So, you want to land the business. But it’s big business. Big, big business – tens-of-thousands-or-even-millions-of-dollars big. It’s no longer good enough to just take a client for lunch or a beer after work and engage in some Class-A schmoozing. To land this type of business, you have to prove up your capabilities.
For large business contracts, many companies, especially those within government or with government connections, will issue what’s called an RFP – a Request for Proposal. To land the business, you then have to prepare a Response to RFP, which is usually a detailed report with appendices that throughly proves up your expertise in the desired area, and allows you to formally place a bid (quote) on the specified project.
Sounds simple in concept, but Responses to RFP are not only a lot of work, but they require a very specific skill set to complete – a unique combination of business savvy, writing expertise, strong organization skills, and professional design capabilities. For Responses to RFP to be effective they have to be:
1) Well structured
2) Organized EXACTLY as requested within the RFP
3) Concise while still being comprehensive (most have page limits)
4) Specific to that RFP (a canned response won’t do)
5) Delivered on time in the requested format
The combination of the above can be very intimidating for many companies, who may quite possibly have great expertise in completing the requested projects, but possibly not in selling themselves in the requested format.
At Blunt, we will help your company structure, organize, write and design an effective Response to RFP. From start to finish, we will read the RFP, provide you with our requirements, arm you with templates to organize your response, edit and write the submission, and then pair it with effective charts/graphs and infographics for optimal appeal.
To date, we have had 100 per cent of our Responses to RFP proceed to the next stage – interview.
Want us to help you land the business? We can help. info@bluntstrategic.com