EP110: Successes & Lessons in State Contracting: Highstreet IT—with Josh Ezring
Are you struggling with state government RFPs?
Though it seems counterintuitive, you will win MORE contracts by bidding LESS.
Just ask the team at Highstreet IT Solutions. They reduced their response rate from six to three formal RFPs per month. And doubled their win rate in the process.
Josh Ezring is Vice President of Business Development at Highstreet IT. He has more than 20 years of experience as a senior sales leader with top enterprise software companies including Oracle, HP and IBM.
On this episode of the RFP Success Show, Josh joins me to explain why his team committed to state contracts as a source of revenue and how they’ve evolved to focus on quality over quantity when it comes to RFPs.
Josh discusses what he did to get buy-in from SMEs and describes Highstreet’s strategic process for making the go/no-go decision.
Listen in for Josh’s insight on making time for the RFP review process and learn how doing less work translates to higher win rates on state contracts for Highstreet IT.
Key Takeaways
Why Josh committed to RFPs as a revenue source at Highstreet IT
The challenge Josh faced getting buy-in from SMEs to build a strong RFP response team
How Highstreet IT incentivizes content contributors to support RFPs
Why Highstreet reduced its response rate from 6 to 3 formal RFPs per month
Highstreet’s process for making the go/no-go decision
How Highstreet improved its down-select rate from 25% to 80% and doubled its win rate on RFPs
Why Josh’s team stopped bidding on blind RFPs
Highstreet’s ongoing commitment to serve both commercial and higher ed/public sector markets
How Highstreet ensures that they have enough time for the review process
Josh’s insight on how to bid less yet win more business with RFPs
Josh’s advice for companies struggling with state government RFPs
Connect with Josh
Resources
RFP Success Show EP110 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 (00:25):
Hello everybody. And welcome to the RFP Success Show podcast. I'm your host Lisa Rehurek, founder and CEO of the RFP Success Company. I'd love to introduce you to our guest for today's episode, Josh Ezring. He is executive vice president of business development of Highstreet IT. And today we're going to be talking all about how he diversified his sales sources by breaking into state government RFPs and the lessons that he's learned. Josh welcome.
Josh Ezring (00:53):
Thank you for having me Lisa. Thank you so much.
Lisa Rehurek (00:56):
Yeah. Absolutely. I'm really excited to talk to you full disclosure Josh. We work with Josh and his team in different capacities. And he's just really a fun guy and has a lot of great information to share about breaking into state government and what's worked, what hasn't worked. We're going to get some great golden nuggets. I'm just going to jump right in Josh. As a sales leader at Highstreet, you committed to RFPs as a revenue source. And there's a lot of people out there that are just flat out scared to try it. What made you take the leap?
Josh Ezring (01:26):
Yeah. With the markets we support both from a state and local and from a higher education perspective. Many, they have formal processes in how they go about it. And because of that, we needed to make sure that we were getting really good at RFPs and making it a integral part and a differentiator of our business. We definitely realized that we needed to invest. And with that, it's really helped us understand and be able to actually almost forecast based on percentages of how we do and how we get down selected and ultimately improve our win rate. And it's something that we track and keep a close eye on. But it was critical for the markets that we support that we had this capability and are very good at it. We set out as a goal, have this capability in house and be able to support these markets, we needed a real strong RFP response team.
Lisa Rehurek (02:32):
Yeah. And it's hard, right? It takes some time to iron out the kinks and to get good at it. What have been some of your particular challenges in getting to the point where you are now, where you're a well oiled machine?
Josh Ezring (02:46):
Right. It's tough because we're dealing with a matrix group. Our content contributors and our subject matter experts have full-time jobs. They help us support these RFPs within their work hours. And it becomes difficult both from a deadline perspective. We have sometimes have issues holding people to their deadlines and making sure that they're getting in on time so that we get the right review cycles and everything else that needs to happen to ensure we put a great product out there. But really the challenges become down to how do we resource and how do we come together as a team? And it's a virtual team.
