always easy to work your way through it, especially if they haven't told that story. Speaking of a story, I know that you often talk about the fact that an RFP is really the story. It's a story of the company. It's a story of what they do. And one of the things that when I first heard about RFP Success, the very first podcast I ever listened to was where you were talking about how there is a human on the other side of the RFP.
(11:49):
That had such a big impact on me, and I've been that human on the other side of the RFP. I've been the guy that's reading these proposals on the beach over the 4th of July because it's got to get done and somebody's got to do it. What does it tell you when it feels like the content was written by one, two or more people in the response? What does that tell you about what's happening when the company's putting the RFP response together?
Lisa Rehurek (12:16):
I mean, very similar to what I just said, it tells me that they're super disjointed, that they don't have a story that they want to tell. And that story, again, just to piggyback on something you said, the story isn't really about you and your company. The story is about what you provide and how it connects to the resolution that your client needs, whether it be a challenge or their need or their want.
(12:42):
And so if we look at this and we say there's a human on the other end of it, and for all of you listening, you think about Ted being your evaluator, because he's definitely a human and he's been on the other side, as have I. So I think that puts a human element to it, that you are just not responding on this piece of paper, and that when you respond just on this piece of paper and you don't fold in a story, you don't fold in the what's in it for them and draw them into your response, it's boring for them. And they've got a stack of RFPs on their desk. None of them are exciting to read. It's not any more exciting to read a response than it is to read the RFP to begin with, right?
Ted Koval (13:25):
Right. Yeah.
Lisa Rehurek (13:27):
What can you do to make it more interesting for the evaluator? I mean, we can tell, again, in an audit, we can immediately tell they just dialed this in. They didn't have a bidding strategy. They're not thinking about the client., they're not thinking about the human. They just have amassed this group of people to write pieces of the puzzle and to drop it onto a piece of paper, and it's not cohesive or thoughtful and it's not going to get you the win, most likely.
Ted Koval (13:56):
Absolutely. Yeah, and you can tell. I can't tell you the number of those that I've read as well. Absolutely spot on. So getting to the next set, I thought due dates for RFPs rarely change. They do. I mean, you get extensions, things like that. They're not always very long, but the due dates are pretty much solid. I call it the one day sale. We got to get everything ready for that one day sale when we drop the RFP.
(14:23):
The fact is, in order to do that, you've got to respond to a deadline. That's what is part of the RFP process. So what does it tell you when your audit reveals that the subject matter experts or the writers are not on track, they're not hitting their agreed upon response timelines? So no one's following the RFP response calendar milestones or key dates and the audit reveals that everything is getting done last minute. What's that telling you about their RFP response process?
Lisa Rehurek (14:54):
It's telling me a couple things. It's telling me that the response process is likely broken, but even with the best process and the best calendar and all of that, in truth, everybody's busy. Everybody's busy. Everybody's got a lot on their plates. Everybody's multitasking. And so a lot of times it's not necessarily purposeful, but also, is your team really committed and do they understand and respect what this RFP response can do for them? Again, I think sometimes we dial it in. We're like, "Here's an RFP. We've got to answer these questions." We parse it out. "Here's your deadline."
(15:30):
Not everybody takes it seriously because they don't really understand what it means. They don't respect the deadlines. It's interesting, we have a big client who does consulting work for state governments, and we worked on a huge behemoth proposal for them. And we kept telling the SMEs, subject matter experts, we kept telling them, "We need this done, we need this done, we need this done." Of course, they drug it out [inaudible 00:15:58] our timeline. We were up against a deadline. We had to fly people to that state because this was still, we were having to mail in the physical [inaudible 00:16:08]-
Ted Koval (16:08):
Oh, my.
Lisa Rehurek (16:09):
... didn't have enough time. So we flew people in and one of the SMEs chose to go on that trip, and when he got back, he said, "I will never miss a deadline again," after having gone through that. So I think there's also this respect of not understanding what it takes to... Once you give me the writing, what does it take to close all the loops, finish it up, make it look pretty, make sure there's no typos, all the editorial stuff, all the formatting, all the cohesiveness to get it out the door? If you've never had to do that, you might not understand the significance and what time it takes. And I just think that there's sometimes, not necessarily knowingly, but a lack of respect for that timeline and a lack of, again, understanding what winning that could do and what losing that could do to the company.
