EP126: Overcoming RFP Process Delays
What could possibly go wrong when you're responding to an RFP?
My 30 years of experience has taught me that A LOT can happen and the more prepared you are, the better.
So, what are the most common speedbumps I’ve seen proposal teams run into over the years? And what can you do to prevent or plan for these delays?
On this episode of The RFP Success Show, I share five of the most common issues that interrupt the RFP process, challenging you to expect missed deadlines and build extra time into your response calendar.
I explain how to prepare for the unforeseen absence of a key team member and why it’s crucial to develop a strategy everyone can buy into.
Listen in for insight on navigating technology problems and learn how to overcome the most common delays in the RFP process!
Key Takeaways
5 of the most common things that delay the RFP process
Why it’s crucial to expect missed deadlines and build extra time into your calendar
How to prepare for the absence of a key team member
Why I suggest submitting your proposal a day early and knowing who to call if you have issues
The benefit of having access to a backup computer and printer
How reading the entire RFP early on helps you avoid finding requirements you missed
Why you need a strategy everyone on the team buys into
RFP Success Show EP126 Transcription
(00:00):
You are 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 (00:24):
Hey everybody. Welcome to the RFP Success Show. I am Lisa Rehurek, your host and founder and CEO of the RFP Success Company. Today's episode is all about things that delay the process and what we can do to plan for and/or overcome those obstacles. Now, what could possibly go wrong when you're responding to an RFP? Well, we all know a lot. Over my 25 plus or 30 years, I've lost count now of responding to RFPs plus what my team sees on a very regular basis. There's just a lot that can happen and the more prepared you are for it, the better. So just having some troubleshooting solutions in your back pocket will prevent a lot of frustration and consternation. So for those of you who have been doing this for a long time, like I have, I mean I'm sure that you've done a lot of the crazy things we've done.
(01:15):
Chased FedEx or UPS trucks down the street. We used to know exactly where their stopping points were at what time, late in the afternoon. We've driven proposals straight to the airport. We knew exactly what time we needed to be there and where to go. Or of course, even hopping on a plane and flying the proposal to its destination yourself. Luckily, I feel like we're mostly done with having to do those kinds of things right? Because we don't have to print at least on the state and local, the slug side, we don't have to print those crazy volumes as much anymore. Most everything else has moved digitally. But there's plenty of other things that can go wrong and that you should be prepared for. So I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the most frequent speed bumps that we've seen over the years and some of the things that you need to think about.
(02:03):
Again, the more that you think about this, the more you and your team have game plans for how you could quickly shift. There's already high frustration, adrenaline emotions going on when you're responding to an RFP, right? There's deadlines. Most of the time people are having to get pulled off of something else to respond to these RFPs. It's not the only thing on their plates. There's just kind of a high stress situation as it is. So the more that you can about this, pre-plan for it, have some things in your back pocket, the better. So let's just dive right in. The first thing is missed deadlines. Honestly, the best thing is in a perfect world, nobody on your team ever misses deadlines. But let's get real, we know that's not life. No matter what we do on our end, our clients miss deadlines constantly and we are constantly having to recalibrate the calendar and recalibrate how we're doing things.
(03:04):
So whoever is managing the timelines on your end should probably build in a bit of padding to expect that some of the deadlines will be missed. So whoever's managing it, if they go in expecting that everybody's going to hit their deadline, they're probably going to be disappointed and they're going to find themselves scrambling if they don't expect that things are going to get derailed a little bit there. So some of the times what we see is the legal department, or especially you've got an external legal team reviewing the documents, they don't really care about your deadlines. Sometimes they will, but a lot of times they're cog in the wheel reviewing your terms and conditions or coming back with things... We'll build in time for them to review the terms and conditions and forget about that time, that has to be built in for negotiating the terms and conditions and going back and forth, internally.
(03:59):
You probably have one idea and your legal team has another. So you've got to build all of that in and just expect that's going to happen. Your sneeze, not getting their writing in. I mean, there's all sorts of times that the sneeze don't get their writing done. Most of the time, one person or these series of people, they're working in a silo and they just don't think of all the ramifications of all the moving pieces that are going to be affected if they don't hit their deadline because they've never had to do it before. So you got to have a little bit of grace for them, you also have to have a firm hand with them, and then you've got to have a game plan in case the deadlines aren't met. Because it's a domino effect, right? The minute one person misses the deadline, everything else gets shifted and it affects everybody else.
(04:48):
And most individual people that have not really managed a proposal from A to Z, they don't get what all is happening behind the scenes. So you've got to plan for it. Some of the things that we think about is how can we adjust peer review? What can we do? What's done that we can start peer reviewing now? What kind of forms can get done? Resumes and bios, can we get all of that stuff done while we're waiting for these sneeze to finish up their writing, or we're waiting for the terms and conditions to get approved or whatever that looks like? Get the signatures. So whatever you can do to shift that calendar around, get different things done upfront, move things around, the better. Also, maybe having some backup writers in case one SME for some reason just isn't getting it done. Who's their backup? And we're going to talk about backups on team members here in a second as number two.
