EP143: This Week on The RFP Success® Show: Mastering the Response Maze!
What is the #1 question we’re getting about RFPs from clients and prospects lately?
Is it a tactical question about time management, contradictory requirements, or formatting? Or a high-level question about managing stress and continuous improvement?
On this episode of The RFP Success Show, Lisa Rehurek tackles some of the most frequently asked questions about navigating RFPs. From mastering time management to handling contradictory requirements and managing stress, Lisa shares her expert advice to help you streamline your RFP response process.
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
Mastering Time Management
Create a Timeline: Break tasks into manageable chunks and work backwards from the due date to ensure timely completion.
Prioritize Critical Sections: Focus on the evaluation criteria and allocate time accordingly.
Set Milestones: Establish key checkpoints and create a calendar with blocked time for uninterrupted work.
Navigating Contradictory Requirements
Clarify with Issuer: Use the Q&A period to address any contradictions and avoid confusion.
Document Everything: Keep thorough records of clarifications and decisions for future reference.
Use a Compliance Matrix: Develop a matrix to track requirements and identify contradictions early.
Response Formatting Strategies
Understand Guidelines: Build your response template to meet formatting requirements from the start.
Be Creative Within Constraints: Use visuals and bullet points to make your proposal engaging while adhering to guidelines.
Create and Customize Templates: Maintain a library of templates to streamline response preparation and ensure clarity.
Stress Management Techniques
Take Breaks: Regular breaks can boost creativity and reduce stress.
Stay Organized: Keep all documents and drafts well-organized to avoid chaos.
Celebrate Small Wins: Recognize and celebrate progress to maintain motivation.
Commit to Continuous Improvement: Post-submission reviews help refine your process for future RFPs.
Resources
The Role of Contracts in Successful Prime + Sub Partnerships on RFP Success EP036
How to Develop Your RFP Pricing Strategy on RFP Success EP081
Book a Call with the RFP Success Company
The RFP Success Book by Lisa Rehurek
RFP Success Show EP143 Transcription
Intro:
This is the RFP Success Show, the go-to podcast for RFP responding companies and professionals that are ready to ramp up their RFP win rates. Get ready for tools and resources, lessons learned by industry experts, and hot strategies to help your proposal stand out. Here's your host, bestselling author, speaker, and CEO of the RFP Success Company, Lisa Rehurek.
Lisa Rehurek:
Welcome back to the RFP Success Show. I am Lisa Rehurek, founder and CEO of the RFP Success Company, and your host for the RFP Success Show today. We're going to dive into a topic that many of you can relate to—navigating RFP responses when it feels like you're trying to solve a Rubik's Cube blindfolded.
Today, we are going to slice through the complexity of RFPs and spill some secrets on how to manage your responses better so you feel like a pro. From tackling tight deadlines to demystifying contradictory requirements—almost every RFP has them—to cracking the code on response formats, we're going to cover it all. It's really about making the process smooth as butter. If you're listening and you're a proposal professional, hopefully you're doing a lot of these things already, but sometimes we need that reminder. For you small businesses listening, I know sometimes it feels like a tornado because you've got a million other things going on—this is not your full-time job. I really want to give you some tips so that you can make the process easier for yourself and for your internal team.
Sit back, relax, and let's get started.
First, let's acknowledge the reality of RFPs. They can be overwhelming. They're filled with crazy intricate requirements, there's always tight timelines, and a lot of times, there's contradictory information. I mean, we see it probably easily over 50 percent of the time, maybe even 75 percent of the time, where something in the RFP is contradictory. So, we sometimes get together as a team and say, "Okay, did you read it like I read it? How did you read this?" And we put our brains together to come up with the solutions. Of course, we have a ton of experience in this, so it's easier for us to figure it out quickly. But for small businesses, those contradictions can be very daunting and frustrating.
Fear not—with the right strategies, we're going to help you navigate these challenges effortlessly.
