How to set up your bid qualification process

You Miss All the Shots You Don’t Take, Right? (Hint: lol. wrong.)

You just received an RFP. You read through the requirements, and you’re a lukewarm requirements fit. You also realize you’ve never actually spoken to anyone at the company, except briefly with the procurement manager when they emailed you the RFP. Their legal terms also look like they’ll be a challenge - but that’s ok. You’ll respond anyways because you miss all the shots you don’t take, am I right?

You don’t stop to think that you never use this logic anywhere else in your life.

We are qualifying in and out of opportunities on a daily basis. The neighborhood café offers you a free coffee? Heck yes, you take it! A recruiter sends you a LinkedIn message for a job interview at a terrible company at half your current salary. You politely decline. Someone mildly creepy on the bus asks you out for drinks? Ya, you say no. We are always deciding how to spend our precious time.

Only respond to an RFP if you have a great chance of winning.

But responding to a bad RFP isn’t just a waste of your own time - it also wastes the wider team’s time, it will take some of your manager’s time, and ultimately, it takes a lot of team time away from deals you could actually win. Just like you wouldn’t say yes to that creepy date or shockingly bad job interview because “it might work out,” you need to qualify out of RFPs that are a bad fit.

It can be very difficult to turn off your mindset of chasing after everything; it can feel almost impossible to turn off subjective emotions when you see a high sales number or a shiny logo. But in order to make smart bidding decisions, you have to start thinking objectively with data. It’s not fun, it doesn’t sound cool, but it is the best way for you to know whether or not you should bid.

So how do you qualify in or out of an RFP? 

The answer is simply not simple, because one size does not fit all. As much as I want to give you a templated scorecard that you can start using right now, doing so would inevitably lead you to make poor qualification decisions - which is the exact opposite of what I am trying to do. 

Instead, I will walk you through how to build one that is perfect for you and your company’s situation.

Build out your qualification requirements.

First, gather any win/loss data your company has. Are there any indicators that show when you win or lose? Maybe the data shows you are more likely to win when the potential customer has already seen a demo or has spoken with one of your current customers. If data shows that, then take note. Start a list that looks something like this:

In general, there are a few requirement best practices that you can safely rely on:

1. You have a good relationship with one or many of the decision-makers/economic buyers/whatever your company calls the one(s) who will make the call
2. You are a good product/feature fit
3. You can agree to each other’s legal terms

When I help build proposal processes for companies with less-experienced sales teams, I notice the less-experienced sales reps have a tendency to bid for anything that vaguely resembles their product offering. When this is the case, I add those three items to the bid qualification criteria. If your sales team is also like this, then I suggest you include all three of those items. For more experienced sales teams that automatically understand these as imperative to their deal, you may be able to keep these items out. 

Now that you’ve started with some data-driven qualification criteria, you can start to build your qualification matrix. Here is an example:

As you can see in the third column, there is a place for “Next Steps.” This is so you can always see if there is a way to turn a “qualify out” to a “qualify in.” 

For example, if you can’t agree with some of their legal terms laid out in the RFP, then you need to have a conversation with one of the decision-makers to find out if terms can be changed. If the answer is No, then you can qualify out. But if they are open to negotiation, then you can change the answer to Yes. 

So now you have a nice, clear list of qualification requirements and next steps to take on any “No” items.

In the end, you should have four to ten qualification requirements. Anything longer is too onerous, and anything shorter probably means you need more win/loss/shortlist data. An example would look like this:

The format of the qualification decision criteria should be simple and provide a clear qualify in or qualify out answer. 

Many qualification scorecards have a numerical scoring system, instead of the “Yes” and “No.” response. But I highly discourage going down the scorecard route. The reason scorecards tend to be a poor choice is they leave a lot of room for ambiguity and gray area, which is everything a qualification decision shouldn’t be. Instead, use a checklist that is either a “Yes” or a “No.” This forces us to be honest about the qualification requirements. Either we have a good relationship with the decision-maker or we don’t; either we can agree to their legal terms or we can’t. The decision to bid or not needs to be clear, or you will inevitably end up bidding on many RFPs you should have left behind.

In short: Have clear qualification requirements. Stick to them. Constantly collect data so you can improve and update your qualification criteria as your company evolves and the customer landscape changes.

Questions for you!

What impact do you think not having a qualification has on the sales team as a whole? What impact does it have on you?

And do you have any advice for other sales teams on how to qualify in or out of an RFP process?