Josh Ezring (03:29):
They're not direct reports. They're not dedicated to RFPs. They're dedicated to being consultants, but we need them to support this. We have done some unique things around win pool bonuses and other ways to incentivize the team to want to support. And then obviously the more you win, the morale gets better. And it creates a winning culture that they want to contribute and they like that outcome. I think those are the factors that help. But the challenge is of getting the people to help us, right. Getting the people to help us and then do that within the timeline and the deadlines that we have to put out there in order for this whole thing to come together. Because these are big projects in and of themselves. Just these RFP responses are.
Lisa Rehurek (04:14):
Yeah. It's so interesting, I didn't know you guys did some incentives around that. Because it is true for companies in your industry and also in your company sizes that they don't have dedicated proposal teams. You're pulling people off the streets so to speak, to help respond to these. And everybody's like, "Wait a minute, I have a full-time job." And it can get really hard to keep going if you're losing a lot or if there's not incentive. I love that you guys do incentives. How long have you been doing that?
Josh Ezring (04:46):
That's been in place for about a year now. We started about a year ago. And it's really starting to take off now that we have improved our down select and ultimately our win rates. It's really starting to take off and people are getting excited about it. We introduced it a year ago and it's really taking off and people are really getting on board. And we have seen a more of a willingness to support based on that incentive.
Lisa Rehurek (05:16):
That is a really great idea. I love that. Because again, I know there's plenty of people listening that are having the same challenge you're having of the resource piece of it, right? Just for context for our listeners, about how many RFPs do you all respond to in a month?
Josh Ezring (05:31):
In a month. We will do three formal RFPs in a month. We have what we call proactive opportunities that may require a proposal, but they don't require the formal RFP response. We'll do three formal RFPs in a month. And that's quite a bit down from when we first started working with RFP Success. And when we first started down this process, we were doing five or six. It almost was too much to keep track of. That was a big thing is getting the number down to a manageable number. And we have a pretty good process for how we get to those, because we still have as many sift through and make decisions on. But how do you make those decisions on those? Is what we've changed and get us to be more selective. We talked about being selective, but we weren't. But now we've put in processes. It has to happen. We have to be selective.
Lisa Rehurek (06:28):
Yeah. Quality over quantity, right? I was having a conversation with somebody once and I had asked them their win rate and they got a little edgy with me and said, "I don't like the whole win rate thing because the only companies that have high win rates are companies that only bid on things that they think they have a really good chance at." And I'm like, well yes, that should be right. It's hard to say no to things that you know you can do. How did you get to that point where you're like, "Okay, we're going to walk away from some of these opportunities that are maybe not as great of a fit of the others." How did you all end up committing to that?
Josh Ezring (07:06):
Yeah. I think it was because we tried the other way. I think it's because we dealt with that and it actually made our life tougher. We had more things to work on too much. And the product on the end wasn't good and we weren't winning or getting down selected. But then you look back at it, did you really have the chance because you didn't qualify it out correctly. It became the only way that made sense. But what we've done is we've put some real strong parameters around what that means. We have a qualification process that before we even have our solution architects look at it and get involved and actually review, it has to qualify out from a sales perspective. We have a specific qualification process. Once it does that, then we will actually spend time and resources to review the RFP.
Josh Ezring (08:02):
And then we'll have a solutioning call. And in that solutioning call, we'll actually make a bid, no bid decision. But we've actually reviewed the RFP. We've actually put our differentiators together. We've put our win themes together. We've gone through it, deciding, do we have enough differentiation? Are we a fit? What are win themes? And is this going to get us to a point where we can get down selected and ultimately win? And if the answer's no, we'll make a no bid decision and it's actually a scoring that goes into it.
Josh Ezring (08:34):
It has to do with who's competing on the deal, both from a software and from a services perspective. The background of that client and do we have the references to be able to meet that? There's a detailed bid, no bid scoring that we go through. But it's also got a little bit of a win theme and other softer things that we need to make sure are in place in order to make sure that we're going to proceed on that particular bid. We qualify it, make a little bit of investment on time to make sure that it's good and that we're going to be able to put a good product out there. And then from that we'll actually make a bid decision and then we're full board once we make that decision on that.
