What are the Top 10 Questions to Ask Before Responding to a Request for Proposal (RFP)
Top Ten Questions to Ask Before Responding to an RFP
Most sales professionals who have been in the business for several years wrestle with whether or not to respond to RFPs. This is especially true when you receive an unsolicited RFP or one you did not know was coming out from an existing client. The first step is to qualify the opportunity and see if it is worth your company's time and resources to put together an effective proposal. Most people believe RFP's are usually written for one vendor who has the inside track on the opportunity. If this is the case, then your bid is probably just column fodder so the sponsor can say they did an RFP and have competitive bids to justify their vendor selection.
With that being said, I have been able to steal away a couple of RFPs from an incumbent vendor who did the preliminary requirements analysis on a project. This was done in part by quickly getting directly to the project sponsor and proactively suggesting a superior solution and the previous experience to back up the proposal.
Here are 10 questions to ask yourself in order to qualify an RFP opportunity:
1. What do they want to buy?
2. What is the driver to start the project now?
3. Do we have any internal sponsors?
4. Do we have enough time to respond?
5. Who is our competition?
6. Is their an anticipated budget for this project?
7. Who will decide on the winning bidder?
8. Do we have relevant experience / qualifications to bid?
9. What is our competitive advantage over other vendors?
10. What are the next steps?
Let me know your thoughts on RFPs and if you have additional questions you like to ask regarding RFPs in order to qualify the opportunity. As you probably have limited resources and time, it is important to only respond to ones that you have a legitimate chance of winning.
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