EP096: How to Tell Your Story in an RFP Response – with Paul Furiga
Is there a place for storytelling in business?
According to Paul Furiga, story plays a crucial role in differentiating a company from its competitors and attracting customers, employees, partners and investors to the brand.
But how do you figure out what your business’ story is and then tell it effectively in an RFP response?
Paul is the President and Chief Storyteller at WordWrite, a top-ranked independent PR agency dedicated to helping clients in healthcare, manufacturing and professional services uncover, develop and share their stories. He is also the author of Finding Your Capital S Story: Why Your Story Drives Your Brand.
On this episode of The RFP Success Show, Paul explores the biology behind how storytelling bonds a writer with their audience and explains how a business can live their brand by having a great story.
Paul describes how to build likability and trust through storytelling, offering advice on how to uncover the story archetype of your company and weave that narrative throughout a proposal.
Listen in for Paul’s insight around what a good storytelling looks like and learn how to uncover the many chapters of your company’s story and tell it in a way that resonates with evaluators in an RFP response.
Key Takeaways
Paul’s journey from journalism to building an agency around storytelling for business
The science of how storytelling bonds a speaker/writer with their audience
Paul’s top examples of companies who live their brand by having a great story
What four questions a company’s brand story should address
How a business can build likability and trust through storytelling in a proposal response
Paul’s advice on how to determine the story archetype of your company
How to weave the narrative of your brand story throughout an RFP response
Paul’s top examples of the different chapters of a business’ story
Why it’s crucial for your company’s leaders to agree on the brand story
What a good story looks like and how to compel RFP evaluators to care about yours
Connect with Paul
Resources
RFP Success Show EP96 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.
Lisa Rehurek (00:24):
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the RFP Success Show. I am Lisa Rehurek, founder and CEO of the RFP Success Company. And I am your host for all episodes of the RFP Success Show. So our guest today is this is going to be a really great conversation because one of things that we talk about all the time in the whole RFP world is you got to tell more stories, you got to tell more stories, You got to tell more stories, but it's a little daunting to think about how to do that in the context of a RFP response. So we've got with us today, Paul Furiga. He's president and chief storyteller of a company called WordWrite. And Paul is essentially an expert on storytelling for business. So Paul, I'm super excited that you're here with us. Welcome. Welcome to the show.
Paul Furiga (01:08):
Lisa, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here. I'm really looking forward to it.
Lisa Rehurek (01:13):
Yeah. We're going to have some really great discussions. Paul and I have known each other for a little bit over a year. We've been in a mastermind together and I know he knows this stuff. So this is going to be good. Paul, let's kick it off by having you tell us a little bit about your story. How did you come into this? Why do you do what you do?
Paul Furiga (01:30):
Not surprisingly, Lisa, there's a story behind the story.
Lisa Rehurek (01:33):
I love it.
Paul Furiga (01:34):
I used to say that I was an accidental entrepreneur and what I meant by that was I didn't intend to be running the company that I'm running today. I spent about 20 years in journalism about evenly split between being a writer and being an editor. One of the things that happened over those 20 years, aside from a lot of world events that I had the privilege to cover like presidential conventions in the White House and murders and you name it-
Lisa Rehurek (02:00):
Wow.
Paul Furiga (02:01):
I wrote about 10,000 stories. I edited another 10,000. That's a lot of beginnings, middles, and ends.
Lisa Rehurek (02:07):
No kidding.
Paul Furiga (02:08):
Yeah. And it was really great training to understand the narrative arc of what interests an audience, right? I left the journalism business to go into the agency business. And I have this story in my book. I won't soak up time today with it, but at the time to get ahead in journalism, you had to move from city to city. And I didn't. I was done doing that. I'd been doing it for 20 years. So I asked a friend to help me look for something else to do and he refused to do it. And his reason was, and he had a very wry sense of humor, he wanted to hire me. And he was a PR guy. He ran the Pittsburgh office of Ketchum public relations, which is the fifth largest PR firm in the world. Actually started in Pittsburgh back in the 1920s. And I spent four years there. That was like getting a master's degree in storytelling. One of the things I learned when I got in the business was, and this is not a reflection on Ketchum, Ketchums's a great place, nobody knew how to tell stories.
Lisa Rehurek (03:16):
It's true. Still don't.
