EP094: Making the Strategic Review Part of Your RFP Process
Are you making the time to do a strategic review before you submit a proposal response?
If not, you’re missing an opportunity to elevate the level of your RFP and stand out from the crowd.
So, what does a strategic review look like? And how can you make it a regular part of your RFP process?
On this episode of The RFP Success Show, I share the three steps to completing a successful strategic review, explaining who should be involved in conducting the review and why it’s so important.
I walk you through the focus questions to ask on each pass, challenging you to engage the reader with the things they care about and make your value proposition clear.
Listen in for insight on building time for a review into your response calendar and learn how to implement the strategic review process in YOUR business and win more RFPs!
Key Takeaways
Who should conduct a strategic review of your RFP (and who should NOT)
Why you’ve got to capture the reader’s attention and build trust through a proposal response
How a strategic review raises the level of your proposal
The 3 steps to a successful RFP strategic review
1. Have we answered all the questions as they were asked?
2. Are we engaging the reader with the things they really care about?
3. Is the proposal easy to read?
How to ensure you’re addressing what the reader really cares about
1. Is the proposal geared toward the solution vs. all about us?
2. Is the theme/value prop clear throughout?
3. Are we differentiating ourselves throughout the response?
How to build time for a strategic review into your response calendar
Why a strategic review is crucial to the success of your RFP
RFP Success Show EP94 Transcription
You're listening to The RFP Success Show with eight-time author, speaker, and CEO of The RFP Success Company, Lisa Rehurek. Tune in each episode to learn what today's capture and RFP teams are doing to increase their win percentages by up to 20, 30, and even 50%, and meet the industry trailblazers that are getting it right. Let's get started.
Lisa Rehurek (00:23):
Hello, everybody, and welcome to The RFP Success Show. I'm Lisa Rehurek and I am your host of this show and I'm also founder and CEO of The RFP Success Company. We're excited to have you here today. I'm just going to be talking to you very simplistically about doing an RFP strategic review. Now, there's a lot of reviews out there. You've probably heard of the color team reviews, which is pink, red, green, gold, blue, all of those different types of reviews. If you're in a very complex RFP environment, you're very familiar with those. They're very broken out.
Lisa Rehurek (00:58):
But this podcast episode is really for those of you who don't have that complex setup, you don't have a huge proposal team, and you're trying to figure out how to get that strategic review done so that there's somebody objectively looking at your proposal and looking at it from not just a compliance perspective but a strategic perspective: Are you hitting all the marks? It's something that we do hear a lot at The RFP Success Company and our clients have asked us, "Can you train us on this?" and, "How do you do this?" so this is going to be a very simplistic overview of how we do that and how you can implement this in your own business.
Lisa Rehurek (01:41):
But what I want to stress to you is that it can't be the person that wrote it and it probably can't be the person that managed it, depending on the role of the proposal manager. If they're involved in the content, if they're pulling it all together, they're not the best person to do it because they can't look at it objectively, so you almost need a third party that hasn't been super intimately involved. They understand what you're trying to accomplish, they understand the themes and all of that, so a lot of times, the salesperson's a perfect person to do this or your executive sponsor of the RFP. Who's the one that's bringing the RFP in and saying, "We need to bid on this"? The owner of the company, the sales director, the managing director. Again, this is for those of you who don't necessarily have formal proposal teams.
Lisa Rehurek (02:30):
Although I will tell you this, too, that we have people that have formal proposal teams that still don't know how to do this and they don't do the formal color team reviews and this also fits with that as well. Maybe it's somebody else on the team that isn't involved in that particular proposal that can come in and do the strategic review for you.
Lisa Rehurek (02:50):
But that strategic review, it's so important for so many things. When you're bidding on an RFP, you are responding to questions as they were asked, which is logical, that's human nature: They're asking me this question and I'm going to respond to it. But the deal is is that everybody else is doing the same thing and you've got to find a way to stand out and not just say, "Yes, we can do this. We've done this before," because everybody else that's bidding can do this and they've done it before and they're going to show, "We've got experience in this and here's our process for it and here's how we approach it," so all of those things are valid. All of those things need to be part of your proposal response. However, there needs to be more to it than that.
