Review the RFP Document or Opportunity

If you are responding to a formal RFP, you should immediately analyze what the RFP says and what you are being asked to do. (If there is no formal RFP document, as in the case of a proactive opportunity, it's still a very good idea to figure out what the client expects you to deliver.) As soon as you receive the RFP (or even a draft copy of the RFP), begin the analysis by reading it carefully, separating out its requirements, and performing the seven-step audience analysis to get below the surface level of technical requirements to the core issues. As with your audience, it is helpful to break the process of analyzing the RFP into several steps, in this case nine:

1. Read the complete RFP quickly to gain an overall sense of its scope and requirements.

2. Note any obvious conflicts or discrepancies in the RFP, either in the margins or on a separate sheet.

3. Burst (separate) the RFP contents into the following categories:

   1. Administrative information: information regarding logistics, the time and location of the bidders' conference, if any, your points of contact, how many copies to prepare, due dates, schedules, address to which your proposal must be sent, and so forth.

      • This information will be vital in developing your timeline for getting the proposal completed.

   2. Legal requirements: clauses or specifications that govern contracts, including terms and conditions, subcontracting requirements, payment schedules, ownership of the work product, certifications and representations, and so on.

      • This information is important in determining whether or not you can comply with the terms and conditions or other governing clauses.

   3. Format guidelines: information regarding the required or recommended format, including page limits, font sizes, margins, restrictions on the use of color, guidelines regarding graphics, and so on.

      • This information will be important in designing and publishing your proposal and in establishing appropriate visuals, determining the length of key sections, and managing the writing.

   4. Content requirements: information or specifications that guide your development of a solution, including the scope of work, technical requirements, required sections, evaluation criteria, evidence required, management plan, and so on.

      • This information is vital because it shapes your actual content. Use it to develop the compliance matrix, to determine your key strategy or win theme, and to develop your cognitive web and requirements checklist.

4. Reorganize the RFP if it is not clearly laid out, placing the various types of information into the categories you identified in the previous step.

   Note

   In reorganizing the RFP, you are simply making a document that flows more logically for your own purposes. When you respond, you should respond to the RFP as it was written.

5. Develop a requirements checklist.

   • How do you know whether something is a requirement? Well-written RFPs will tell you what's required or mandatory and what's simply desirable. In addition, if the language states that you "shall" or "must" do something, it's a requirement. Finally, assume that issues that come up repeatedly within an RFP are so significant they constitute de facto requirements.

6. Define the terminology used in the RFP

   1. Jargon

   2. Organizational names or relationships

   3. Technical terms that seem to be used in an unusual way

7. Highlight any requirements or instructions in the RFP that you cannot meet, including legal requirements to include proprietary or confidential information.

   • You do not have to be 100 percent compliant to win a contract. However, you must be aware of the expectations and requirements stated in the RFP and take exception to any that you can't or won't be meeting.

8. List any areas of ambiguity in the RFP, any requirements that seem contradictory or incomplete, and any that seem to deviate from the functional purpose of the RFP. Some of these items may be the basis of questions you raise at the bidders' conference, if there is one. Or they might be the subject of e-mails you send back to the account team or the prospect, seeking clarification.

9. Compile all of the ambiguities, contradictions, inexplicable jargon, questions, and clarifications you need into a list that you can send to the client or raise at the bidders' conference.