Paul Furiga (03:16):
Yeah. I mean, it's a great skill. And journalists have that skill. After about four years during the .com explosion, I exited the firm with a lot of other people. I think I made it to the fifth round of layoffs. Thought to myself, now, what am I going to do? I've been a journalist. I've been in the agency business. Now I want to go work for some big company. And everybody I network with told me that was a bad idea. And one of my good friends, who's now one of my business coaches said, "Well, did you ask people why they said that to you?" And I said, no. So I went back to people and asked them and they said, "Well, if you started your own agency, I'd hire you."
Lisa Rehurek (03:57):
Ooh.
Paul Furiga (03:58):
And that's how WordWrite was born in 2002. That's the story behind that story. From the very beginning, because of everything I just shared with you, storytelling has been at the center of what we do. It's evolved over time. Very early on realized we had a unique take on how to do it and how to deliver the best results and why storytelling matters. Those are all things I imagine we'll talk about today. And that led to the creation of our trademark process storycrafting, my book, et cetera, et cetera.
Lisa Rehurek (04:30):
Yeah. It's interesting. I have your book somewhere here and I don't have it handy. But do you have one right in front of you because I'm sure you do? Yes. Hold it up. So for those of you just listening and not watching, it's called Finding Your Capital S Story. We are going to talk about it a little bit, but I want to make sure that we let you know about that book. It's a great book. I've read it. I've actually read it once all the way through and then a second time kind of pieces of it because I went back through and took some notes. So it's a really great book if you need to learn how to write stories, and I'll tell you I'm not great at it either.
Lisa Rehurek (05:05):
And what's interesting, Paul, is that I think all of us in business feel like there's no place in business for story like stories about... So when I started my business, I was really a solo entrepreneur and I was a speaker and I was a single consultant. And I then felt my story was compelling because I was getting up on stages. But now that I have more of a consulting firm, the business is not about me. I feel like where is there a place for stories? So can you address that because I'm sure other people have that same feeling, right?
Paul Furiga (05:39):
So a lot of people think stories don't belong in business, but that's absolutely not true. The opposite is true. I have a chapter in the book. It's all about science and the chapter's called Storytelling is Biology. It's Not Bull Crap. And with the advent of tools, such as functional MRIs, we now know today beyond a reasonable doubt that the process of somebody sharing a story creates reactions in the audience's brains that bonds them together. For your listeners, some of them may not be old enough to have experienced or to be aware of Astaire and Rogers, a great dancing team from the big musical films of the 1930s. But it's this synchronous movement on a mental level of the storyteller and the audience. And that's why storytelling is so powerful.
Paul Furiga (06:37):
Now in the book to make this case, to help people understand why storytelling is so powerful in business, I rely on the stories of two great companies that are very well known, Nike and Southwest. And those are companies that live their brand by having a great story. In fact, as the subtitle, my book says, Why your Story Drives your Brand? They had a great story before they had a great brand.
Paul Furiga (07:05):
And where so many companies fail, Lisa, in really delivering the results they would like from their marketing, their sales or communications is they come up with some idea of a brand that doesn't really represent the true character and nature of the company. And that is your story. And it's this capital S story that we've defined. And the capital S story stands above all the others that business leaders tell on a daily basis because it answers these questions: why somebody would buy from you, work for you, invest in you or partner with you. Those are critical characteristics of an organization that rise above here's why we need to hit Q3 numbers, or this is why we're hiring this new salesperson, or this is why we're the best person on this day of the week or best company to fulfill your particular customer's needs.
Lisa Rehurek (08:01):
Well, there's so much to unpack in there. The first thing that I want to say is our listeners hear me all the time say you've got to be likable and you've got to build trust.
Paul Furiga (08:12):
Yes.
Lisa Rehurek (08:12):
So you are like an RFP response, maybe you get to orals and you get to build a relationship and maybe up front, you've been building a relationship. But in this document, all you have is your written word. And you've got to find a way in writing to build trust and to build likability. Price capabilities, that's all a given.
Paul Furiga (08:33):
Yes.
Lisa Rehurek (08:34):
That's the baseline, right? Your job in that RFP response is to be likable and to build trust so that they feel like you're the ones that can provide the best solution. And I love the story about Astaire and Rogers and how they have that synchronicity. That's so beautiful.
