EP116: Writing from a Sales Perspective—with Dave Rynne
Yes, your team is qualified and capable of doing the job required by an RFP. But so is every other business that submits a response.
So, how do you take your technical content and make it persuasive? What does it look like to write from a sales perspective?
Dave Rynne is the copywriter and RFP response specialist behind The Sales Enablement Writer. After two decades on Wall Street, he built a successful content and copywriting business helping SaaS companies transform their proposal processes.
Dave is an expert in leveraging copywriting techniques to articulate value in a way that wins business, and he is also a proud member of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals.
On this episode of the RFP Success Show, Dave joins me to discuss what it means to be a sales enablement writer and describe how technical writers might approach RFPs from a sales perspective.
Dave explains what information he collects in the presale process to write to a prospect’s unique challenges and shares the strategies he uses to agitate their problem and position yourself as the solution.
Listen in for insight on keeping a content library current and learn how to make yourself memorable by adding sales enablement techniques to your RFP response!
Key Takeaways
How Dave’s background on Wall Street led to a career in the RFP space
Dave’s insight on what it means to be a sales enablement writer
Dave’s top 4 strategies for making technical writing more persuasive
What technical writers can do to inject sales enablement into their writing
What info Dave collects in the presale process to help him write to a prospect’s challenges
How knowing more about a company than what is stated in the RFP builds trust
How to keep a content library current with a quarterly review
Dave’s take on the biggest mistakes writers make in responding to RFPs
Lose sight of who responding to
Errors in spelling and grammar
Why Dave recommends limiting paragraphs to 2 or 3 sentences each
How Dave thinks about making a proposal response memorable
Connect with Dave
Resources
RFP Success Show EP116 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 your host, Lisa Rehurek, founder and CEO of the RFP Success Company. And this is going to be a fun episode today with Dave Rynne. Dave is a copywriter, sales enablement writer, global pre-sales content specialist. That's a lot of mouthfuls of stuff, but basically he knows how to write from a sales perspective. So we're going to learn some fun stuff today. So Dave, welcome to the show.
Dave Rynne (00:50):
Thanks very much for having me. I appreciate it.
Lisa Rehurek (00:52):
Yeah, this is going to be good. Let's get this off by having you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how did you even get into this field of sales writing, copywriting?
Dave Rynne (01:01):
Sure. Well actually I spent about 20 years on Wall Street in sales and trading and when that ended, I had to figure out what to do. And as building up my LinkedIn profile, I started writing about my old sales experiences, very aggressive form of sales when I was fresh out of college, basically this is the wrong way to do it and then here's the right way to do it. A HubSpot editor saw it and offered me the opportunity to write some blogs for HubSpot. So of course I jumped on that offer. And people were like, "Do you ghost write blogs? Yeah, yeah. So I kind of fell into it, actually. And a lot of it started with content writing and then it eventually grew into content and copywriting because I had, as a financial advisor, different areas, I'd been involved in sales.
(01:57):
So obviously that slowly morphed to that. I definitely liked the challenge of trying to get somebody to hit the button, to go to the next level, next stage to buy something and how I wound up where I presently am, I actually cold pitched the content manager through LinkedIn and I started writing blogs. And they were transitioning from a spreadsheet based answer library to a new software product that they invested in, RFPIO, and the VP of pre-sales knew that she needed somebody who had sales writing skills to spice up the answer library. It was very dry and it was also maintained by a number of people in Romania. And in reading that you could tell that it was folks from Romania who had it. A lot of the stuff had to be edited, the majority of the responses that we responded to are in English. So things needed to be tightened up. So I was there to help with, basically, migrating everything to the new software and then going about cleaning up the answer library.
(03:12):
Originally you had to translate it into seven different languages. I'm lucky I only know how to speak English. We had Google Translate and then we had my colleagues globally to help with doing that. And so then the global pre-sales content specialist was just really a title that was made up. It sounded good.
Lisa Rehurek (03:35):
It sounds great. Yeah.
