Intent

Responding to RFPs can be painful ?? , but it doesn't have to be! Here are some quick tips on how to set your team up for success: 1?? Review the proposal beforehand??? This may seem like a no brainer, but take the time to grasp what concerns the prospect most and what they aim to achieve. Identify any dealbreakers and decide if this is a go/no-go before diving into the responses. 2?? Align with stakeholders ?? Meet with all necessary stakeholders to ensure everyone is on the same page.? Be clear about the scope, urgency, needs from each stakeholder, and desired outcomes 3?? Define clear project owners ?? Establish a single-threaded owner and a project manager to guide the process. 4?? Provide clear communication of timelines ??? Establish clear timelines to keep everyone on the project on track. Be especially mindful of subdeadlines! 5?? Automate where possible ?? RFP processes can be laden with repetitive and tedious tasks. Leveraging tools like Intent enables your team to automate the straightforward questions 6?? Set your team up for success after winning the RFP ?? Winning an RFP is just the first step to a long and fruitful customer relationship. Make sure it’s grounded on a strong foundation by not overpromising your product support capabilities. 7?? Conduct a post-mortem ?? Take the time for a post-mortem evaluation. Assess how the team performed and identify areas of improvement. Update your question repository in Intent to include any new questions you encountered—making your next RFP response more efficient. Got any other tips? Share below in the comments section! For more learnings, read more here: https://lnkd.in/gQcY8zrM

3 unspoken ?? (maybe controversial?) truths about RFPs 1?? RFPs don’t win deals That’s not to say that RFPs aren’t important and that you should phone it in. In fact, doing a subpar job of fielding an RFP response can definitely lose a deal. However, crafting hyper-elegant responses isn’t going to be the X-factor strategy that wins you the deal. Our advice? Focus on completeness and timeliness of responses, and to save some time time, try automating your responses with Intent. What’s most important is the relationship you build with your point of contact and the ability to position yourself as a strategic, value-add partner to their business needs. Which then leads us to... 2?? The best way to win an RFP is to influence it before it is written Typically, when a buyer writes an RFP, they are writing the RFP with a particular solution already in mind. As a sales rep, you want to make sure that you are that particular solution. Therefore in our experience, the best account reps are the ones able to position themselves as a strategic domain advisor to their buyers. The best way to get ahead of your competitors is to ensure that the RFP is written with your solution in mind. 3?? Sometimes it’s best not to play at all If it’s evident that an RFP wasn’t written for you, sometimes it may be best not to participate at all. Responding to an RFP takes massive time, energy, and investment across multiple teams within an organization. Take the time to thoroughly review an RFP when it falls in your inbox in order to distinguish when it would be worthwhile to throw your hat in the ring or if you’re just column fodder. Are there any other unspoken truths about RFPs you would add? Comment below!?