Paul Furiga (08:51):
Yes. Well, you're the expert and your team on RFPs. Our firm exists to work with providers of complex services who are trying to reach their ideal customers. Typically, that's accounting firms, architecture firms, engineering firms, sometimes contractors, law firms. What's common about out these kinds of organizations? For many of them, their business is driven by the RFP process. Frequently when I'm talking to somebody at an engineering firm or an architecture firm in particular, I'll say, "Look, you wouldn't be in the process. You wouldn't be in the hunt to win this bid if you didn't have the right credentials." So that's not what this is about, right?
Lisa Rehurek (09:39):
Baseline, baseline. Absolutely.
Paul Furiga (09:41):
Exactly. It's a table stake. It's required. So now then, how are you going to stand apart from everybody else? And as you just said, Lisa, relationship comes from dialogue. Dialogue comes from a shared common story. Here's why you should hire our firm. This is why we're committed to building these kinds of schools, providing this kind of complicated SaaS platform for government services. I mean, we could go on and on. When you're in an RFP process, typically, now I know there are some RFP processes that you are going to be selling toilet paper as a transaction.
Lisa Rehurek (10:24):
Right. Absolutely. Yeah.
Paul Furiga (10:26):
There are some of those. But by and large, my understanding of what you're so talented at, you and your team, you work with folks on those more complex RFP processes. It may be a two year, a five-year engagement. You may have hundreds of moving parts. That's when you really need to share your capital S story because you are going to be riding along with your customer, your client for a long time. And they're sitting on the other side of the table, or as you put it, Lisa, looking at your paperwork before you even get to the table, and they're asking themselves, "Are these people we can trust? Is there a cultural fit here? Do we think they understand our problem or our issue? And if something happens during the performance of this contract, are these the kind of people that we believe will be able to work with us to deal with any uncertainties?"
Lisa Rehurek (11:25):
Yeah. It's so, so true and so powerful to hear you say all of that. And the differentiators is a big deal. I mean, clients tell us all the time, "Here's our differentiator" and we're pushing because we're saying that's not really a differentiator or distinguisher. And the only one differentiator, distinguisher, whatever you want to call it, that nobody will ever be able to match is your story.
Paul Furiga (11:51):
Absolutely.
Lisa Rehurek (11:52):
Right? That is the only thing. And I'll tell you right now, and years and years ago, I worked with a storytelling coach to help me pull my story out. And I was like, I really don't have a story. And she just laughed at me. I said, "I don't. I mean, my life has been relatively normal. I don't have any huge ups and downs." Now that's changed. That's changed since then. But man, did she pull out a story out of me? And it was beautiful because it is 100% what set up my brand to be what it is today and what we have. We have something called our ride or die, which is our core values for clients and for employees. And that's what set that up. So the story is beautiful. And as you were talking about Nike and what was the other one that you mentioned?
Paul Furiga (12:37):
Southwest.
Lisa Rehurek (12:37):
Southwest. [crosstalk 00:12:38] Another one that came to mind was TOMS, right? Those shoes, right? Because they're so mission driven and their story is incredible and they got people buying their shoes because of their story and their mission.
Paul Furiga (12:52):
Absolutely.
Lisa Rehurek (12:52):
So I think this is so brilliant. Okay. People are getting excited here, right? I'm getting excited. I'm like, ooh, do we tell our story enough in our proposals, right? Because an RFP is nothing more than a proposal. You're proposing your services, right? This is a sales opportunity.
Paul Furiga (13:08):
Yes.
Lisa Rehurek (13:09):
Aside from calling you and your company to help them, where does one even begin start to write their story?
Paul Furiga (13:16):
Well, on the more granular level, and it might seem silly to consider a multi hundred page response document to an RFP granular, if you start there with what people know, don't just check the boxes. You really have to look at the RFP and ask yourself, how can I answer these questions in a way that gives a narrative? Now more broadly beyond the RFP process, Lisa, the story process begins the way we do it at our firm with our storycrafting process by interviewing the top leaders of the firm and understanding the story that they share on a daily basis with the audiences that they care about.
