Preparing Your Team for an RFP

What are you willing to spend?

Way too many web projects don’t answer this question up front, because they don’t know how. So they send out RFPs with no budgets assigned, and figure they’ll use the vendor responses to sort of figure out what they need to spend.

Unfortunately, what this really does is shift the onus of budgeting from the client team to the vendor team. Instead of telling you what your project will cost, we (as vendors who want to win your project) make a guess on what we think you’re willing to spend. Without the input of your budget, we will do as much research as I can on the size and type of your organization, take a guess at what you might be able to spend based on what I know, and propose a solution that does as much as possible within that. If that’s what you want, great! 

But the truth is that a good vendor has options for different budgets. We can propose solutions that range from $30K to $3M — each solution carries with it different variables, such as the sophistication of the tools, the amount of features, and the level of automation and integration with your other tools. A Dodge Neon and a Ferrari F40 can both get you to the grocery store, after all.

So if you want a say in what types of solutions you want, and save both you and your vendors time, I’d recommend at least providing a range. If you aren’t sure how to set your range, I’ve been pleased to find that explaining your project to an LLM in detail and asking it to provide a range tends to lead to useful results. This is essentially what you were looking to do with potential vendors anyway, and it’s a lot faster. 

It’s also important to spend some time making the business case for how you’ll measure the return on your investment. You may just be looking at this project as a cost, but you should also consider the monetary value of things like time saved or more leads converted to customers. These may lead you to think about the budget differently. Communicate these ROI points as key success measures in your RFP.

Is everyone on board?

I used to be surprised by the times where we’d start the proposal process only to find that key decision markers within the organization were in the dark. Now we’ve simply worked this into our process. 

If you have some problematic or opposing members of your organization, it can be tempting to leave them out of the process. But, if they’re a key stakeholder, this will lead to inevitable problems down the road.

Before you get too far along, I’d recommend mentally dividing your stakeholders into a few groups: 

• People who make the go/no-go decision,
• People who need to be in on the decision process, and importantly, 
• People who need to feel heard and involved even if they don’t have a final say.

While the people that fit into these categories vary based on the organization, I’d always recommend reaching out to IT and Legal. They will likely have requirements that are better exposed early.

Heading off questions.

It’s also key to make sure that you’re giving your potential vendors enough information and detail to provide you with an accurate estimate. Budget and timeline are obviously a big part of this, but it’s also important to let them know about potential integrations in enough detail to be useful. 

For example, it’s not really sufficient to say “we use Salesforce.” Instead specify exactly how you’re using Salesforce. For forms? Analytics? Does the Salesforce user profile tie to a user login on the website? At minimum, you’ll want to note which systems have a deep integration with your site, and which are simply connected with a link or a Javascript embed. 

How will you decide?

Before you even get your first proposal response, you should have a plan in place for how you should make your decision. Most well-considered approaches use a combination of objective measures (+10 points if it has this feature) and subjective measures (1-20 points based on how easy it is to use). It’s also helpful to put extra weight on the categories that are most important to you and establish a rubric (10% for timeline, 40% for cost, 30% for features, etc). 

You should also take some time to think about what you’re really looking for in your inevitable product demos. Take note of your most important (and most challenging) workflow challenges with your current systems and have your prospective vendors all show these scenarios for an apples-to-apples comparison. 

The beginning of a great relationship.

A good vendor-client relationship comes from a clear vision, honest and transparent communication, and a constantly open dialogue. Doing your planning upfront takes a bit of work, but it’s an investment that pays off over and over during the course of your project. 

Sadly, unlike with wedding planning, cake tasting is not usually part of the process. 

Looking for help with your RFP process? We’d love to talk. Or if you’re in a hurry, give your RFP to our AI RFP Advisor to get an expert opinion before you send it to vendors.