Dave Rynne (03:37):
Even today, I don't think people really know what it is, but it's proposal management. But I had not ever really been in that type of position before. I was hired for my writing skills, not for my project management skills. So a lot of that came afterwards, and I think you're aware of this because, it was right around 2018 I started and I was searching for stuff and I came across your book, which was very helpful and I sent you a message on LinkedIn thanking you for that because I knew how to do the writing, I didn't necessarily understand the process for how to make it more efficient, more powerful, if you will. So that's how I got here.
Lisa Rehurek (04:24):
Yeah, it's kind of interesting that you went from this blog writer to proposal writer, right? And it's because you know how to write from a sales perspective. And I love the title sales enablement writer. Tell us really what does that mean and why is it important for us? If we think about RFPs, we think technical writing, right?
Dave Rynne (04:44):
Yes.
Lisa Rehurek (04:46):
We tend to have the technical SMEs in there doing their thing. But the sales bent to it is so important. So tell us a little bit more about what does sales enablement mean and why is that so important in proposal writing?
Dave Rynne (04:58):
For me, it's been convenient because it's kind of just an umbrella term. How I've marketed myself is really anything. It could be a marketing email, could be funnel copy, web copy, anything that helps drive you to the sale, whether it's top of the funnel, middle or just right down at the bottom, trying to get you to sell. And the keyword's been fantastic on LinkedIn and getting business actually. And because sales enablement and the enterprise level space, you hear a lot about that. You have the sales enablement officer or position in some of these larger enterprises is how do we get from A to B? Is it different technologies, different processes? So for me, whatever the technology is, whatever the process, I use my words to get them through to the next stage or next level. So for me it really is a catch all, but it's sales writing. It's getting somebody to take action, whether it's to go to the next stage, whether it's to buy or to sign up or subscribe. It's about getting people to take action.
Lisa Rehurek (06:10):
So I love that thought process because we think, a lot of times, I think most people think that the RFP side of things, well that's different. They're asking us questions, we just need to respond with our technical capabilities. Why do we need to put any of that kind of stuff in there? So I kind of want to ask you this question which you kind of answered, but I'm going to go a little bit deeper. So we got to take the technical writing and do a little bit more persuasiveness to it, right?
Dave Rynne (06:39):
Right.
Lisa Rehurek (06:41):
How do you do that? That's a big question that I'm asking you, but how do you take that and turn it into something? Is it persuasion?
Dave Rynne (06:50):
Yeah, copywriting very much comes into that. And I know in your book, an RFP should be looked at as a sales opportunity. And I absolutely believe that too because it is. It's a way to get in front of people. Well, if you're doing your discovery, you're probably in with higher level people, you get that. And so we like different acronyms but for what I do, there's the people talk about the BHAG, big, hairy, awesome goal. I take BHAP, the big hairy, awful problem. What is the big problem that they have? Why are we even doing an RFP? There's got to be something there. Now again, is it because they have to put something out or is it a real opportunity? But we're assuming that it's the real opportunity, but what is the big problem, the big challenge that they have?
(07:46):
And in copywriting, our job is to agitate that problem, is to stir it up, to make it really painful because the more pain it is, the more they want to solve it. So it's agitate the problem and then show how we're able to solve that problem. And then the value of doing that also it's to anticipate objections In sales, we always have to work on objections. With copywriting, we try to dispel any objection right away. Like, oh, this will take too much time. Well you may think this will be too much time, but here's the process. Or a cost or expensive. Yes, it may cost this, but here's where you really save and in the long run. So we try to remove any of the obstacles, any of the speed bumps that, in RFPs, a lot of people will come back for clarification or something that can get them hung up, can be a longer process. So if I can basically agitate the problem, position ourselves as the solution to it and remove any obstacles, it makes things a lot easier.
(08:54):
And then also it's know who you're writing to. So the copyright, I know who my audience is, what appeals to them, what it is. But there's also what's in it for me. You may be in a position on the other end that's issued the RFP, you want to look good because you're the person who's hiring that vendor. So there's also something in it for them. If I brought these new guys in that did that, maybe I'm getting a raise, maybe I'm getting that. So there's definitely, it's not purely altruistic, they want to do a good job and we want to help them. We want to make them look good. So it boils down to emotion. We want to stir up an emotion, we want somebody to do that.