Lisa Rehurek (09:17):
I love that so much. There's a lot of brilliance in what you're saying here, because it really is such a big part of it. People just think this RFP comes across my plate, we can do this. Let's go forward. And then two, three weeks in, they come across something in the RFP that it ends up being a deal breaker for them and they have to cut bait. I applaud you all for how you've developed that process because that's pretty brilliant. And for all the listeners take note of that. There is a lot of really great strategy up front that's going to help you make the right decisions to bid on the right things. I love it. I love it. All right, let's talk about some wins you've had. Not necessarily the wins of the RPS themselves, but just internal wins. I feel like we talked about the incentive, which I think is a win of adding something in there for your team. What other wins have you had internally that have made a positive impact on your team?
Josh Ezring (10:12):
Yeah. We've been really tracking this over the last six months since we've been engaged with RFP Success and really refined this process. We've really been tracking and I think our biggest win right now is we're actually down selected at 77% almost 80%, which is huge. That's a drastic improvement. If we look back at where we were a year before, we were down in a 20%, 25% rate. And then obviously our win rate was below that. And then in addition to that, our win rates actually is at 43%. I'm expecting to hear about a few more this week that maybe even bring that up closer to 50%, that's ecstatic. We had a goal of maybe getting to 30%, but we think we're going to exceed that.
Josh Ezring (11:02):
We really are starting to see the results of the hard work and improvements that we've made in our process, that are really starting to bear out in the numbers. Like you said, not only in the wins and the revenue, but also just in the down selects and the win rate itself are headed in the right direction which is really exciting. And again, it creates the motivation which makes the team want to support you more. People want to be part of a winning culture, a winning team. Contrary, when we were a year ago, it was the other kind of result. They didn't want to support us because we weren't down selecting and winning at the rates that we anticipated and wanted ultimately. It's just that whole morale shift that I think they want to support our teams, want to support us and be a part of it. Which is just a huge step in the right direction and we're real excited about it.
Lisa Rehurek (12:01):
Congratulations on that success. That's amazing and it is so much fun. And I think sometimes for whatever reason, people forget that winning RFPs equals revenue, which equals growth, which equals everything that you said, staff morale and all of that. And seeing those come in, even the down select alone, it just everybody rallies together and gets excited. And it is revenue at the end of the day. This is how companies that work with state governments at the higher education whatnot not, build their business. And so it's exciting for us to see your success as well. That is so much fun. I want to shift just a little bit because you and your team have really spent some time also honing in on your niche versus just responding to anything and everything on your plate. Can you talk a little bit about that? How did you determine that was important to begin with? And then what did you do to really niche down to focus on the right types of opportunities?
Josh Ezring (12:59):
Right. We talked about being selective. And we felt like we were being selective because we were saying no to a few bits or whatever it was. Now we're a lot more specific about what we're saying no to. If it's blind, we're not even looking at to be honest. We have a list outward that we're looking at about anywhere from 3 to 18 months. We actually have a couple probably coming out in the next month or two actually. But we have a run rate of opportunities we're looking at. And it goes back to what I talked about earlier, the qualification process and then ultimately the bid, no bid. But the decisions that have to be made in there is you need to be in front of the deal, right? If you're not in front of the opportunity and you think you're just going to get RFPs and respond to them, that's not a good recipe for success.
Josh Ezring (13:46):
You need to get to know the client so that you can position and position differentiation that's going to hit the mark and be relevant to them and win themes that are going to be relevant to them. You need to understand what they're hoping to achieve with a transformational project like we're proposing. Or do they even want transformation? Are they just looking for maybe what we would consider a modernization project? Which means I just need to get off my platform today to the next platform, right? I'll worry about transforming my processes and some of that stuff once I get there. Point is understanding where that client is in their ERP life cycle in our case. But you only know that by talking to them and meeting with them, at least having a phone conversation with them. What we're finding is a big part of our qualification is what has been our interaction with that client? Who have we met with? Have we met with the decision makers? Meaning IT and the line of business. In our case usually HR and finance, maybe budgeting in some cases.