(05:42):
But think about if you've got somebody managing this that does a really great job with shifting and pivoting, that's what you need because that's what it's going to take. So don't wait until the last minute with some of the stuff like bios and resumes and forms and signatures and all of that kind of stuff that can be done earlier in the process before all of the pressure is on and all of the deadlines are being missed. Don't wait till the last minute. Going to open up a little bit more space for when those writing pieces are... Some of those pieces that traditionally get delayed, get delayed. So that's the first thing. Number two, what happens if unexpectedly a team member goes out? What happens? I mean, we actually had a contractor that we were working with and he literally just disappeared off the face of the earth.
(06:31):
We later found out he was okay, thankfully. But you just never know what's going to happen. So what happens if a key team member or even a non-key, somebody that's just writing a little piece... Do you have a game plan if somebody goes out sick, if there's an accident, if they have a family emergency, all of those things happen every single day? So my advice there is have backups in place know who things would shift to. And I know people shy away from this because number one, sometimes it feels icky. Well, we don't want to just assume something bad's going to happen. That's bringing bad energy, negative energy. No, it's not. It's the reality of having a business and planning. Again, you don't have to spend a lot of time with this. You don't have to put these crazy things into place. But you have to have an idea.
(07:19):
If X, Y, and Z person were to go out, who's the backup? And it's not even just backups, but also making sure several team members know where everything is kept. The last thing you need is one key person to be out and they have all the main documents on their hard drive or you don't know where they've been keeping things or they're a disorganized mess and you can't figure out where everything's at. So you should have some standard operating procedures for where you document things, where you store things, the collaboration that should be taking place there. Don't leave it up to one person who is holding everything or one or two key people. Cause if they go out, you're probably going to go down on that. And we don't want that, right? None of us want that.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
That RFP response deadline is coming in hot and you want to win. Don't panic. Call the RFP Success Company for a strategic outside review before you hit submit. Learn more at the rfpsuccesscompany.com.
Lisa Rehurek (08:18):
Number three, technology problems. It's our worst nightmare. We love technology when it's great and it's so horrible when it's not great. And this one happens a lot. You see this all the time. Either internally something happens with your computer system or your wifi or your printer, whatever that is. And then sometimes externally when you're trying to finalize an online submittal. So let's talk about that one first, let's talk about what happens if something goes wrong when you're trying to finalize an online submittal. The best case scenario there is that you're submitting it a day early. And I can't stress this enough. People think, well, it's electronic, it's going to be easy. We'll wait till the last minute. Well, you and 20 other vendors are like, okay, an hour before, that's really easy. It's messy. Some state agencies or states or locales don't have super sophisticated technology systems.
(09:16):
And so they're not meant to handle everybody entering everything all at once. So there's a million things that could go wrong, even if it's an email, there's just things that could go wrong. So the best case scenario is that you're submitting a day early or at least many hours early. Please don't wait till the last minute because you could get screwed there and you should know who you need to call. So have that ready and available instead of having to dig around and find it at the last minute when all of these emotions are high. And you've got 3.32 minutes left to submit and you're shuffling through the paper to try to find who the contact person is. So make sure you've got that ready so that you can call them and say, "We're having trouble." A lot of times they'll let you off the hook if it's technology on their end.
(10:04):
But sometimes they're just like, "Look, we warn you in the RFP that you should submit early, that there might be problems." So it's unknown if you're going to get pass on that, but at least you have that information ready to go so that you don't have to scramble for it. Now, internally, you should be planning for potential technology problems. If you're a small business and it's like you and one other person and all you have is one computer, that could be a death wish. That could truly be a death wish. I know when I was by myself, it was just me. I had two computers because I learned the hard way. And if one went down and I had the other one, I had two printers as well, just because I like... A lot of times I just want to put things out or you've got to print forms out because you've got to get them signed or whatever that looks like.
(10:56):
So if you don't have that in your organization where you know that you've got backup computers, make sure where you can quickly get one. Whether it's a local store that you can go to, like a Kinko's or whatever that might have a business center, even a hotel, sometimes they've got a business center and you can go in if they know you. Printers tend to be easier because A, again, we don't have to print as much anymore, but a lot of times you've got to print, sign and scan signature pages or forms or whatever that looks like. Know where your closest print shop is, Kinko's, Office Max, Staples, whatever it is in your area. Know where it is, how long it takes to get there. Can you do things online? And if you've got relationships there all the better because if you get in a bind... The other thing is if you've got a neighbor who has a reliable printer or a reliable computer that you could tap into if you needed to.