(09:39):
Now the technical aspect gives the function, we can do that. Okay, great, we do, but what's the result? Well, and the result is this. And because you have this big problem, this is how it's connected and it's helped. And even if we're not responding directly to that big problem, I'm going to try to redirect it to that and connect it. And so it's like real estate agents, they're everywhere, right? They're pitching. I want to keep it top of mind. I want to keep the big problem top of mind and they associate problem with us as the solution.
Lisa Rehurek (10:14):
That's such a great point because we preach all the time, stop responding to cold RFPs. Because if you're going in cold and you don't know anything other than what's written in the RFP, you can't do what you're saying. You know can't write to that pain, you can't agitate the pain point. So, audience, listen to this because this is exactly why you need to be in there understanding, they're not going to throw out all their dirty laundry and all of the questions. So the more you can be on the front end of that, the more, then, you can come in to agitate that challenge a little bit more. Otherwise, you're not really going to be writing to the right thing.
Dave Rynne (10:52):
Sure. And the RFP gives you the opportunity to, you'll plum the depths there because it's like, okay, your questions before you respond. So that gives us the opportunity to dig, draw something out. And there's been a number of times have been in RFPs then we found the real problem. So it worked.
Lisa Rehurek (11:08):
You asked the right questions.
Dave Rynne (11:10):
We may be doing an accounts payable opportunity, but it really turned into a procurement opportunity. So it's what was the big problem? And because we were able to uncover that with the questions that were posed to us throughout the RFP, we shifted focus and then it was a won opportunity.
Lisa Rehurek (11:33):
Yep. That's beautiful. I love it. So is it possible to help technical writers inject more sales enablement into their writing? If so, do you have some tips for that or would you say it's just not going to happen and it's better to have another writer in there to take that technical writing and massage it?
Dave Rynne (11:58):
I think it's possible, but what I found is, and I work with very intelligent people, very highly technical, is again, I think that's why I was brought in. My job is to take their technical writing, I don't want to mess it up because I don't know the ins and outs of it, again, how to craft it if it's technical stuff like SOC one, SOC two certification. How do you craft that then to say then that protects data, anything like that. To not make it so dry. And I think again, it's an editor, so that's an editing job. When you can edit it to something more value based then you do. But I've also found some of these areas it is highly technical or it's just those are shorter answers and it's really shorter to the point.
(12:51):
So I think if a firm has somebody in there as a sales writer or somebody with copywriting experience, you may speak with your technical pre-sales and that's the thing, you work in concert with them. Explain this to me, but explain it to me as if we were just having lunch and not you're talking to another really smart person over there. Talk to me like I'm five years old and you're trying to explain it. And why is that good? And that's it. What does that do? I don't know what this tech does, so what does that do? Why? And it's feeling like a little kid. Why? Why? And you finally get it out of them. And I found they're more than happy to do. They don't get annoyed because they're into it, they like talking about the technical aspect of everything.
(13:41):
So it's almost like you do your own interviewing of them so then you can take what they say and craft it. But if you don't have something like that, it is just saying tap into an emotion and try to remember when you're responding, don't think solely of functionality. Think of what is the benefit of it? So even just being able to tie in with it, the benefit of that functionality is it can improve the responses.
Lisa Rehurek (14:14):
Yeah, some great tips there. I love the interview. That's what we try to do as well is interview those technical experts because you can dig in and ask those questions. So super, super important. And you said something a little while ago that I want to make sure I circle back to because you said if they're writing the technical specs, that's really just the how, that's the logistics of it, but that's not going to be the emotion of it. Nobody's going to really buy off of that. We need to add some emotions in it, which is exactly what you do. So I love that.