Ted Koval (17:01):
Right. Absolutely. And even if it's only a minute late, you're late. It doesn't matter if you're a minute late or you're two weeks late.
Lisa Rehurek (17:08):
Yeah. And we've had people come to us that are really green. They've maybe never done proposals before. And they'll say, "Well, I'm just going to call them and tell them we're going to be an hour late." And I was like, "[inaudible 00:17:17]. It doesn't work that way."
Ted Koval (17:17):
Good luck with that.
Lisa Rehurek (17:17):
Maybe corporate a little bit, sometimes they might, but I would never count on that.
Ted Koval (17:25):
Absolutely. That shouldn't be part of your strategy. I've been on those planes too. I've had to deliver a few of them. I always felt like I was carrying the nuclear football that the president carries, the briefcase. You got to get it there on time. And so that is nerve-wracking. In your books and on your podcast, you talk about how important it is for companies to pick and choose the bids they respond to. We've seen companies that, well, Lisa, they respond to everything. That's the strategy. How does the lack of a documented go/no-go process impact companies when identifying opportunities to respond to?
Lisa Rehurek (18:02):
Yeah, it's a really important question, and a key word you said in there is documenting. Don't try to do this in your head, because you're always going to have an alibi, you're always going to have a bias of some sort when you're doing it in your head. And so a documented process, really, if you don't have it, you are just going to bid on anything that on the surface looks like it's a fit. And what'll happen is one of two things, is in the middle of responding, after you've already put a bunch of time and resources in, you find something that is like, "Oh, no, this doesn't work for us." When if you had gone through that go/no-go documentation up front, you probably would have discovered that.
(18:40):
And then the other thing is that you just waste a lot of time or money. We see this a lot in our audit clients when they say, "We haven't won an RFP in a year," or, "We have a really low win rate." So they're throwing resources, money, time, people at these opportunities that you really have a very low chance of winning. And when you do that, it's frustrating. It's a waste of money, which I'm a business owner, I don't want to waste money. I don't think anybody else does. And then the other thing that it does is it really demotivates the team.
(19:12):
If you've got a team that is busting their butt and you have a 10% or a 20% win rate, gross. Who wants to be part of that team? It's not fun to be part of a losing team. You want to get that win rate up. I had somebody say to me, "Well, I don't believe in win rates because the only people that have high win rates are only bidding on things that they know they could win." And I was like, "Hmm. Bingo."
Ted Koval (19:41):
Yes.
Lisa Rehurek (19:42):
I mean, not that you're going to know you're going to win, but you should know what your position is there and you should have enough information that you are tailoring that response to that client because you know them well and they fit into the type of client that you and your employees want to work with. And that all stems back to that go/no-go.
Ted Koval (20:01):
Excellent. Excellent. Very good. That documented process. I love it. All right. Well, this has been a great discussion, Lisa. Let's take a short break and we'll be right back to continue our discussion with Lisa Rehurek, founder and CEO of The RFP Success Company.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Hey, you. You don't know what you don't know. If you're ready to win more RFPs, gain an outside perspective on your RFP responses with The RFP Success Company's audit service. Submit up to three of your past submitted proposals and receive a full feedback report and writing guide. For more details, email us at wecanhelp@rfpsuccess.com.
Ted Koval (20:42):
Welcome back to The RFP Success Show podcast. Our guest for today's episode is Lisa Rehurek, founder and CEO of The RFP Success Company. We're talking about the five red flags that let you know you need an audit of your RFP responses. So hi, Lisa. Enjoyed this conversation. It's been very helpful. I'd like to talk to you next about content, the key ingredient of an RFP response, right? What issues do proposal teams run into without a library content or a document repository to easily retrieve the boiler plate content, company background, resumes and financials? What do you find when companies don't have that type of material to reach for when they're responding to an RFP?