(11:50):
I know that, I remember a client so many years ago and just again, it was a single person in the office and their computer crashed and they went to the office next door to them and they just had a really great relationship with them. And thank God, because those people allowed them to use their computer. They were able to log in, they had a thumb drive and everything was great. But there's so much more that we're in advantage of now because we've got things based in the cloud, we don't have to print as much, all of that. But technology problems still happen. Just know where are your backups if you need them so that everything doesn't just crash. And I tell you what, you should never have anybody working off their hard drive. And that should just be standard in your company because that is a death wish for sure. So number three, technology problems.
(12:38):
All right, number four. This one is so painful finding requirements that you missed because you didn't read through the entire RFP early on. And this happens all the time. And it's tough because we push pretty hard on our client to review all the small print and the terms and conditions. And we try to point out things that we think might be conflicts or deal breaker, but we don't know your business unless you've been with us for a while. We don't always know your business and we don't always know the details there. So the main thing here is that the key people need to read all of the documents at onset and people like to do that because it's a pain and it's boring. And I get all of that, that you've got to have somebody on your team that likes the attention to details that will go through that thing with a fine tooth comb and make sure that there's nothing in there that's going to surprise you later.
(13:33):
There's nothing worse... Well, there a couple worse things, but one just icky thing that happens is you get two, three weeks into responding. You're three days from submittal and all of a sudden you realize we don't meet this capability. And then you're like, "Okay, well we can still bid, but we need a subcontractor." You've got to go find a subcontractor and they've got to submit stuff. It is brutal. People start working 24 hours a day to get through that. Team morale goes down. People are frustrated. You can't put your best foot forward. You're just slapping stuff on paper to get it out the door. It's just a bad situation. So again, don't let yourself fall prey to the, I can do it later, or I don't really feel like doing that. Get somebody, the key people, the key person, whatever, to read all of the documents at the onset, it's going to save you, I promise.
(14:24):
So that, that's a brutal one. That always just breaks our heart because it's so preventable. Sometimes technology issues, not preventable. Team member out sick, not preventable, but when this happens, it was preventable. So don't be that person. Don't be that person. And then number five kind of falls in the same category where it's preventable, which is not really having a strategy that everybody has bought into. So that upfront strategy always seems to be a futile exercise in the moment. People don't love to do it unless they've been burned. And once you've been burned, then you're like, "Oh yeah, okay, yeah, we need to get that strategy going." And it's not just a strategy for strategy's sake, but really what happens in that strategy is that's where the solutioning comes into play. Everybody gets on the same page with here's the solution that we're presenting. Here's how we're putting our best foot forward.
(15:23):
Here's how we're showcasing why we are the right vendor to choose. We had a lot of situations where that solutioning has not been complete, or we find that different departments aren't in agreement on the solution that they're presenting and nobody's really talking to anybody. So front, everybody needs to get buy-in. So that's kind of back to the not having strategy that everybody has bought into. You've got to have a strategy. You need to get everybody... Again, on the same bus, going to the same destination. We've got to make sure that that's happening because when that's out of whack, writers can't write cohesively. The response certainly can't come together cohesively. Some technical writers certainly can't write cohesively, and then you can't write the best overall solution. You can't differentiate yourself. You can't put yourself in the best light because you're kind of a hot mess behind the scenes.
(16:25):
And this also includes pricing. That pricing should be part of that solutioning and that strategy upfront. So many companies wait on the pricing until the end and then they're scrambling. That should all be part of that upfront strategy that just sets the foundation. What's the thing my dad says, guys probably heard me say it before. "If you don't get the foundation right, it's going to follow you all the way to the roof." And that's exactly what you need to do for each and every RFP is lay that foundation, make sure you've got that. Everybody knows, everybody's got a copy of that blueprint so that everybody can be, again, on the same bus, going in the same direction to the same destination. And that's what's going to really help you get the win. If you can't do all of that, your response is going to feel disjointed and the buyer is going to feel that from you and then you're going to lose trust.
(17:21):
It's going to erode that trust. So we don't want that. So not having a strategy that everybody's bought into. So let me repeat the five things. Number one, miss deadlines. Number two, key team number out. Number three, technology problems. Number four, finding requirements that you missed because you didn't read through the entire thing. And five, not having a strategy that everybody's bought into that's moving everybody in the same direction. So those five things, I mean, there's more certainly, but those are five of the key things that we see that really hold people back, that trip people up, that cause humongous challenges in the midst of what's already a difficult task. Why do we want to make it harder on ourselves?
(18:05):
So anything you can do. The first three things almost kind of like you have to have a little bit of a troubleshooting guide. You've got to have a little bit of a backup game plan. Whereas four and five are more, you need to be proactive on the front end and not let yourself get into those situations. So we love to hear your stories about how our tips and our information that we've given you has helped you. So please come out, join our LinkedIn community, send us a message, whatever it is. But we'd love to hear your success stories. Thanks for listening. You have been listening to the RFP Success Show with Lisa.
Outro (18:41):
This has been another episode of the RFP Success Show with Lisa Rehurek, a 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, 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 the rfpsuccesscompany.com.