I sense a long article coming on. This happens with me sometimes as things rattle around in my brain, and if I don’t write something—often something snarky—it haunts me to the point of distraction. As someone who has always been rather opposed to most RFPs, I have found myself writing up umpteen proposals of late and suddenly scouring the online RFP bid websites looking for that next project.
And I know I’m not alone as one peice of work we recently won had 70 respondents (let me spell that for you in case it wasn’t clear: SEVENTY). Hey, if this is what we have to do to differentiate and win work in this crappy economy, then so be it, but It’s frustrating how inconsistent and poorly constructed most RFPs are. Grrr.
That reminds me, a little while ago the smart folks at FunctionFox called, asking for some thoughts about how design firms can not only survive, but thrive in a recession for an article they were writing called “What You Really Need to Run Your Business During Tough Economic Times“.
We discussed staffing, sales, culture, and how to right-size the team to keep things manageable. This often means responding to things like RFPs, but even moreso, it means that each member of the team needs to understand where they fit into “the machine” and contribute. From cleaning the office ourselves to help quote projects and write up RFPs.
Heck, to survive in business—especially in the design industry—means making some tough decisions and hard hard work for everyone. That might mean letting someone go, or cutting back on some of the more luxurious items we’re all used to. But keep your pants on and your eyes on the goal.
What did the English say during the war? “Keep calm and carry on” wasn’t it? We’ll get through this.
Tags: business, economy, functionfox, recession, RFPs
David (May 27th, 2009)
I created the RFP Database at http://www.rfpdb.com just so you wouldn’t have to scour the web looking for RFPs to bid on, they’d end up at our site and we’d provide them to you for little or no cost. Also have a bunch of articles on our blog at http://blog.confluentforms.com about our strategies for making stronger proposals/responses to RFPs and putting your time to best use.
Mark Busse (May 27th, 2009)
Thanks for your comment David, and for your efforts re:rfpdb.com. But I have to tell you, having recently produced solid responses to more than a dozen RFPs with a win rate of less than 2%, companies really need to rethink RFPs.
Just because you cover your ass and satisfy the oversight committee by creating a bidding contest for the work does NOT mean you’ve selected the best creative professionals to work with.
Proposals can be filled with bogus “associate” bios as though they work for your company, rhetoric about your commitment to the environment (the three Rs!), fancy language describing your design process, and even a terrific portfolio replete with wonderful case study descriptions. But if a company doesn’t take the time to interview the five or ten seemingly best qualified candidates, check their client references, and actually visit the studios of their top picks to validate their claims, then they deserve the quality of work they’ll receive.
And a word of warning from someone rather experienced at trying to compete for work through RFPs: in this economy, the lowest price is the biggest factor. And out west, studio rates are embarrassingly low already, so those that are “buying work” by lowballing are doing nothing except hurt our industry.
RFPs can be a good thing if done right, but frankly they mostly suck and need to be reconsidered entirely. For some useful guidelines about evaluating and hiring a qualified designer, visit GDC.net.
David (May 27th, 2009)
That same frustration is what led me to create the RFPdb in the first place. My primary business is a graphic design and software development firm and we were just as frustrated by 1) poor rfps 2) expensive services to get access to them 3) learning of them the day before due… all the usual frustrations. Of course we’re all frustrated; some of us by losing more RFPs than we win, some of us for spending time issuing detailed RFPs and getting back crappy boilerplate responses.
Speaking to your frustrations, I’ve written two articles:
Don’t squander a great opportunity in the form of a bad RFP
http://blog.confluentforms.com/2009/04/dont-squander-great-opportunity-in-form.html
Not all Requests for Proposals are worth a proposal
http://blog.confluentforms.com/2008/10/not-all-requests-for-proposals-are.html
I hope they provide some help and I encourage you to work through your frustration and get back on that horse!
Mark Busse (May 28th, 2009)
Nicely done David.
I was talking about this very subject with an architect friend of mine, who explained they suffer the same RFP issues as we do in their field (just with much larger fees at stake!).
He said a couple very wise things today:
1) The reason RFPs are structured the way they are is to remove any real subjective judgment from the evaluative process so they don’t just award a project to a firm just because their design is better! (OMG!!!)
2) When writing RFPs, you’re not actually trying to win the project, you’re trying to be the last to be eliminated.
So apparently it’s not about deserving the work at all, but about ass covering and playing the game. Awesome.
Ingrid (December 16th, 2009)
I was given the advice (by one of my teachers at Emily Carr) that unless you are in an agency large enough to have a dedicated staff member to write RFPs then forget it because it’s too time consuming for small agencies and freelancers to write responses to RFPs. Your 2% success rate is probably pretty good overall compared to your competitors but it all boils down to an effort vs. return equation and I know for my situation that my teacher’s advice was spot on.