So, you have completed and submitted your proposal…now what? Consider completing an internal review of the submission to see what areas you could improve on for the next one and where you felt your submission could be stronger (e.g. examples). If possible, invite the primary Account lead, the RFP author, the Business Development lead, and the subject matter experts that contributed to the response.
Capture comments from the internal debrief and add them to your content database. Most companies have a repository of standard content, but I suggest that you create a quick spreadsheet or form that tracks the RFP requirements, what the response was, and comments regarding potential improvements to the responses.
The other important next step after submission is the debrief with the issuer. Once a RFP has closed and been awarded, and if you were not selected, you should ask the RFP issuer for feedback on your submission. Public and broader public entities typically have a requirement to provide unsuccessful respondents with a debrief. Private sector issuers may not, and it may be difficult to get feedback to your submission from them. In this case, try reaching out through your network connections to get feedback.
Public sector debriefs are very prescriptive and usually one of the evaluators will be there in the debrief session. You can ask them to provide you with the scores you received, the pros and cons of the rated requirements, and how you ranked against other respondents.
The goal of debriefs are to get valuable feedback (even if negative) to improve your future RFPs. Add the feedback into your database and refer to it in the future…it could improve your chances of winning next time.
I’ll explore debriefs in more detail in a later blog…the point I would like to make here is that internal and external debriefs can proved important benefits to future responses. It is also important to record the comments, as these will add to the body of knowledge and help direct your response writing in the future.
Lastly, we’d like to hear from you! We are putting out a call to our followers to let us know if they have a specific topic on RFPs they would like addressed. So, what are your RFP pain points? Bring on your questions and we’ll answer.
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