Lisa Rehurek (03:39):
You've got to grab their attention for a couple of reasons. Number one, you've got to make sure that they want to keep reading, so as boring as the RFP itself is a lot of times, no offense to anybody out there, but the RFP responses are just as boring, and if you think about this poor evaluation team that has to review at a minimum two, generally, at a minimum, there's three, sometimes, and this is craziness, there's 40 or 30, and oh, my gosh, how painful is that to have to read through all of these? What are you going to do to capture and keep their attention throughout that?
Lisa Rehurek (04:21):
Then the second thing that you want to accomplish is building trust in that document. You want to make sure that they're kind of craving working with you. Have you ever read a novel and it just keeps you engaged? It's like, "Oh, I want more. I want more. I want more"? Now, look, I'm not going to pretend that it's like reading a really enticing novel, but what you want to do is you want to keep them engaged, like I said with the first point, and then you want to build up enough excitement that they want to keep reading and they're like, "Ooh, these people are interesting. I think that I want to learn more, I want to learn more, I want to learn more." That's what you want to have in their minds, and as you're doing that, you're building trust. It's hard to build trust in a written document, but that's a big part of your job is to build trust. Yes, it's to tell them that you can do the job, yes, it's to show them that you're qualified and capable, but again, everybody's going to show them that same thing, so building the trust piece becomes super important.
Lisa Rehurek (05:29):
How do you do that? Now, I'm going to tell you the steps that we take. There are generally at least two people on my team that are doing a strategic review for one of our clients, so we don't even have one person doing it all. It's hard. Again, when you're a small team, I get it, but if you can find one objective person, it's going to raise the level of your proposal so much and it's going to stand out from the crowd because most other people out there are not doing these things, so think about how it's going to affect the outcome because the reader's going to just, they're going to be more excited about your proposal, they're going to be more excited about what you can do for them, and they're going to feel that trust that you've built.
Lisa Rehurek (06:12):
Here are the three steps that we take when we do a strategic review, aside from compliance, because we always do compliance, is everything there, and of course, you should always have somebody doing that compliance review, but these steps are outside of that compliance review. The first question is: Have they answered all of the questions as they were asked? This is a separate pass. We do this separately from everything else that we're doing because you got to focus on that.
Lisa Rehurek (06:44):
It sounds ridiculous because you're thinking, "Of course, we answer the questions," but I will tell you 100% of the time that we've done a strategic review of past proposals or current drafts, clients have missed the boat on at least a handful of questions. You've got to look at the question and make sure number one, that you've answered the question because a lot of times we get... It's a really weird phenomenon, actually, but we get... I don't know if we see the question and we're not completely reading it.
Lisa Rehurek (07:14):
You know that old adage about people listen to respond, not to hear? It's the same with reading. We're reading to respond, but we're not really letting that question sink in, and it's important to think about the intent of that question: Why are they asking this question and what do they really want to know? Then have we responded in a way that they're going to be able to look at this and say, "Yes, they meet these requirements, they exceed these requirements"? You almost have to put yourself in the evaluator's shoes and think about how they're going to be grading that, so when you're going through and doing that review, have you answered the question in the way that is going to make it easy for them to score you?
Lisa Rehurek (07:56):
Then the second thing is: Have you addressed all of the parts of the question? This is missed all the time. There is one question that we have that I use an example in my workshops all the time. It's like 17 different questions, I think, in one question, something ridiculous like that. I might have that number wrong, but it's crazy sometimes, especially on the overly complex and technical proposals, how many questions they cram into one question, and you've got to make sure that you address them all because on the evaluator's end, what they're doing is they're going through this evaluator's guide or the scoring tool that they've got and they're checking things off, so you got to make sure that you've got everything answered in there, so the number one step in a strategic review is double-checking the questions and the answers and making sure that the answers flow with what the question was and all parts of the question. That's number one. Do that first separately.
