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Panel Request Response Title:
OMG Your RFP is Killing Me
SXSWi 2012 Panel Speaker Request Response
#76593.9.toddrossnienkerk.joerinaldi.johnstephens

#SXOMGRFP

@toddross
@joerinaldi
@fourkitchens
@happycog
#DellSXSW

Section 1: Intro

• RFPs AMIRITE?!?!


Section 1a: Panelists

• Todd Ross Nienkerk: Four Kitchens

• Joe Rinaldi: Happy Cog

• John Stephens: Dell


Section 2: Horror Stories



Q. How many ﬁrms were invited to respond to
your RFP?



your RFP?

A. 364



your RFP?

A. 364

Q. How many weren’t?


Section 3: Why RFPs?
Or, Why do bad RFPs happen to good people?

• Why do clients issue RFPs?

• “Competitive Bid” driving the marketplace

• State, federal, and bureaucratic requirements

• Often RFP templates are the ﬁrst/best option
found in a search

• “That’s just how we’ve always done it”


Section 3a: Why RFPs?
Do RFPs make sense to your bottom line?

Case study: Four Kitchens

• 30-40 hours per RFP response

• $5,000-7,000 opportunity cost

• Only 16% of work resulted from RFPs

• Won only 22% of the RFP-driven proposals we
submitted



On the ﬂip side:

• 84% of work resulted from personal
connections and word-of-mouth

• $2,000-3,000 cost to send a team of three to an
in-person meeting



Conclusion:

• RFPs have driven a small, but not insigniﬁcant,
amount of business

• It costs less for us to send three people to meet
a potential client than responding to an RFP



Minority report:

• We’re really bad at writing proposals!
(But I don’t think so.)



Case Study: Happy Cog

• Total Leads

• Quality Wins and Losses

• % RFP Wins and Losses



• Travel Expenses

• (Time spent traveling + developing proposal and
pitch + pitch meetings) * blended rate=
Opportunity Cost

• Revenue from RFP wins vs. Opportunity Cost
and Expense



Conclusion:

• We wasted time on at least 3 “Sexy Brand”
RFPs this past year, but we won two amazing
projects via RFP: Harvard.edu, Club Nintendo

• My kids think it is cool that I “work for”
Nintendo, want a Yoshi. *Yoshis are not real.

• We have also passed on RFPs from both
organizations, authored by other departments.

Section 4: Dell, A Success Story

• RFP process is a vendor evaluating the client
too.

• Provide more than just project
requirements, cultural snapshot.

• Internal stakeholders engaged appropriately,
open dialog.



• Clear internal evaluation criteria among
stakeholders.

• “Ofﬁce Hours”

• Successful partnership with procurement.



• Room to improve?

• Maybe limit presentations to 4 agencies vs. 6

• RFP timing, summer RFPs are difﬁcult to
project manage.

• Take steps to ensure the project launch is
synchronous to the evaluation process.


Section 5: Clients

• For a creative project, allow for a creative
proposal. If it's technical, look for technical. If
both, look for both. BUT NO SPEC WORK!!!

• Don't "level the playing ﬁeld" forcing people
to use a common font, type size, format, etc.
Let vendors be creative in their own way.


Section 5: Clients

• Require speaking to the people who are going
to work on the project.

• Avoid a sales “layer”. Sales should be a
facilitator.

• Beware of low bids. Often they are too good to
be true.

• Pre-select, research and vet vendors. No open
bids. You'll get a bunch of garbage.

Section 6: Vendors

• Ask clients how many other vendors they're
inviting to bid.

• Be open: Ask if it's really worth your time to
respond. Are vendors with existing
relationships under consideration?

• If they're cagey about it, ask how they found
out about you.


Section 6: Vendors

• Require a phone, video, or in-person meeting.
The proposal should be about pricing and
approach; then do a face-to-face. If budget is
a concern, ﬂoat the estimate ﬁrst to get buy-in.

• Evaluate client consensus around
requirements, goals.

• Offer alternatives. As part of any sales or
negotiation process, the evaluation system
itself is often negotiable.

Section 7: Where do we go?

• Where do we go from here?

• John/Dell

• Joe/Happy Cog

• Todd/Four Kitchens


Appendix A: Resources

• Stop Writing Project Proposals
Jonathan Wold, Smashing Magazine
http://cog.gd/3l2

• RFPs: The Least Creative Way to Hire People
Greg Hoy, A List Apart
http://cog.gd/28b


Appendix A: Resources

• 6 Steps to Writing a Better Request for Proposals
Conﬂuent Forms
http://cog.gd/3l3

• Buying Wins
Joe Rinaldi, Cognition
http://cog.gd/30p


Appendix B: Future Scope

• DrupalCon Denver (March 19):
No RFPs! Why requests for proposal are bad for
business (and how we can stop them)
http://cog.gd/3jq


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