Lisa Rehurek (21:28):
I mean, it's pretty brutal, and Ted, I know this probably more than anybody, it is so brutal when they don't have anything to start with. And here's why. You are on a tight deadline on that proposal. We never have enough time. Starting from scratch is really hard. I mean, it's much easier to edit something. It's much less time-consuming to edit something, which by the way, if you do have library content, please don't ever not edit it. Please don't ever drop it in canned boiler plate language, because they can tell.
(22:03):
But when you do that, you have to start from scratch, which means a lot of your time and effort goes into building those things and you don't have enough time to customize that content, to build the trust that we talked about, to make sure that you're mapping your solution to their needs, to making sure you're making it about them and not about you. All of that takes time and effort, and if you don't have it because you're building all the stuff from scratch, it's going to be really, really stressful on the team.
Ted Koval (22:32):
Yeah, absolutely. I've seen that many times. In order to help you with this, there's software available, right, that helps companies keep all this together, make it a lot more easily retrievable?
Lisa Rehurek (22:43):
Absolutely, especially when you get to a certain size. If you're still a really small company, you can keep that in a small little repository somewhere. But I agree, those software systems are really important when you get to a certain volume in RFP responses. There's just no way without it.
Ted Koval (23:01):
Right. Absolutely. Good. Well, we know most people like to talk about themselves. It's a natural thing to do, right, Lisa? You know I do. I think you've learned that.
Lisa Rehurek (23:11):
As do I.
Ted Koval (23:11):
Yeah. So when it comes to responding to proposals, do you see proposal responses that regularly use the name of the agency and speak to the agency's needs in the RFP response, or do they have a focus just on the company with little or no mention of the agency's needs and pain points? What do you see?
Lisa Rehurek (23:33):
We see that all the time. And here's what's interesting about that, is when we're doing an audit and we're having a conversation with a client, we say to them, "You need to be more focused on the solution." And they'll say, "But we are." And they, a lot of times can't even see it. We have to hand hold them through even being able to see that, because we are all, human nature, very conditioned, especially in RFP responses, because they're asking a question about us, so why would we not respond about us?
(24:03):
And so it's a very subtle nuance, but a very important nuance. We just make it really, really hard. It is very natural, because again, that's the way the questions are asked, but you've got to flip the script on that. And it's just a subtle little nuance and it actually takes a lot of work to do that. We see it all the time and it's brutal and the evaluators hate it. So they're going to have an unconscious bias against you, just automatically out of the gate.
Ted Koval (24:32):
Yeah, absolutely. That's why it's so important to have someone else that's maybe not intimately involved with the RFP to read it, and one of the things you're asking them to watch out for.
Lisa Rehurek (24:41):
Yeah, because honestly, even in our own marketing and our own... If we submit proposals, if I'm writing them, I'm like, "Oh my gosh." If I go back and audit my own, quite frankly they'd probably be horrible because it's hard. It is not an easy thing to do. That objective eyeball that I can go in and you can go into somebody else's proposal and be like, "Okay, here's how we need to flip this script and we can do it very easily," compared to you trying to do it on your own, man, it's hard. So I recognize that it's a hard thing to do, but it will allow you to stand out and give you that candy coating on the M&Ms.
Ted Koval (25:18):
Like that. The official candy of RFP Success. Love it. RFPs have a lot of questions and they've got a lot of requirements that they want you to respond to. I mean, that's understandable, because they want to make sure they're hiring the right vendor for the job. So they're going to ask a lot of questions to make sure that they're vetting the vendors, but it takes a lot of work when responding to those requirements. So what impact does it have if the RFP responses don't specifically answer the requirements, we talked a little bit about this a little bit earlier, and they don't provide any additional value add answers, the vanilla answers that just either they don't answer it or it's very perfunctoral?
Lisa Rehurek (26:01):
Or it's like everybody else's response, right?
Ted Koval (26:04):
Right. Right.