Let's talk about mastering time management. There's always tight deadlines with RFPs. Even when it seems like a generous deadline, at some point, it becomes tight, and you feel the crunch. So, it's crucial to manage your time effectively. Here are a few tips for doing that:
First, create a timeline. As soon as you receive that RFP, break down the tasks into manageable chunks. Create a timeline that outlines when each section should be completed, along with all the other moving pieces. This not only keeps you on track but allows time for revisions. Many people initially think, "Oh, it's due on the 23rd. We can write up until the 21st." That's a big no! We always create a calendar, and the first thing we mark is the due date. Then, we reverse-engineer everything from there. In a perfect world, your writing should be done two weeks before the due date. Sometimes, you don’t have that much time, but at the very least, aim to have it done a week before, because there's a lot more that needs to happen. The timeline helps keep everything on track and ensures your writers and other contributors are aligned.
Second, prioritize tasks. All the questions in an RFP are important, 100 percent. But if you look at the evaluation criteria, you'll see which sections are most critical. These are the ones you should prioritize from a time standpoint. You can't ignore the other questions, but these critical areas need more strategic focus. Multiple reviewers should look at them from a strategic perspective. By focusing on those areas, you're making the most of your time and your team's time.
Third, set milestones. Establish milestones throughout the process. Often, quick meetings to update on milestones are needed. A key milestone is completing the technical writing early because you still need to review, format, and edit everything into a cohesive document. These tasks tend to sneak up on you more than you'd expect. So, create that timeline and set milestones to ensure everyone is on the same page and working toward the same goal.
One more tip for mastering time management: block out time in your calendar for uninterrupted work. Even if it's just an hour, that time can really help you move the needle on writing or managing the process. Make sure you block out time every day if the RFP has a three-week runway to the due date.
This episode is brought to you by RFP Success Express—the first and only small business, one-stop-shop, affordable technology platform to guide you from sourcing all the way through writing. Visit rfpsuccess.express to learn more.
Next, let's talk about demystifying contradictory requirements. As I mentioned earlier, we see this all the time. These pesky requirements can feel like a puzzle, but there’s a way to tackle them. The best way is to clarify with the issuer. However, you need to do this in a timely manner because, in many cases, there's a Q&A period, and outside of that, especially with state government RFPs, you can't reach out for clarification.
This is one reason we put together the response template right out of the gate. I'm sure other proposal professionals do the same. But for small businesses, maybe this isn’t something you're familiar with. Putting the template together, in the format it's supposed to be in, with all the questions included and assignments made, helps you immediately see where there might be contradictions. Often, contradictions arise between the statement of work, the proposal format requirements, and sometimes a secondary questionnaire that isn’t even listed in the main proposal requirements document. By starting with the response template, you can spot these issues early and ask clarifying questions during the Q&A period or via email or phone call if permitted. This approach will save you hours of confusion down the line. You definitely don’t want to discover contradictions one week or three days before the due date.So you want to get that done very quickly so you can really clarify any contradictions right away.
The other thing is document everything, you know, keep a record of any clarifications you receive, anything that you want to document about why you did what you did. This is not only going to help you stay organized, but provide a reference point. If you need to revisit the conversation later, if, and you never know, right? So you want to make sure you document.
And then the third thing is use a matrix. So we always do what we call a compliance matrix. It's just internal. It doesn't get sent with the RFP, but it is one of those things right out of the gate. When you get that RFP, you say, we're going for it. Okay. Somebody should develop that compliance matrix because it basically is a list of all of the different requirements that are in that RFP and then how you plan to address each one. So it's a visual tool and it will really help you see where those contradictions lie and then how to address them either internally or with the issuer.
All right, let's talk about response formats.
RFPs often come with specific formatting guidelines, which is great, but can also feel restrictive. And here's how to get the most out of that.
Number one, really reading through the formatting requirements carefully to understand the guidelines, knowing what's expected to help you avoid unnecessary revisions later.
So some of the things that come to mind are formatting requirements. You have to have an inch and a half margins. You've got to have, you know, one and a half spaces, 12-point font. When you build that template, you better build it like that up front. And then we always kind of put it on the front page temporarily, and we highlight it just to make sure everybody knows, look here are the requirements. This is why we did it this way. And please don't change our formatting. So understanding the guidelines for sure.
Then also being creative with the format. So just because you have to stick to a certain format doesn't mean that your response has to be dull. You can still, most of the time use visuals, charts, almost always you can use bullet points to make your proposal more engaging. Easier to read, but you're still adhering to those guidelines.
