Here are 5 tips that can help you develop a good RFP response.
Tip #1 – Develop an accurate and easy to use table of contents.
It is important to understand what is being asked. An accurate table of contents developed from your careful reading of the RFP will demonstrate to the client that you understand what is needed. Your table of contents needs to exactly match the order of the questions in the RFP, as sections of your proposal may be evaluated by different people and may need to be shared. Focus on making information easy to find for the evaluators is your main goal in developing the table of contents. Some RFPs will tell you how to structure your table of contents. These are the easy ones. Other RFPs will provide information in several places and you will have to intuit what the evaluators, your users, want. These are the harder ones, as you will need to leverage the technical communication core competencies of audience analysis, information design, and clear communication.
Tip #2 – Address all mandatory requirements. Always.
Mandatory requirements are sections that you must answer or your RFP response may be disqualified. They are there to help the evaluators assess your RFP fairly against others, and provide a consistent and transparent framework so that all responses can be evaluated in the same way. It is important that you address all of the mandatory requirements. Make sure you have identified all of them, as these are sometimes located in various sections of the RFP, not just in the section labelled “Mandatory Requirements”.
Tip #3 – Use a checklist to track information.
You can develop a checklist from your table of contents to track the information for the RFP. Various software tools, such as spreadsheets, work well. A good idea is to assign someone to manage the flow of information as the RFP response is developed. Information you may want to track includes the RFP section reference, the person who is responsible for providing the information, the internal deadline for providing the information, and where the information is coming from.
Tip #4 - Follow instructions and answer the questions.
It is important to follow the instructions of the RFP. For example, if you are instructed to provide your answer in 500 words, do so--additional words may be discarded by the software or the RFP response may be thrown out of the bidding process. It is the RFP requestor that sets the rules, and we need to follow their rules to get their business.
Tip #5 – Be aware of rated requirements.
RFP evaluators give more value to certain sections over others, and usually tell you in the RFP what these are. In public and broader public sector RFPs, rated requirements are clearly stated. In private sector RFPs, you may need to “read between the lines” or use market intelligence sources to discover these. It is important to know the value that is placed on a particular response so that you know how much effort to devote to your answer. For example if your company description is rated at 10 points and your pricing is rated at 50 points, then the pricing is the most important information the RFP requestor is looking for and deserves most of your attention.
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