We’re not responding to your RFP…..sorry, not sorry…..

We very much appreciate you sending us your Request For Proposal (RFP). It is always nice to feel “wanted”, even though I’m fairly sure everyone was invited to respond. I’m just going to pretend they weren’t.

Although we’ve decided that our time is better spent solving problems, we acknowledge that you probably went through great trouble and expense authoring this massive thing, and we feel a little guilty for not responding, so I thought I could offer an explanation. It’s certainly not because we don’t wish to work with you, because really, we do. We just don’t think this is a good way to start a relationship.

Here are the top reasons we didn’t respond:

1. YOU’RE ASKING RESPONDENTS TO WRITE A NOVEL….LIKE WAR AND PEACE long. Are you really going to read an 80-page response about our qualifications and how many combined years of experience people in our firm have? Do you really care how many times I’ll let my phone ring before I answer? (serious question I saw in a RFP once). Time is extremely valuable to us, and we would rather spend it solving problems and having creative and meaningful conversations.
2. WE ARE BUSY, AND FOR GOOD REASON. Just being honest here (humbly), we aren’t just sitting around, hoping someone will send us an invitation to respond to a cookie-cutter RFP where, let’s face it, was most likely written by the incumbent, who is heavily favored to retain the business anyway. It is impossible to determine if your RFP is a genuine search for solutions, or if it’s simply a mandatory protocol you have to perform every so often.
3. YOU MAY BE CONSTRAINED BY BUREAUCRACY, WE ARE NOT. Hey, we understand. You may be required to solicit RFP’s for certain expenditures or contracts. In theory, you think RFP’s “level the playing field” and that they remove “bias” from procuring goods and services. You think they get you the most competitive pricing. This is typically true for COMMODITIES, but not specialized services, intellectual capital, or strategic planning requirements. Your RFP asks me to give you all my secret sauce, with no guarantee you’ll protect it from my competitors. This keeps the best talent on the side-line, because we know how valuable our solutions are and we won’t give it away.
4. WE DON’T WORK FOR FREE. Responding to your massive RFP, analyzing all the data you published along with it, strategically designing solutions, processes, timelines, and all the things you ask for is a tremendous amount of work…..for which you’re not offering to pay us. We would never ask you to work for free, why should we? What does it say to my staff if I ask them to work for free, just to earn your business? It says we are desperate, and we’re not desperate. Also, much of our value proposition is in what we know, and what our experiences and training and education have taught us. In the world of consulting, that is extremely valuable. RFP’s ask us to give those valuable solutions away for free, with no guarantee we will walk away with your business.
5. WE VALUE YOUR TIME TOO. Look at it this way, by not responding, we’re doing you a favor too. Now you have one less LENGTHY RFP to review. We believe your time is better spent having quality conversations about solutions.
6. YOU ARE ASKING US TO RESPOND TO A SELF-DIAGNOSED PROBLEM. Imagine walking into your doctor’s office and saying, “Doc, I already know what’s wrong with me, it’s this, and I already know what medication I want you to prescribe me, which test to order for me, and when I need to come back for a follow up. Just get out your pen and sign off on this”. A doctor’s job is very similar to mine, except I’m not treating you for a sickness or injury. Just like it is a doctor’s job to diagnose and then treat a problem, it’s my job to do the same for your company. But when you put me in a box, tell me what your problem is, and then simply ask me to price out a predetermined solution, well, I’m just going to be honest here, that’s just a waste of everyone’s time and talent. What this does is turn our expertise, and every other respondent’s expertise, into a commodity.
7. WHO GETS TO DEFINE THE RULES? In your RFP, you do, and that means “you’re in control” of the situation. Fair enough, but my role as a consultant is to conceive of what the market does not know it needs, to see around corners, and to open your eyes to new possibilities you are unaware exist. RFP’s stifle creativity by stuffing everyone in the same box in the name of “fairness”. Here’s my question, is the objective to be “fair” to everyone, or to solve a specific, and typically, complex problem? In the world of RFP’s, both have a hard time co-existing.
8. RFP BUSINESS USUALLY DOESN’T LAST. Even if we win the bid, the same rules and regs that required you to host this beauty contest in the first place will come back around in a couple years, and you’ll be forced to tender another RFP, just like this one, no matter how good of a job we do for you. Strong relationships don’t develop when you’re always living on borrowed time.

Full transparency here, I’ve responded to RFP’s in the past. Each time, I tried really hard to talk myself out of them, but like a moth to a flame, I couldn’t stay away. I’ve probably responded to half a dozen RFP’s, and out of them all, I only won one!

Now, let me tell you why I think we won that one…..Before I responded officially, I emailed the author of the RFP and asked if we could submit an “Alternative Response”. They actually agreed to allow us to do that. So, I pretty much got to say, and more importantly, ASK, what I wanted. I was able to focus in on areas the prospect was over-looking, and solve problems they didn’t really know they had!

We were allowed to do our job.