Dave Rynne (14:46):
Sure. So the question may not be related to the main problem, but again we can tie it in as by handling this technical, it ties into that problem. And then the benefit is now you're not worried about either data security, something like that. Or if you found that they've had a breach before. So part of the thing is doing homework. If we're working with someone and you do all your homework on them, they've had big data breaches. So then we know when we can respond, we don't have to say this specifically, but we highlight this prevents data breach or in the event of it. And so it's like try not to put the spotlight on somebody if they're there, but when you're talking about that, they know exactly what you're talking about because it certainly applies to them. And where maybe somebody else is just saying, it helps this, we're saying it helps this and here's the result and benefit. So then you're not worrying about the litigation, further compliance issues, GDPR, things like that. You start adding that in there, it starts to resonate with people a little bit more.
Lisa Rehurek (15:55):
Yeah, it really does. And that leads me to my next question is, what information do you find vital to collect in the pre-sales process in order for you to do your job better in writing to some of those challenges?
Dave Rynne (16:10):
What I'd say is, again, the research. And I know as part of my position there is I've sat in and really to help people with the value statement or value proposition and how are we approaching it. And there have been different times, we look through the annual report. It's one, you do your scan of the news, you understand if there's any changes in the company. Again, if there's pending litigation. Or something big or an acquisition, they're in the middle of maybe an acquisition or something like that.
(16:47):
But there was an instance where we were able to use this and it's kind of, you hate to say put them in a corner, but it's hard to argue it where something was going on that there was a lot of overtime for their employees. The process was archaic, to say the least. And that resulted in a lot of manual work, a lot of overtime that, I'm sure they liked some of the extra money, but it continued for months and months and they were very unhappy. Well in the annual report you can see what the core values of the company is. The core value is happy employees. So the positioning of that is to say, in doing this, we're bringing you in alignment with your core value. They can't argue like, no, we don't want to do that. That's kind of hard to say no when we're saying doing this will align you with your core values. If you want to back up your core values, we can help you do that.
Lisa Rehurek (17:46):
And I love that, too, because wouldn't you say that it builds trust if you know something that's outside of what is stated in the RFP because shows that you've done your homework. Would you say that that builds more trust?
Dave Rynne (17:59):
Absolutely. People appreciate the effort that you make because it's like, well it said we want to do the best job and we know that there's research to be done and we're going to ask questions. And it's not just because we just want to ask questions, we want to get to the root of the matter so we can solve your problem.
Lisa Rehurek (18:22):
Yeah, absolutely. And that trust that you're building when you are writing that way gets to the emotion and that's what people buy off of is the emotion.
Dave Rynne (18:31):
And I think the people that we would work for, or that hire you, are not one trick ponies, right? There are other opportunities for them. So if you've been able to help somebody in this one area, then you certainly can help them in another area and they will remember the effort that you put into it that, again, it gives you just a leg up. And sometimes that's all you need, is just an extra leg up, an extra foot in the door, benefit of the doubt, whatever you want to call it. It puts you out ahead, at least you're the person to be. And that's a good position to be in.
Lisa Rehurek (19:08):
Yeah. So important. And one of the things that we say all the time is that the baseline is answering the questions, showing that you have the capabilities and qualification. That's like baseline, right? What are you going to do to be over that? Because everybody's going to come in with that. Everybody's going to come in whether they position it right or not. But you've got to do something to be over and above that.
Dave Rynne (19:29):
No prospective client wants to hear, "What is it you guys do again?"
Lisa Rehurek (19:33):
Right.
Dave Rynne (19:37):
I mean it's rude and it's insulting. You need to have an idea of what the company does, what their product or products are. Again, as a baseline you just need to know, it's like I know you do this, can you explain that more? And at least they know. That's not the time to go in cold.
Lisa Rehurek (20:00):
Right. I agree. I agree. Now I want to talk about library content because, with our clients it just seems to always be a challenge for people to keep library content up to date, to keep a library of content. Even if they spend a bunch of time up front getting it all perfect, they get it into this library and then it falls apart in six months because there's nobody maintaining it. So I know that in your current role or in past roles, you've done a lot with library content. Tell us more about how you keep that information current. You do a really great job of writing it really well up front, but how do you keep it current?