And then, you know, you can always create like a proposal template that aligns with the common formats you encounter. And you've got that in your library repository. You know, one of the things that I want to say about kind of the templating it, is that, is I mean, obviously you're going to have to change it if an RFP comes in and they've got completely different formatting requirements, but it also helps you make sure that you've got a straw man that you can customize for each RFP and we have people that will come to us and we'll do a review of past proposals and they literally have just written this big long diatribe of content. They haven’t put the questions that were asked in there. It’s just maybe a hot mess. You want to be careful because you want to make sure always, always, always you should include the question unless they tell you not to. And in some cases, if there's a page limit, we maybe suggest not doing it. But the evaluators do not have that RFP memorized, nor do they want to go back and forth between the RFP and your response. So you want to make it easy for them to read with, you know, dropping in the question and then your answer and then the question and then your answer. So having some of those templates up front can really be helpful.
And then let's talk about stress management techniques, because let's face it, RFP responses can be stressful and they're stressful because they're deadline driven. They're stressful because it's revenue on the line. They're stressful because nobody gets things, nobody gets, shouldn’t say nobody, most people don’t get things in on time if you’re managing a team of people and you’re trying to make sure that this all gets out and it's cohesive and all the answers or questions are answered.
Weekends and evenings a lot of times have to occur. So whoever’s working on these RFPs, RFP responses, stress is a big player in it. So a few techniques to help you manage the stress.
Number one, take breaks, especially early on in the early days of the RFP response. Like that's all the fun and it feels easy at the time because everybody's got their assignments and everybody's out doing their thing. But take breaks when you can, even when you're in the throes of it and you're like, Oh my God, we’re on a tie. I mean, I can remember back to my corporate days when we were in the production room and we’re like, Okay, who’s going to chase down the UPS guy? And then who's going to go over to FedEx? And we'd have two different, two different proposal printouts going because we had to send it the day before. And thankfully, most of these are electronic submittals these days, but all of that is so stressful.
So you’ve got to take a break, even literally, I am not joking when I say, even if you can take a quick little one minute, go to the bathroom, whatever it is, take a few deep breaths, just breathe into it, but in a perfect world, I would say every hour, you know, work 50 minutes and then take 5 or 10 minutes to just go take a quick walk to just clear your brain. Because what stress does is it piles up on top of us. It builds within us. So it's not healthy, but it also stunts your creativity instead. Dense your ability to write and be strategic and all of that. So make sure you're taking breaks.
Number two, stay organized. Now this looks different for everybody, but if you are somebody that lives in chaos, figure out a way to get more organized, keep all your documents, your notes, and your drafts organized. And most people use collaborative tools now, whether it's even just Google, or if you’ve got one of the fancier softwares that helps with that. Make sure that even like electronic documentation is being organized well.
And then celebrate small wins. It’s really easy to celebrate the big wins and remember the big wins a year or two down the road, but those small wins are so important. And if you’ve got a team of people all working on this, or even if you’re by yourself, quite frankly, acknowledge your progress at the end of the day. Okay, even if this, this, and this didn’t work out well, here are the things that did work out well. So celebrating milestones can boost your morale, boost your team’s morale, and keep everybody motivated.
And then finally, always look for ways to improve your RFP responses. After every submission, and nobody wants to do this because you're like, Oh my gosh, this RFP is gone. This response is gone. We're done. We just got to take a deep breath or you're already jumping into the next one. But it is so important. It doesn’t have to be long, 15, 20 minutes. Take time to review what worked and what didn’t work. Ask for feedback from your team. Better yet, bring everybody together to have that conversation. Document it and keep that somewhere. First of all, that continuous improvement mindset will enhance everybody’s skills over time, but also it's lessons learned. Like, okay, if something was clunky, if something was hard, what can you do to shift how you do that to improve the process to do something different that is going to make it feel better on the next response.
All right, everybody. That was a lot of information as we wrap up today’s episode. Remember that navigating RFP responses doesn’t always have to feel like this daunting challenge. There are going to be elements that always feel daunting. So what can you do with those other pieces of the puzzle that are organized, that are streamlined, that feel better? Really mastering time management, demystifying the contradictory requirements, cracking the code on formats, managing stress, committing to continuous improvement. You’re going to be well on your way to managing responses like a pro when you just pay attention, attention to just the things we talked about today.
So thank you everybody for tuning into the RFP Success Show. We will see you back here on the next episode.
Outro:
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