Paul Furiga (14:06):
Now, I said earlier, the capital S story answers why somebody would buy from you, work for you, invest in you or partner with you. I put them in that order for a reason. Most often when we work with a company, they are interested in more customers, right, or better connections with customers. Secondly, and this is especially true in this COVID era, I don't know if we're in the middle of the pandemic, post pandemic, who knows where we are, but talent is a huge issue. So that is a very important audience. And the others are important too. And sometimes they're more important than others.
Paul Furiga (14:40):
The issue though is to sit down and get the raw material out on the table, if you will. What stories does the sales VP share? What about HR? What about the CEO? What about operations? And that raw material put together can be woven into a fabric that describes the story of the company. And one of the things we've learned or in the 21st century, we're overwhelmed by information. I said earlier that storytelling is biology and not BS. That's because our brains are hardwired for story. At the very elemental level, the oldest area of our brain, some people call it the reptilian brain or the old brain, it's the part of our brain that's responsible for fight or flight. That's shared with most mammals. That's the part of the brain that stories really resonate with. That's where the pictures are made, the memories, the compelling information.
Paul Furiga (15:42):
And so we work with our clients and your listeners should think about what is the story, the origin story. What is the innovation that it makes us different? What's the story of that? What is it about our company? Has it evolved to a certain point that the aha we've had a eureka moment, that's the raw material for the story. And then you put it together in a way using what we call a story archetype.
Paul Furiga (16:10):
And so for instance, Nike represents the champion, not the champion as in Michael Jordan, who of course is one of their sponsored athletes, but Nike is the company that makes it possible for Michael Jordan to be Michael Jordan or makes it possible for me to be a weekend warrior in the gym or running or whatever, right? That's the definition of champion there. And Southwest is the outlaw because whatever other airlines do, they do something different. Other airlines charge baggage fees, they don't. And you can see this even in their advertising of recent years on television where they would have their ramp people taking baggage from other airlines, planes and rescuing passengers, much like Robin Hood, right, to get them where they needed to go.
Paul Furiga (17:02):
Now those are big company consumer examples. I use them only because we've seen them. They're well known. You don't have to be a specialist in an industry to understand who Nike is and Southwest is. But where this is especially powerful is what the kind of companies that you work with, companies that have complex services or solutions that are typically provided as the part of an RFP process, right?
Lisa Rehurek (17:34):
Absolutely. And we always talk about the fact that everybody buys based on emotions. Even if they're a non-emotional person, there's an emotion in there that they buy off of. And you hit the nail on the head when you were talking about formulating a picture, right, in their heads. And what's interesting is because we always say that everybody buys based on emotions. No matter who you are, if you're a non-emotional person, you're still going to buy based on emotions. And so when we're dealing with an RFP response, those evaluators are building a judgment. They're formulating a picture in their head that is going to lead to their emotional response, right? And you want that picture in their head to be really positive.
Paul Furiga (18:20):
Absolutely.
Lisa Rehurek (18:20):
Right?
Paul Furiga (18:21):
People decide rationally. They buy emotionally.
Lisa Rehurek (18:24):
Yes. And so we want to really focus in on that emotion. The other thing is you said something a couple minutes ago that I found intriguing that I want to come back to, but we're going to take a very quick commercial break. We will be back in just a couple minutes with Paul Furiga, president and chief storyteller of WordWrite.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Is it time for an RFP process reboot? Are you ready to take an honest and thorough look at your team's RFP process to ultimately increase win rates and revenues? The RFP Success Company's diagnostic service assesses past responses for improvement opportunities, analyzes your current RFP processes, and works with you to create a highly customized RFP response roadmap. Book a call at therfpsuccesscompany.com/call.
Lisa Rehurek (19:09):
All right, everybody. Welcome back. We're talking to Paul Furiga about storytelling. And, Paul, one of the things that you said a couple of minutes before the break is you were talking about getting stories from different people. So when I'm thinking about this in my head, I'm thinking, what is the origin of my company? And that's the only story that there is. But can we go a little bit deeper into the that's not it, right? It's not just that it's the story of the different departments and the different people or whatever that looks like in your organization.