Josh Ezring (14:49):
It's really what we find and where we are. And that's why I say no more blind RFPs. Blind RFP means we don't know who that client is. Meaning we don't know the roles and the people making the decision on their side. If we don't know who they are, and that doesn't mean just looking them up on a website. That means you've actually spoke to somebody and know what's important to them, we're not going to bid that opportunity. Now, if our partner Oracle is met with them and has some of this information and Oracle is selected for example or preferred, what we would call preferred, then that could qualify out at that point. Because at least Oracle is met with them, at least they've been what I would consider pre-positioned before the RFP. Those are some of the real must haves in order to make a bid decision. For us is that we really need to have had some interaction or our partner Oracle has had to have that interaction. And then we'd find that it's a lot better outcome for us in that case.
Lisa Rehurek (15:54):
Music to my ears Josh. Music to my ears. I am constantly preaching from the mountaintops. If you're bidding cold, you really have less than 5% chance of winning. Do people luck out every now and then? Sure. But it's just not worth the risk. I love everything you're saying and it's right in line with everything I'm constantly preaching. Yay, I love it. I love it. We're going to continue to talk to Josh, but we're going to take a small little commercial break. Stay tuned, we will be right back.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
The opportunity to dramatically increase revenue through RFPs has never been better. If you are ready to respond to more RFPs, tap into our team's 60 plus years of combined experience. Our fractional RFP response team becomes your RFP response team seamlessly. For more details, email us at wecanhelpatrfpsuccess.com.
Lisa Rehurek (16:51):
All right everybody, welcome back to the podcast. We are talking to Josh Ezring executive vice president business development of Highstreet IT. Now Josh, IT that could mean a gazillion different things, right? Tell us a little bit about Highstreet and what it is that you guys do? You talked a little bit right before the break, but let's dive a little bit deeper into what does Highstreet do?
Josh Ezring (17:14):
Sure. Our mission is to really guide our clients to their future state ERP. That could be cloud. It could be just taking their existing ERP and modernizing that by putting it onto maybe a cloud infrastructure like an AWS or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The key there is we are focused on their back office ERP systems. And we do focus on Oracle systems primarily. Legacy would be PeopleSoft EBS, and then the new modern technology Oracle goes to market with now as their Oracle Cloud applications. We have been doing it for 25 years and we do have a very specific focus on Oracle ERP implementation and ongoing support.
Lisa Rehurek (18:08):
Have you always had that focus?
Josh Ezring (18:12):
We have. When we originated, we've always been focused on Oracle and Oracle ERP. Now we will do other surrounding technologies around that, but the core and the focus is on their back office, financial and HCM systems.
Lisa Rehurek (18:29):
Great. And how did you ultimately decide that you wanted to go in the government side of things instead of say corporate?
Josh Ezring (18:36):
Yeah. Highstreet historically, is actually a merger of three companies. One of them had a more commercial focus. One of them had more of a higher ed public sector focus. And with that, we've always maintained that public sector higher ed, as well as our commercial. We have a commercial team and then we have a higher ed public sector team that we consider all public sector within that group, education and public sector together. It's like K through 16 actually. And we really like that market. We do a lot to support that market and really think that's an important market for our future. We've been committed to the higher ed and public sector space since our founding. And we find it's a huge critical market for us and excited to be in it.
Lisa Rehurek (19:30):
That's really great. I'm going to throw you a little bit of a curve ball here. But with the whole American Recovery Act and the money that the states are getting in, it's flowing down into the school districts, are you anticipating that there's going to be a lot more opportunity for you in the educational space as they're building infrastructure? And I would imagine that there's technology IT stuff is going to be all over the place in that. Are you guys preparing it all for that windfall if you will?
Josh Ezring (19:57):
Yeah. We are expecting it. We do track that policy and decisions and budget. A lot of our organizations we support are grant funded. And we know how to implement for that, but we also know how to track for that as well. But yeah no, we do expect that the money will flow that way. I do think it's a good use of the taxpayer money. I think it's investing in our future which I think is something we should consider and need to do more of. And I do think we need to focus here at home quite a bit with that to make sure we're providing good services to our citizens. And we look forward to helping them modernize that and hopefully get more value and better investment. And a bigger return on that investment is the goal and hopefully track that. And also what we're seeing is transparency of that, right? We've developed a citizen transparency portal that allows them to share certain financial information out there and be more transparent with their constituents.
