Proposal Writing: Reviewing the Request for Proposal (Part 1)

I've been asked before if I had a proposal format that someone could use to respond to a Request for Proposal (RFP). The answer is no, and you shouldn't look for someone else's proposal as a formatting guide. The only thing that determines the proposal's format.

For this discussion, I'm using the term RFP, but the same advice holds true for:

• Request for Information (RFI)
• Request for Quote (RFQ)
• Request for Bid (RFB)
• or any other type of request you receive as a vendor that is an opportunity to demonstrate your qualifications, services and/or products to a current or potential customer.

The same advice can be applied to a proposal from the public or private sector.

I've seen RFPs run upwards of 100 pages, contain a dozen spreadsheets to be completed, and require as many as 30 forms and attachments. The first thing you need to do when considering a RFP is to read the whole thing, highlighting (either physically or online) all of the items that pertain to the response format, including the media the customer wants the proposal in, how many copies, due date and time, mandatory forms and spreadsheets, restrictions on page length or attaching marketing material, etc. This should give you a good idea about the effort it will require to respond to the RFP.

It may seem like that is all that is involved in an initial assessment of a RFP, but I can share some additional best practices here to completing an assessment that will give you an edge when responding to the RFP.

The Online RFP

Increasingly, companies, government organizations and other public entities are using online RFP process. Typically this will require the vendor to register and receive a log in to the customer's RFP website. This website may have the RFP files for download, it may also have relevant policy documents available, or it could be an online tool (program) that requires you to complete the individual questions or requirements directly online.

Most of the time, the customer will also have a file that contains all of the online questions that vendors can download and use as a working document. Sometimes this is in the form of a spreadsheet, and the vendor can upload his answers to the online tool.

It;s extremely important in this case to understand what restrictions are on each item in the online tool. This can include the number of characters allowed in an answer, if an answer can only be a number, if the answer must be selected from a drop-down list (such as Yes/No), or if the vendor can insert an attachment to go with the answer.

This holds true for any spreadsheets you must complete whether or not the proposal is to be entered online.

Sometimes the customer will ask that the final proposal files be uploaded to a website, without requiring input to each item. Either way, you need to get instructions on who you can call if there are technical problems. I've had more proposals than I want to remember that encountered problems at the final stage of online submitting. I could write a book on the online proposal process and how it differs from a more conventional proposal process (and I just might do that), but for now I'll proceed with the steps to complete an initial assessment of a RFP.

Assessing the Work Required

Once you understand the format the proposal has to adhere to, the deadline, and the media the proposal is to be delivered on, you need to have one other item before you can proceed in developing initial assessment on the proposal: the customer's deadline for questions to be submitted and the process involved.

Depending on the size and structure of the organization you work for, you may have a proposal manager or a project manager to assist in the process. I'm assuming in this example that you don't have any help like that and have to do the proposal/project management yourself. If a proposal/project manager is working with you, the same steps would be involved but you'd be able to divide the labor involved.

Next, you need to assign every item in the proposal to a person. That's important because a person can be held accountable but it can be much harder if a task is assigned to a group or department. This also assures that at the beginning of the process yo're identifying everyone who would need to be involved. You don't want to find out later that a key person or group was left out.

Distribute the proposal and a summary of the basic information you've gathered to the team you've assembled. Explain when questions are due, and set an internal deadline for all team members to have their assigned sections reviewed and any questions documented.

I've found it's much more efficient if one person is responsible for assimilating the questions and presenting them to the customer (in whatever format is required), and then distributing the answers received to the whole team. I've learned from doing hundreds of proposals that all of the questions and answers (Q&A) need to be distributed to the entire team. The answer to one question may impact items assigned to other team members.

That's all for today, but tomorrow I will outline best practices for the remaining steps for completing the initial RFP review.