Paul Furiga (19:39):
Right. It's fair to think of your company's story as like a book, having different chapters, right. And even if you're not a big book reader, you'll understand the concept. Chapter one might be the origin story. Chapter two might be, we've evolved to have a great product line. Chapter three might be we've gone public. I mean, it could be a variety of chapters. You get the idea. I mentioned three of the five most common ones that we see. And these are only examples. So as you said, one of them is the founder's story. Another is the invention or innovation story. Another one is we've grown big enough that you want to do business with us or smart enough or specialized enough. Another one is we've invented something. We had a eureka moment. I hate this word because it's been overused during COVID, but we've pivoted. We thought we were this kind of company and now we realize we're really great at this, right? That's the eureka moment.
Paul Furiga (20:46):
So those are five examples. Your point, Lisa, it's like this. First and foremost, if you've not really thought about your story, you got to get the leadership together. And the largest organization we did with this was an international aerospace engineering trade association that had 20 vice presidents around the world. And the CEO said to us when we began our work, "I'm going to tell you right now, they don't agree on the story." And he was right. So we sat these 20 people down at individual interviews and they all had a different idea of what the organization was.
Paul Furiga (21:21):
Now we needed to get them all on the same page about the overarching narrative or else they weren't going to have the right kind of success in sharing the company's story. Because depending on who you talk to, you get a different story and that's not what we want as leaders. We want consistency. We want people to remember who we are and what we do. And we want them to pick up the phone or send us an email or get on to Zoom and hire us to do what we're great at, right? Pick us out on the RFP response pile, right? That's what we want. We want to be top scored, right?
Lisa Rehurek (21:54):
What's interesting about that is that that's not just about the story that's sitting in this library somewhere. That is about who you are as a company and how everybody is on the same page and what the culture of the company. I mean that story as I'm hearing you talk infiltrates everything-
Paul Furiga (22:14):
Absolutely.
Lisa Rehurek (22:14):
That you do as for me as CEO of the company that drives everything and it should drive. I bet a lot of companies are like that where they're not all on the same page.
Paul Furiga (22:25):
Yes it is very, very common. And that's one of the reasons why we tell our clients, the one meeting where we need the leadership in the room is the meeting where we start to uncover the story. The CFO, maybe they don't have to be in all the meetings. HR leader, unless you're most concerned about talent, maybe they don't need to be in the room throughout the whole process. We need him in the room then because we need to uncover this story.
Paul Furiga (22:53):
And then as you said, a few minutes ago, Lisa, the other part of it is once you know what the story of the company is, then you can do just like you said, and go into the departments and say, "Well, Joe in operations, he completely represents this aspect of our story. And Tom is the best engineer we have. And he completely represents this aspect of the story."And then you realize that you have this very high level, strategic, simple, easily memorable story. And I envision it this way. When you have your capital S story well-developed and you're in front of a specific audience, it doesn't matter if the person says, "Well, I like your story, but now tell me about your engineering." Well, great. Let's talk about Tom now. Let's talk about how Tom as this great engineer, but not just a great engineer on paper, a great engineer who is just the kind of person you want at our company and just the kind of person you want at our company because you want to hire our company.
Lisa Rehurek (23:58):
This is so beautiful because... So the listeners, I want you to think about this. For your company, your about us. I'm going to tell you right now. Everybody's got this. We were founded in 1975 in Delaware, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And nobody cares about that. Nobody cares. And the about us piece is huge. And not only that, but when we get into the staffing discussion in an RFP response, what I generally see is we have people that have X, Y, Z, years of experience, yada yada, yada. It's the same thing. It sounds just like everybody else. This story can also infiltrate that piece and be part of the staffing conversation again to make you stand out. So it's not just the really boring stuff that they need to hear. It's how they ask the question, but you need to get some, you need to infiltrate that emotion.
Lisa Rehurek (24:51):
And as I'm thinking about this, Paul, what I'm wondering is for our listeners that are thinking story, they're thinking, "Okay, I was born in 1965 and I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're up here." That's not what we're talking about here, right?
Paul Furiga (25:05):
No, no.
Lisa Rehurek (25:06):
We're talking about, go a little bit deeper here about what a story looks like. And I know you've talked a little bit about that with Southwest and Nike, all that, but can we go really basic around what we're talking about here? Because I also think that people are like, that's not professional enough. That's not... I don't care about me. What compels them to care about a story? And what does a story really look like?