Lisa Rehurek (26:05):
[inaudible 00:26:05] into everybody else's. So when you don't specifically answer the requirements, you are making it very hard on the evaluators. So if you think about making a purchase, let's say you're going to make an online purchase... This is one of the reasons why I think, love them or hate them, why I think Amazon is so popular. They make it very easy for you to make a purchase. They make it easy. If you go and you try to make a purchase with another online company and you've got to log in over here and then they're asking you this question and then you've got one of those horrible CAPTCHAs that trips you up, it makes it so hard, you might abandon your cart and just leave.
(26:43):
The evaluators are going to do the same thing. If you are making it too hard on them to grade you, and if you picture again, a human being, they've got a scorecard that is asking them, "Do they meet this requirement, yes or no?" or some scale of that requirement, if you are making it hard for them to be able to answer that, you're going to get a low score or a no score. And how many times, Ted, have we had somebody that comes in for an audit and they say, "We know we should have won this but we didn't." It's because they did not really display their qualifications and all of that, or they didn't meet the requirements, they didn't answer the questions. So, that's a big deal.
(27:22):
And then going back to the question about the value add answers, your whole job in this RFP response is to build trust so that the buyer can trust that you are the one that is going to give them the solution that they need. And if all you're doing is answering the questions the same as everybody else is answering them and you're not adding your candy coating and you're not adding value adds to why you are the one, you're not going to stand out and you're not going to get the extra points. You're not going to get the exceeds expectations. And maybe you'll squeak out a win because you are one point higher, or more likely you're probably going to lose. So I don't know about you, but I don't want to bet on that. I want to know going in that I'm showing them, "Hey, we are the best solution for you and we're going to show you the value that we add," in addition to meeting all the requirements, because their requirements are important from a scoring perspective.
Ted Koval (28:18):
No, I really like that. With your analogy, as an evaluator, I've got RFP peanuts scattered across my desk. They all look the same. So I am going to look for that candy coated one and pick him out, that's speaking to me.
Lisa Rehurek (28:33):
Heck, yeah. They taste so much better than just a plain old boring peanut. [inaudible 00:28:37].
Ted Koval (28:38):
You talk about making it easier on the evaluators, and I think that is something that I'm not sure that everyone who's working on RFP really thinks about it from that perspective. But I love that, especially as a former evaluator, but thinking that way really helps in my writing and reframing my writing when I'm working on an RFP response. So I really like that.
Lisa Rehurek (29:02):
But it's hard too. Again, in theory it sounds really easy, but you have to be very conscious and present to that moment to say, "This is a human being. How are we going to make it easy for them, easy and interesting and attention grabbing?" It is a hard thing to do, I recognize that, but that's how you're going to get your wins.
Ted Koval (29:22):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Love it. In our world, we're always waiting to get that email or that call that our clients won the deal, right, Lisa? That's a wonderful email. Yeah, it's a wonderful call to get. AThat's an exciting moment for us. We love helping our clients win. And as proposal managers, we're also eager to find out just what the agency thought about the proposal that we helped our clients write and respond. So how often do you see clients getting feedback from the agency whether they win or lose the deal?
Lisa Rehurek (29:53):
Yeah, it's interesting. It's a pretty low percentage. Now I would say, we focus on state government contracting and local education, that kind of stuff and I would say about 75% of the time you can actually get that feedback. I mean, I know that there's times where you can't, but it's a pretty high percentage of availability to get that feedback, but people just don't ask. And when we do the audits, it's one of the first things we ask, "Do you have scoring sheets? Did you do a debrief?" and most of the time they say, "No, we didn't even ask. We tried and they didn't give us anything." You kind of have to be a little more assertive sometimes than just trying once. But I would say probably 95% of the time when we ask that question of audit clients, they say they don't have any feedback.
Ted Koval (30:40):
Oh, my.
Lisa Rehurek (30:43):
And that feedback is so important. And something that you said, Ted, that I think is so important is, even if you win, if you have an opportunity to just have a quick chit chat, if you can't get a scoring sheet, have a quick chit chat to find out what they liked about your proposal. Because here's the other thing you don't want to do, is you don't want to win and then use that proposal as like library content because you thought it was so good because you won and you find out you were really just the best of the worst. You just kind of hobbled your way into that win.