Dave Rynne (20:38):
That's a great question and it is a challenge. If you've invested in RFP software, you're able to put it on a review schedule, whether it's monthly, most of the time it's quarterly. And if something's changed, what I've always asked the pre-sales is if you want to change something, you let me know and I can edit in the answer library. But there may be things, when I look at quarterly, our own quarterly stop roadmap because lots of times we're like, what's on your roadmap? And I have a roadmap from five quarters ago. I have to keep getting, when we put out our roadmap, I have to see where it goes and then update that so we know where something is coming out. Same with product management. So in how we tag certain things, a lot of it is tagging by either scope, product, service, category, and then I can export and send it to certain product managers to review. Has anything changed?
(21:46):
Because it's not an exact science. I try to put enough pieces in place so it keeps it current because there have been times where it's like this answer is wrong, And so that's the good, that somebody who knows, we don't do that anymore. We don't cover that. Or hey, we can do this. And it is a collaborative effort and I've said that with our pre-sales team. If you see something that's wrong, just let me know right away because there's over 10,000 Q&A pairs in our answer library. And again, that is a large review schedule and you go, is something changed? Is it updated? If you know there's people in the C-suite who have changed, that needs to be updated. There's certain things that happen that you just know that should be updated. But again, your technical guys, it was like, has there been an upgrade? What version are we on? So again, I haven't found it as more of an automated thing. It's really just a process I've built out for myself that I just try to work with people on.
Lisa Rehurek (23:09):
And an ongoing process. Not like, okay, once a quarter, today's the day that we'd go to all of our library content and update it, which is super overwhelming. It's kind of like a rolling ongoing project.
Dave Rynne (23:21):
Absolutely. The answer library is a living, breathing thing. So it is coordinated between our project management, our technical people, our pre-sales, legal. We're able to send questions to legal to have something done. The same as if we're working with external partners, we'd know whether their capabilities or something if they're going to let us know. So there are a lot of moving parts and I found that, obviously the RFP software, makes your life easier and again can put things on a review schedule and it just makes communication and accountability much better.
Lisa Rehurek (24:09):
Yeah, I agree. I agree. So what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see writers make when it comes to responding to art RFPs? And this might be reiterating some things you've already said, but I want to definitely point out some of the biggest mistakes that you see.
Dave Rynne (24:25):
I would say, again, losing sight of who you're speaking to, who you're responding to. That's one. Of course is really spelling and grammar. You would be amazed at how many mistakes that you find. Again, some of these have worked in things where a Grammarly plugin, thank goodness for that. Because you're answering so many questions or even if you've saved one that has a small spelling error and it's saved in an answer library and it's never been caught. But it's like, again, a lot of the people that are reading the responses are also highly technical or meticulous individuals. And if your grammar is off, your spelling is off. What other detail are you missing in this enterprise software that could cost me my job, cost millions? It will put doubt into people. So really dotting your I's and crossing your T's. If you don't have it, run the answers through Grammarly. Make sure that your answer library, the grammar and spelling is correct.
Lisa Rehurek (25:32):
It's so important. The episode before this one, I interviewed an editorial peer reviewer, we were having that conversation and we're like, okay, it feels like these days grammar and spelling seems to be going out the window, less people care about it. So that was one of the topics we talked about, do people really care? And really, at the end of the day, don't you find that, to your point, they're making, even if it's unconscious, subconscious judgments negatively towards you as they're reading through that? Maybe one mistake you can get away with that several? And to your point, if it's technical people reading it, they're going to catch that stuff and they're going to care.
Dave Rynne (26:14):
And that can be a thing. I think you're talking about is we're very casual when we speak now. And I've seen it a lot with the trends in copywriting, they're purposely making mistakes or maybe the grammar or just how they're saying it. Not I'm going to, I'm gonna. Because it's, hey, we're sitting down, we're having a beer, we're talking about it. They want to make conversational copywriting. So it's very lax. It's not high literature. But then again, that's probably not the place for anything in an RFP. That's when you do want to make sure you're structured.