Paul Furiga (25:31):
And what compels them to care about a story is finding the right story that fits with their needs. So I have this story in the book. It's one of our clients. It's a specialized accounting firm that is the foremost authority on higher education, excuse me, post secondary for profit education. So everything from art institutes to truck driving schools, to the University of Phoenix, they are experts at doing all of the financial accounting for those kinds of organizations. And when they came to us, it was a few years ago when President Obama was still in the White House. And there was a very serious investigation going on in the industry about bad practices by some of the larger institutions. And this accounting firm was seriously questioning whether they should be in the business.
Paul Furiga (26:28):
So through our process, we were able to uncover this story and help them figure out what their story was and whether they needed to be in the business. The answer is they did. Their archetype is the sage. The sage, sometimes the magician like Merlin, the magician, it's like these people are the fount of all knowledge. And I'm going to tell you a quick story on how we know that.
Paul Furiga (26:52):
One time there was a large industry-wide conference at which the top federal regulator was supposed to speak. Unfortunately, the last minute this person be came ill. And the United States government called the head of our client's accounting firm and said, "So-and-so can't speak. Would you speak instead?" Now when the government reaches down and says, "If we can't talk about this subject, but you can," bam! Talk about authority. Talk about being a sage. [inaudible 00:27:23].
Paul Furiga (27:23):
Now, and this is really important for all of your listeners. We're talking about accountants here. Okay. The people at our client's firm do not wander the face of the Earth saying, "Hi, I'm a sage. Hire me." That's not the point, right? Yes, they are sages. They are the of knowledge. They are the experts. What that looked like in their case was redeveloping their website, using languages and images that represent that they are a resource and they are the best resource. And in their case, this doesn't always happen. But in their case, it also included a tagline. That tagline we came up with is a higher grade of accounting, right?
Paul Furiga (28:10):
So it's not beating your chest and saying, "Look at me, look at me. I'm a sage. And I'm an accountant." And you don't believe that accountants could be sages or whatever. A higher grade of accounting. So like I said, a few minutes ago, sharing the story for the audiences you need to reach. Now it has to be your story, right? If you've got a great story to share, figuring out the best way to share that story, to attract and entice the kinds of customers or clients you want is not an impossible task. It's what we do every day.
Lisa Rehurek (28:44):
This is such a great information. And Paul and I share a business coach who focuses on businesses understanding why they exist. And we have this conversation all the time and that feels logical, like why we exist. But even that is built off of our story, right?
Paul Furiga (29:05):
Yes, yes.
Lisa Rehurek (29:06):
Yeah.
Paul Furiga (29:07):
I mean, you think of a lot of the listeners, when you wake up in the morning, before you go to work, you don't say to yourself, "I exist to respond to RFPs. I love RFPs. It doesn't matter what my business does. I'm here for the RFPs." No. Right, Lisa? I don't think anybody you work with-
Lisa Rehurek (29:32):
No, no. And for us, we don't even exist for that. We exist to help our clients win. We exist to help our clients win more business. But I'll tell you, I wouldn't really know that and feel that viscerally if I didn't know my story, if I wasn't really in touch with my story, our story.
Paul Furiga (29:52):
Yes. I completely agree. And that's just true for us as well. I mean, we are story tellers. We have this immense down to the tips of our toes passion for the power of what a well-told story can do. And you don't have to make this up. Any company has a great story. I understand, and you've been so good to point that out in this episode today, that you may not think that, but you do. And I have this little vignette in the book. One of my journalism professors at Miami, Ohio, John Lowery, great guy, he would teach the introduction to journalism class. And if you were stupid enough to say in Professor Lowery's class, "I don't believe everybody has a story," he would kick you out in the middle of class and send you out on the college quad and tell you not to come back until you talked to somebody and got their story.
Lisa Rehurek (30:50):
Ah, that's amazing. And it is true. And we're so close to it that we can't see it just to my point about my own story is that I would've never discovered some of that, which all of these little tiny incidents led up to talking a little bit more about who I am and how I approach things, which is the basis for the business that I built. Right?
Paul Furiga (31:13):
Yes.