Lisa Rehurek (21:06):
I love it. I love that you're on top of it and you're paying attention. Again for our listeners, depending on where you are that money's going to come out somewhere somehow. Depending on where you are, it's all going to be a little bit different, but it's great that you're the head of the game there. Congrats on that. Now I want to talk about your team a little bit. If there's one thing that you don't budge on with your team, no matter how hard it gets that you expect to happen during that RFP response process, what is that?
Josh Ezring (21:35):
Yeah. Once we've made the bid, the big one now is meeting with client, right? We've hit on that. But then once it is, we need to make sure we have enough time for the necessary review process. What we were finding is we were sending a lot of subpar bids out there. And it came down to people weren't meeting their deadlines. We're missing our review cycles. And then we're still pushing forward. We're done with that. If we don't make a deadline and we miss a review cycle, we are going to say no. And we've had to say no on a couple that we've put in some time and put in the effort, but we had to say, no. We never wanted to do that before. Now that we've done that since then, we don't miss deadlines as much, right?
Josh Ezring (22:19):
We're holding to our deadlines better. We're making our review cycles. We had to make a few examples and shut it down on a couple in order to get better in the long run. And I do think we've gotten better for it. I do think we're getting a little better at meeting our deadlines and definitely ensuring we're getting our review cycles. And just because we don't want to put a subpar product out there, not only because we won't get down selected, but we just don't want that floating out there that's our work. We want to put good quality work out there in the market because the other part is they'll Foy it, right? People will look at it and we don't want people to think that's what we are. We want to be re represented correctly.
Lisa Rehurek (23:00):
Yeah. It's interesting I just did a quick review of two proposals. It was none of the companies that bid that hired us, but we were doing a quick review of two different proposals. And man one was just ugly. And I'll remember their name because it was ugly and sloppy. Yeah, I'll remember their name much more than I will the other one that looked really nice and crisp and clean. But I'll remember it in a negative way. If they were to ever come across my plate, if I was an evaluator, I'd probably... You go in with this negative judgment automatically, it's human nature. It is nice in those review cycles as you know because I'm sure my team preaches it to you guys all the time. Those review cycles are key. And for some reason we put so much time and effort into the writing. Everybody does this, right. We think that's the bulk of what needs to happen, but it's only just the beginning, right? Those review cycles are so important. I'm glad you mentioned that.
Josh Ezring (24:02):
Yeah. You're right because of the one voice it has to come across as one voice. You're getting all this content, people are writing it different. You have to make sure your win themes and everything's getting weaved throughout the right way. And that it's coming across as one voice and not disjointed that way.
Lisa Rehurek (24:18):
Exactly. If you can look back to some of your early days, what do you wish you knew back then? What could have saved you a ton of headache?
Josh Ezring (24:31):
I know I keep using this word and I would even say it back then, but being selective, right? Like you said, quality over quantity. And that's been our mantra this year with our RFPs and it's crazy because it creates less work in the long run. I'm actually thinking I'll probably end up bidding if I win at the rate we hope to win and looks like we may win at, we may end up having to bid fewer things because we're going to already be at some of our growth targets and stuff. And it actually creates less work in the long run if you're doing it right. The better product you're putting out there, the better win rates you have. You can actually potentially bid fewer opportunities or you can get better growth overall. Either way it's a positive.
Josh Ezring (25:17):
But it actually creates less work. Not only because you're picking less and working on less, but you're putting better products out there on those bids you're bidding and putting better more effort into those with a better result and outcome in the product and the RFP product that's delivered. I still go back to being selective. But it's with a process and it's with a methodology that will continue to evolve, right? It's this continuous improvement and things change. We get more quals in certain markets. We can actually make decisions differently as we see more success actually. But the bottom line is and what I wish... In sales, you want to bid everything. And my sales guys want to bid everything and I have to be that voice of reason along with some of the other delivery executives on which ones are truly qualified, which ones truly are bid, no bid scored out correctly to make those right decisions to be selective. Yes, you can say be selective, but have a process behind what that means for you.