Lisa Rehurek (08:54):
Then come back in a second time and say, "Okay, are we engaging the reader with the things that they're going to really care about?" Partially what I just talked about, the things that they're going to score you on, and by the way, you should always be looking at the evaluation criteria when you got it and making sure that you're taking that into consideration in your writing. In the second step of the strategic review, are you engaging the reader with the things that they really care about? It's not just about the how and the logistics of it all, which is what we generally do almost always. This is not necessarily a mistake, per se, because again, the question is formulated in such a way that lends itself to a how, how-to, or how we do answer, but you've got to take it deeper than that. It's not just about the how and the logistics of it all. It's also about, again, showing your authority, showing your credibility, making sure that you understand how it's going to affect them.
Lisa Rehurek (10:00):
There's three things underneath this second point that I want to point out. Number one: Is the proposal geared towards the solution versus all about us? If you're talking too much about the we, we, we, "We can help," "We have experience in..." "We've done this before," "We are fantastic," "We're Superman," that is how we all seem to approach RFP responses. You got to eliminate that and you need to start talking about your solution and what's in it for the clients, how your solution is going to solve their challenge and why you were the ones to do it. It's not just because you have 20 years' experience. It's got to go deeper than that. We understand that these are some of the pitfalls that come into play because over our 20 years' experience, we've seen everything, and here are some of the key roadblocks that we've seen and here's how we've addressed those and that's unique to us. Those are the types of things that you want to be talking about when you're talking about you, right? Is the proposal geared toward the solution versus all about us?
Lisa Rehurek (11:08):
The second point under the second point of the strategic review is: Is there a theme clear throughout? Meaning, are you really hitting on that one value proposition that's going to help you stand out? At the onset of your RFP response, you all should be having a strategy meeting. You should be talking about what that theme is. That theme should be based on your value proposition, on the client's hot buttons, to a huge degree, your differentiators. It's got to be one key theme that you're going to weave throughout your entire proposal. That's the second part of this piece is making sure that your theme is carried throughout, that it's mentioned numerous times, and that it's very clear, 'kay? That's, again, that statement that's going to have you stand apart from everybody else.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Back to The RFP Success Show in just a moment, but first, what's your biggest challenge regarding your RFP response process? Is it bid strategy, human resources, or maybe it's clunky and inefficient processes? The RFP Success Company works with small and medium-sized businesses to improve RFP processes, increase win rates, and provides highly experienced fractional response support. Learn more by booking a call at therfpsuccesscompany.com/call.
Lisa Rehurek (12:29):
Then the third piece is: Are you differentiating yourself throughout the response, not just in that one way in the theme, but in other ways? Like the example that I just gave you a couple of minutes ago, when you're talking about, "We have 20 years of experience," well, who cares? What does that mean for me? What is your 20 years of experience going to do for me? Maybe it means that you know what you're doing, but this guy over here has 10 years of experience. I would assume that they know what they're doing. What is the differentiator in your 20 years versus anybody else's?
Lisa Rehurek (13:04):
It's a hard piece because businesses have a really hard time identifying this, but you have to continue to dig deeper, and the question that I always ask is: So what? Why is this important? So what? So what? So what? If you were to see one of our documents when we go through, particularly when I go through and I'm doing a review, I have a ton of those questions, "Why does this matter?" "What's in it for them?" "So what? So what? So what?" To you, it feels like it matters, but you've got to flip the script and make sure that it matters to them, so this step two in steps in a strategic review is really all about making sure that you are tying your response to what's in it for them, and that you are the best solution, but you can't just say that, "We're the best solution." No, you've got to prove it to them. What are you doing to prove to them that you are the ones that they should hire? That's what we're looking at in step number two.
Lisa Rehurek (14:05):
Then in step number three, again, a separate read-through, and I understand that this all takes time and you've got to build the time into your timeline, by the way, and we'll talk about that here in just a minute, but the third step is readability: Was it easy to follow? Did it keep my attention? Were the paragraphs way too long? Were there processes that trailed off that didn't make any sense and could be streamlined in a step-by-step process? Just overall readability, that the reader is going to be able to follow along and really understand what it is that you're conveying to them.