Lisa Rehurek (31:13):
So it is hugely important. I think people underestimate it. I will tell you all this. I never do this, but I'm going to give my listeners two pieces of immediate advice. Number one, buy Paul's book. He's going to talk about that in a minute. And number two, call Paul. Everybody that's listening needs a story. Now, what I'll tell you is that you probably need to have the big story in your library, but then you have to modify that and use pieces of that accordingly for each individual bid, but get your story written and you can't do it yourself. I don't think so. I mean, it's hard to do it yourself because there's not that objectivity. So read the book so you understand, you get the importance of it, but then call Paul.
Paul Furiga (32:00):
Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate the shout out there. In terms of contacting me, the simplest way is the www.capitalSstory.com. That will also drive through to our company's website as well as the book. And the company website is word like what we're speaking, write like what you do with a pen, PR like public relations.com. So wordwritepr.com or simply just go to capitalSstory.com. That'll take you everywhere you need to go.
Lisa Rehurek (32:34):
Perfect. And then can they buy your book off your website?
Paul Furiga (32:37):
Yes, they can. They'll take you through a link to Amazon. You'll be able to purchase it right there.
Lisa Rehurek (32:44):
Perfect. And all of that information will be in the show notes. And again, I rarely say call somebody, but I 100% believe that everybody listening needs to have that story in your bank if you don't have it. For those of you that are listening that are like... Actually, here's another quick question for you, Paul. And I'm putting you on the spot here, but we'll have listeners that are part of a bigger company and they don't necessarily have the authority, right, to build the story. How do you suggest them getting involved to get their company to write their story if they don't feel like they've got one readily available to them? It's kind of a loaded question.
Paul Furiga (33:23):
But that's a great question. And there's two parts to the answer. One is they probably know how to work around the company when they need other things, whether it's office supplies, approval for travel, et cetera, et cetera. So start there. X-ray that process. And then everything we've talked about today is just as important for the parent company as it is for a division. Let's say that might be one of your clients or somebody who might be listening to us today. So it's fair to ask the right person and the parent organization questions such as what is our story? Are you confident that the right people are sharing our story? Are you confident that the prospects and customers we most want to reach know our story and they're responding to it?
Paul Furiga (34:21):
Generally speaking business leaders that I talk to, especially in the C-suite they're rarely that happy with what's happening. One of the reasons for that is at the top of a big organization, they're on the hook to deliver results. And they're never happy with anything. They can't be.
Lisa Rehurek (34:41):
It's true.
Paul Furiga (34:42):
That's part of the job. And point of fact, so much of marketing and storytelling is done so poorly. There really is an opportunity there.
Lisa Rehurek (34:51):
Yeah, it's so true. And it is one of the things that we ask a lot of in our upfront strategy meeting when we're helping a client with their bid. We do ask them, why does this company exist? Why did you start this business? Why are you in this business? And so for those of you listening that are saying, "I don't know how to reach my senior people to get to this," that's a great place to start. And then as you're looking at continuing to build your library, you need to go back to your senior folks and say, "Look, we need more of our story in our library to be able to pull for these RFPs." S I think some great ways to address that.
Paul Furiga (35:29):
And real quickly, Lisa, something really important on that. And you know this. When you submit an RFP response, especially if it's technical, there are a number of people who are going to look at it. I've actually seen processes where they'll literally break apart the RFP, right?
Lisa Rehurek (35:47):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Paul Furiga (35:48):
So you were saying earlier, you got to get those parts of the story in every aspect of it. You don't want the decision committee to come back to the table and have one person really passionate about why your company is great, and the person who evaluated another portion of your response say, "Well, I didn't get that about the company at all." Right?
Lisa Rehurek (36:10):
Yeah. It's got to be that thread woven throughout the entire response.
Paul Furiga (36:13):
Exactly, exactly.
Lisa Rehurek (36:15):
A hundred percent. Such great, great wisdom here. By the way, people, I do not get any kickbacks for telling you to call Paul. So that's why I said that. No kickbacks here. Just a big fan. So Paul, thank you so much. It has been such a pleasure having you here and amazing information. So we really appreciate your time.
Paul Furiga (36:35):
Thank you, Lisa. And thanks to all of you who listen. I hope you get something useful and informative out of our time together.
Lisa Rehurek (36:43):
Absolutely. All right, everybody. Thank you for listening. As always, we love reviews. It helps other people find us. So if you have not reviewed our podcast, please go out and give us a nice review so that other people will find us and listen as well. You have been listening to the RFP Success Show and we'll see you back here next time.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
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.