(26:57):
Another thing, just stylistically, is how you format it. You don't want somebody reading a wall of text. So you think two to three sentences to a paragraph, maybe four. Break it up so it's easier on the reader. If you're getting a wall of text, it's hard for them to continue to read, hard to track and they may miss something. Breaking it up into smaller parts allows you to highlight certain things, especially if you want to agitate the problem. I mean there's strategy in that too. If you're going to agitate something or really make a point, you don't want that to be in the middle of a 10 sentence paragraph. You want it to be its own and it stands out.
(27:41):
One thing I've worked in, and it doesn't seem that, or I haven't found it to move the needle much, like in copywriting is a lot of things, bolding, italicize, they emphasize that. I think they just like to read it to the point. But there's times I've added it for emphasis is make it really stand out. And again, if you know your client, it's like know your customer, know your client. Where if, again, the communication you've had, that's something that you can use that they resonate with, then utilize it. If not, but it's there. And it comes down to a certain strategy is knowing who you're speaking to, how are you going to appeal to them?
Lisa Rehurek (28:27):
It's interesting, we do a lot of state government proposals here at my company and the RFPs themselves are painful to read because it's exactly what you said. It's like this wall of text and then the clients come back and we do a lot of RFP audits where we look at their past proposals and we'll look at them and I'm like, you did exactly what the RFP did and it was probably painful for you to read that RFP and then you're turning around and making it just as painful for them to read your response. So think about that. Do you, as a human, really want to be reading that wall of text without any breaking up of paragraphs or interest in the text? I don't think anybody here would say yes. Nobody wants to read that.
Dave Rynne (29:13):
It's hard to track. I mean in reading and tracking, it makes it easier to read when they're smaller, when it's broken up. And it gives everything, makes it a pause.
Lisa Rehurek (29:27):
And it's easier to pay attention. I mean if you give a all of text, I'm going to be doing my trip list, my grocery list, and by the time I get to the end of that page, I'm like, I don't even know what I just read.
Dave Rynne (29:36):
You start to fade into all of the text. You're reading and it all starts to come together. And then next thing you know, you're at the end of the paragraph but you really haven't read it, you haven't been able to take it in. So again, breaking it up allows that person to really read it and take it in, not just filler within it. Get within a giant wall of text. Because people will skip it. They'll read the beginning, they'll read the end, and the middle just becomes the middle. But that's how a lot of people read. They're skipping, they're looking at the first and last and they get the gist of it in the middle.
Lisa Rehurek (30:15):
Yep. I totally agree with you. The other thing you said at the beginning of this interview was make it about the benefits. What's in it for the reader? Because frankly, they're going to pay way more attention to what's in it for them than they are about if we're just talking all about ourselves and our company. So I think that that is warranted to bring up again here because as we're-
Dave Rynne (30:38):
You want to make yourself memorable. And I know a big thing for our pre-sales team, even in their demonstrations are limbic openings. Making limbic, something emotional, make you memorable. It can be something humorous, it can be something physical. Something to make you stand out. It could be statistics. So it's like, hey, companies that do this have experienced this, this and that, and they have that. And so putting it out there to say, well you're in that same space and that can help you. So again, it makes you memorable. Again, it's a presentation. Maybe you start with a joke, something that you can tie it into the physical. One of these folks that I want to clean desk because they had so much paper. Well, with the automation it's going to clean it up, but you put wipes with a bow and their name on it, they remember that person.
(31:39):
And it's not RFP, but that's the example of it. So if you can do something like that, again, to connect with that person. Again, if they're technically, you run some of those numbers and you can give them metrics like that, you're offering that up. You give them, here's how we've been able to improve. Or again, we know the industry they're in or a certain niche and we're able to extract something shows we've done our homework. It's like we know you, we understand you. Here's the metrics we're able to help. We've stood out from others because we've done our homework, we've made ourselves memorable. And again, giving us an edge, All we need is an edge.
Lisa Rehurek (32:22):
All we need is an edge. I totally agree with you love it. So I always love to ask our guests for a horror story. We've been in the proposal business for a while, all of us have some kind of a horror story, even if we don't classify that quite as horror. But what kind of a horror story or anything that you've got that you can share with the audience today?