Lisa Rehurek (14:44):
Those are the three steps in a strategic review. Very important. Let me repeat them. Number one: Have the questions actually been answered as they were asked? Number two: Are you engaging the reader with things that they really care about? Then number three: The readability piece and making sure that it's easy for them to follow along and they don't get mired in too much heaviness in your response.
Lisa Rehurek (15:12):
I also said that I was going to come back and discuss timing for this. You generally need... We ask for 48 to 72 hours of time to do our strategic review. Sometimes we scrunch that into 24 hours, I'm not going to lie, and sometimes it's hard to get the clients to do this. In the beginning, I'm going to tell you right now, it's going to be a hard thing, so pick your poison. Pick one of these that you can actually get through quickly. Maybe divide and conquer. If you've got three people, one person can do each one of these, but it's going to be hard to carve that time out for this type of a review. But when you do your calendar, build it into your response calendar so that it's in there and people see, "Look, we need time to do this review."
Lisa Rehurek (15:57):
Once you start seeing the difference that it makes in your proposal and your team start seeing the difference it makes, they're going to get more excited to have time in order to get this review done, number one, and number two, hopefully then you're going to start seeing some really great results from it, and when you start seeing those wins, that's when also people start getting very excited and it just will start to come naturally.
Lisa Rehurek (16:22):
We have a really great client that we've been working with for, I would say, two or three years now, and it probably took us a good year for them to carve it out, that time out, and now their technical writers even say, "Hey, we need to give Lisa's team more time. We need to give them two or three days here because they need to be able to do their thing that adds so much of value," so once everybody starts seeing the value in that review, things start to shift. But it's not an overnight thing, I want you to be prepared for that. It's not an overnight thing. Maybe in the beginning you start carving 24 hours out and getting done what you can get done in that time.
Lisa Rehurek (17:03):
But pay attention to those three pieces, make sure it's an objective reviewer, and I guarantee you, it's going to make a big difference in your results, and then it's also going to make a big difference in your ability to formulate the proposal as you go and/or train people on your team to formulate it a little bit differently and think differently because you're going to be giving a lot of feedback. You're going to have to go back and say, "Okay, here's a bunch of questions that we have that we need you to dig deeper on," and so your writers, whoever's writing these things, they're going to start understanding what you're looking for and they're going to start writing that way. Again, it's not going to happen overnight.
Lisa Rehurek (17:42):
Here's another key point that I want to say about the strategic review: Don't have it due like a day before the proposal is due. You also need to build in a buffer of 24 to 48 hours to respond, whoever is going to respond to all of those review comments that you, whoever the reviewer is, can't address themselves, so you've got to build that time in as well, so yes, we are now looking at maybe three to five business days.
Lisa Rehurek (18:11):
It's funny because everybody thinks, "It's all about the writing. It's all about the writing," and everybody wants to give the writers the big bulk of the time, but the strategy and the review's together probably about 50% of the time, so that upfront strategy and that backend review production delivery, all of that, that should be 50% of your timeline and only 50% of your timeline writing, so the reviews are so important. People think of them as a secondary, as a nice to have, but not that important. They're crucial to the success of your RFP, so make sure you're building in the time for that.
Lisa Rehurek (18:45):
All right, I think that I am done for today. Thank you all for being here. Again, I am Lisa Rehurek, your host of The RFP Success Company, and we look forward to having you back here again in the future.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
This has been another episode of The RFP Success Show with Lisa Rehurek, eight-time author, speaker, and CEO of The RFP Success Company. Thank you for joining us. If you have feedback on today's episode, email us at podcast@rfpsuccess.com. No matter your business size or industry, if you have an in-house RFP team or need outside support, The RFP Success Company helps increase RFP win ratios by 10, 20, and even 50%. Learn more at therfpsuccesscompany.com.