If you’re a marketer who is still depending on the traditional RFP process, it’s high time to consider an alternative approach.
Why? Take a moment to look at the existing marketing RFP system. There are just so many pain points and inefficiencies that can seem like mere tactical problems, but they point to a larger issue: Just because a vendor submits a “perfect” RFP response, it may not mean they’re actually the right partner for the job
Perhaps instead of simply requesting proposals, marketers should be issuing requests for people.
This isn’t just semantics. It’s about shifting the mental model we use to do business.
Of course, potential vendors need to align with expectations around deliverables, budgets and deadlines. But it’s also imperative that the chosen vendor fully understands and champions your brand objectives. Even more important is that the vendor’s frontline team members — the people who will be executing on behalf of your brand — have bought into the mission. These realities simply aren’t captured through conventional RFP response analysis.
The challenges surrounding the marketing RFP process
It can take several weeks to create a RFP for distribution — and on average vendors only respond to about 65% of RFPs, which means you’re undoubtedly missing out on quality partners. But even if the response rate were 100%, we know replies inevitably vary widely in level of effort. This makes it impossible to analyze responses in a structured, consistent way.
Getting something approaching uniformity across your replies requires follow-ups, causing delays and forcing your team to invest more time. The savings potential of diligently cross-shopping vendors can disappear before the project even kicks off.
But let’s imagine that your RFP format is (miraculously) perfectly dialed-in, and you’re able to achieve this elusive uniformity across the responses for an “apples-to-apples” comparison. In practical terms, you’ve become a test practitioner. Just as a student can learn the answers to complex math formulas without grasping the underlying logic, vendors may be able to figure out what the answers to your RFP should be, but it doesn’t mean they will know how to deliver those solutions or navigate your organization.
Trying to simplify your analysis of all responses also creates something of a catch-22: The more rigid and structured your RFP becomes, the less space potential vendors have to demonstrate their abilities as thought partners. This can lead to missed opportunities — not only in securing fruitful long-term partnerships, but in maximizing the value of outsourcing your project. When potential vendors are reduced to RFP box-tickers, you can’t properly leverage their outside perspective to ideate and explore alternative (and hopefully better) solutions.
Shifting the marketing RFP process to focus on people
So how can you nudge your RFP response analysis from quantification toward qualification?
For starters, while it seems counterintuitive, building a stronger short list of candidates often begins with expanding the pool of participants. Bring new providers into the mix. Hear them out. You can’t invite the same partners year after year and expect a transformation.
Casting a wider net, though, does not mean waving questionable vendors through. In fact, it can involve tightening the criteria for entry. The trick is to narrow your pool using different parameters — specifically, those focusing on how the potential partner proposes to align with your brand’s long-term vision and your team’s ways of working. You might even use a company-culture evaluation to qualify suppliers to be included in your process in the first place.
This is a key starting point for implementing the conceptual shift: RFP — from Request For Proposal to Request For People.
Think of getting to know potential partners as an investment. To that end, meet with your potential partners face-to-face as a matter of due diligence. Ask challenging questions and provide enough data and context to get revealing answers. Consider how your RFP format can be leveraged to give you insights about that vendor and how its personnel approach problem-solving. You can deliberately add areas where these potential partners can express their solution ideas and creativity to stand out from the crowd.
Regardless of the RFP format, make sure you provide enough runway for participants to really dig in and demonstrate value. Overly tight deadlines can lead to incomplete or unclear responses, making it harder for your team to compare potential vendors later in the process. Allocating an appropriate amount of time for meaningful replies on the front end can reduce those time-consuming follow-ups and put more creative solutions in your inbox.
Here, you can phase out the approach: Split your process into smaller steps, with multiple gates to decide who moves forward. Maybe you start with an in-person meeting and an RFI to learn about the potential partners at a macro level, followed by a small basket of goods to price, then a broader exercise to assess readiness to meet your needs.
The important thing is that you aren’t simply relying on convention when it comes to RFP response analysis. Embracing a “Request For People” approach will get you a lot further than just trying to optimize around the status quo.
Want to learn more and continue the conversation? Download “3 production partner deal-breakers” — and get in contact with Quad here.