Dave Rynne (32:43):
It would be more trying to export something and either it didn't format a certain way and your answers didn't go. You might have a 600 question RFP, you try to export and you do it and it doesn't export and it's just blank. And then you try to figure, then you have to export it a certain way and then manually cut and paste 600 different responses. That's happened before. I know there had been a time where, within the RFP instructions, there was a link to another set of questions, but now sometimes there'll be a document embedded within a document. This time there was a little hot link there and it was like 20 other questions, but a little bit more technical. And we were bumping up on a deadline. Again, you were able to pull it but we cut it close there because that had been missed. And so that is really important. Again, part of the detail is parsing through. And again, that document is mind numbing at times where it's explaining everything. I know with the corporate, but I can only imagine on the government ones that the information, the list of requirements, the yeses, no, the dos, the don'ts, how you want it, how you want it formatted. Sometimes you'd even say like, we want it in Arial 12. You don't even think you just to default font and you could return it in the wrong font.
Lisa Rehurek (34:29):
Yeah.
Dave Rynne (34:30):
But that's somebody who's very particular who put that RFP together and that's are you paying attention to detail? So I don't know. So if it's little gotchas or things like that, but sometimes there are things in there like that that can be missed. Hopefully you catch it before you send the response back.
Lisa Rehurek (34:50):
Hopefully you do. Yeah, absolutely. I was actually just reading a LinkedIn post where somebody said his biggest mistake in an RFP was that he missed something on the pricing sheet and they were doing something from one country to another and he transposed the exchange and he said, luckily frankly, they didn't win that RFP, but if they had, it would've been like $150,000 loss to the company because he transposed the exchange rate. And I'm like, oh it is those details. So, so important.
Dave Rynne (35:18):
And again, when we talk about the answer library and editing, sometimes a name of another company is in there and you're saying, hey. And that's why blank Co can do that. And now you've taken that answer and you're responding to another one. But it either wasn't part of a merged, hey, it was just part of the answer. And then they see that you've dealt with another company or you don't really want that information out there.
Lisa Rehurek (35:48):
You do not. Another thing we were talking about on the prior episode is we've got two electric companies here in the Phoenix area and both firms have told me that they get responses all the time with the other company's name in it. And guess what? They just throw out in the trash. They don't even ... Like automatic disqualification. So you don't want to do that. That's just, again, that's a bad miss on the attempt.
Dave Rynne (36:13):
Yeah, it becomes a delicate balance between, again, with technical and creative is, it balances it out. You've got to give the answer, the functionality, Yes, we can do that. But what do you get out of it? You know? Because everybody else can do it.
Lisa Rehurek (36:33):
Exactly.
Dave Rynne (36:34):
More often than not, we're all doing the same thing. The same thing, only totally different. How do we stand out? How do we connect? Again, if we've done our homework and then we know what the real problem is and we agitate it and we keep after it and nobody else has done it, well these guys really understand us. They really are a solution for us.
Lisa Rehurek (36:57):
100% Well Dave, this has been so fantastic. If our listeners want to connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Dave Rynne (37:04):
I would say on LinkedIn. You can always find me on LinkedIn. It's Dave Rynne, R-Y-N-N-E. Pretty sure I'm the only guy on LinkedIn with that name. Same, if you Google me, you'll find me anywhere in the website is daverynne.com.
Lisa Rehurek (37:20):
Perfect. And we'll have all that information in the show notes. So everybody connect with Dave when you get a chance. Well Dave, thank you so much for being here. This has been a great conversation, great tips for our listeners. I really appreciate you.
Dave Rynne (37:31):
Appreciate you having me.
Lisa Rehurek (37:32):
All right. Everybody, thank you for listening in. You have been listening to the RFP Success Show. Until next time.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
This has been another episode of the RFP Success Show with Lisa Rehurek, eight time author, speaker, and CEO of the RFP Success Companies. 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 the rfpsuccesscompany.com.