(31:12):
So it's really important to get feedback either way. And it's just an ask. Ask if there's scoring sheets. Don't ask for an hour meeting, ask for a 15 minute meeting. "Hey, I just want a quick 15 minute conversation. I want to just get a little bit of feedback on this." Again, sometimes you're going to get people that say no, but in state government, a good majority of the time they're going to say yes.
Ted Koval (31:36):
Yeah. Most contract officers, if you ask, are going to agree. And I like what you said there, is don't make it an hour long discussion, make it a 15, 20 minute call. And they'll probably respond a little bit better when you ask for that the next time.
Lisa Rehurek (31:50):
Agreed. Yes.
Ted Koval (31:53):
I'm a very visual person, Lisa. I like to see pictures. I like to see tables and stuff like that. I learn and I understand things better that way. So what does the lack of graphics in an RFP response tell you about the story the clients are trying to tell?
Lisa Rehurek (32:11):
The lack of graphics usually just tells me that the response team is maybe a little unsophisticated. And I don't mean that to be mean or to put anybody down, but I think that we sometimes forget the importance of visuals. Did you know that we as human beings process visuals 60,000 times faster... Let me just let that sink in for a minute.
Ted Koval (32:38):
60,000 times.
Lisa Rehurek (32:43):
60,000 faster than text.
Ted Koval (32:44):
Wow.
Lisa Rehurek (32:44):
So when the evaluators are just reading, and again, you are not the only proposal they're reading, they are reading 3, 5, 10, 20 boring responses, they're probably doing their grocery list or thinking about their to-do list in their mind instead of really taking in... The visuals are going to help them, as long as you do visuals well and you do the right visuals. But you know, Ted, we're big proponents of saying if it's a list, bullet it out. If it's anything we can put in a table... It can even be that simplistic. It doesn't necessarily have to be bells and whistle graphics, while that can be very impactful as well. Just break up boring text with some sort of a visual element that helps... Again, you're making it easier on the evaluators to score you. If they can absorb the information in order to score you, that's what you want in visual. They're going to make that happen.
Ted Koval (33:41):
Yeah, absolutely, and I love the key point that you made about keeping it simple. That's oftentimes what stops people from putting in graphics because they think they need to hire a graphic designer. Yeah, exactly. And it's got to be pow. And really just those basic tables that you talk about, and maybe you can advance a little bit over time as you get comfortable. Start out with some of those easy to use tables and put the data in there.
Lisa Rehurek (34:05):
And call out boxes. I think call out boxes are so important. But I will tell you, 100% of the audits that we've done, the call out boxes are crap, just [inaudible 00:34:15]. Because they say something like, "We were formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida." Nobody cares. That call out box needs to be an impactful statement that really hits to the what's in it for them, that is really that extra candy coating on the peanut. What is that call out box going to be? But call out boxes are super powerful. And again, it's like this little visual break for the reader to be like, "Okay." If you envision somebody reading through all this hard text and you want one key point, that's all they're going to walk away with, put it in a call out box.
Ted Koval (34:48):
Love it.
Lisa Rehurek (34:48):
They'll remember it. Tie it to the evaluation criteria. You're golden.
Ted Koval (34:52):
Love that. Love that. And I love seeing that as well. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for being our guest and providing some of your insights to help our listeners improve their RFP responses and process. I've really enjoyed this conversation.
Lisa Rehurek (35:05):
This has been great, Ted. It's really fun to be on the other side of the table and of course, having you as our fabulous host for today.
Ted Koval (35:12):
Well, thank you very much. It's been an honor. So make sure you're subscribed to our podcast so you don't miss an episode. And on behalf of Lisa and myself, and your favorite chocolate covered peanut, I want to thank you for listening to The RFP Success Show.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
This has been another episode of The RFP Success Show with Lisa Rehurek, eight-time author, speaker, and CEO of The RFP Success Company. Thank you for joining us. If you have feedback on today's episode, email us at podcast@rfpsuccess.com. No matter your business size, industry, if you have an in-house RFP team or need outside support, The RFP Success Company helps increase RFP win ratios by 10, 20, and even 50%. Learn more at therfpsuccesscompany.com.