Lisa Rehurek (26:30):
Yeah. That's an important point too. And something else you said, made me think there's going to be this transitionary period when you start being more selective, that's going to be painful for the sales team, right. Because they're going to want to continue to bid on everything, but once you get over that little hump and the winds are coming in and sales people are getting more wins, then they start to connect the dots I think. Because that's what the sales people want, right? They want the wins. They think the more we throw at it, the more we're going to get. But it's really just the opposite to your point is the less you bid, the more successful you are. That's a very important point there. I love it. All right, I also have to ask this about teams because I heard that you have a really great teamwork approach in your virtual meetings to keep things fun. And we at the RFP Success Company love fun. I want to hear and our listeners want to hear what your approach looks like?
Josh Ezring (27:24):
Yeah. Our HR department's awesome. And we have a virtual team. We are a virtual consulting. We have a headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. But we are a virtual group. We'll hire anybody across North America. And we actually have a global delivery because we have an India presence as well. And we always incorporate them and they have some of their own events and we have some of corporate events. Quarterly, we always do an event. Whether it be a bread making, a pasta making, beer and wine tasting. We do game shows. We've done a magician. And they keep coming up with new ideas and they're all great. But it gets us together as a group. We always allow for some sort of either adult beverage or food. We provide expense for that so that they can go out and do that.
Josh Ezring (28:18):
And it allows us to come together in a fun environment and get to know each other outside of strictly work environment. And they are very well received by the team. It builds a very strong culture. And I think we work hard, but we also want to play as well. And I think it's important to have that work life balance, but also that work play balance within the work environment. And to get to know your colleagues and peers at a more casual level. And I think these events that we host on a quarterly basis allow us to do that. And then we do three during the Christmas and holiday seasons. We do a couple of special ones during that time usually as well. We do quarterly plus we do some special ones around the holidays. And they've been really well received by the team. And I think it just helps us come together as a team and work and play together and it's been great.
Lisa Rehurek (29:15):
That was amazing. I love it. You had me. I love the bread making. I don't know why I don't have this great urge to make bread, but I think that sounds so fun. How many people are on your team that participate on a regular-
Josh Ezring (29:31):
Because we break them up and we give them choices, they'll get down to usually around 60 to 70 per thing. We have about 300 across India and the U.S. 300 consultants. But we break them up so that they're smaller groups on each event.
Lisa Rehurek (29:49):
That's amazing. How fun I love it. Well Josh, this has been fantastic. Any last words of wisdom, pieces of advice that you might give our listeners who are state government, higher education, local RFPs that might be struggling a little bit. What advice might you have for them, last piece of advice?
Josh Ezring (30:08):
I just think you have to make a commitment to it and track it. And continue to try to improve it and know that there are companies and organizations like RFP Success out there that can help, right. And make sure that you think about that as you go through it. I don't think it's ever a point in time thing. I think you just need to be looking to get better and you got to start somewhere. But I do think there's a real true business model in RFPs especially for certain markets they're required. And you might as well build your capability because it can be a differentiator for you.
Lisa Rehurek (30:48):
Yeah. Absolutely. And I love that you said track the data. And you've mentioned that throughout the podcast. Tracking that data is really important because our minds play tricks on us, right. We think that we know the numbers and that we can just remember stuff, but we can't. Tracking the data's hugely important. Josh, thank you for being here. How can people get in touch with you if they want to connect with you in any way?
Josh Ezring (31:08):
Yeah. I'm on LinkedIn Josh Ezring and then as well feel free to reach out to me there. And then obviously you can reach us on our website to highstreetit.com and all our contact information's out there.
Lisa Rehurek (31:23):
Wonderful josh. All of that information will be in the show notes of how to get in touch with him. Josh, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate your time.
Josh Ezring (31:31):
Thanks Lisa.
Lisa Rehurek (31:32):
All right everybody. If you like what you hear, of course we always love it if you shared our podcast with others who might benefit. On behalf of Josh and myself, I want to thank you for listening to this episode of the RFP Success Show.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
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 podcastrfpsuccess.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.