5 Tips and Tools for Creating Amazing RFP Responses
An amazing RFP response can provide additional revenue streams for your business. Are you an expert in your field? Do you know your organization is ready to provide an expert-level product? If so, the world of Request for Proposals (RFPs) is a lucrative ecosystem you can’t afford to ignore. But in this bustling, competitive world of bids and proposals, you need to put your best foot forward to stand apart from the competition. At The Bid Lab, we work with winning organizations every day to create competitive responses to RFPs. We know what it takes to bring a bid response from good to great. Even better? We know what it takes to win businesses with RFPs. So, we’ve listed a few of our favorite RFP response tips to share with The Bid Lab community.
Find Your Enthusiasm, and Harness It
The RFP process can be an exhaustive one. And guiding a successful RFP proposal from concept to contract requires dedication and diligence. To navigate an RFP with the proper level of consistency and attention to detail, find what excites you about the opportunity and keep it close in mind as you craft your response.
Whether it’s the passion you get from your work or the thrill of competing for a potentially transformative opportunity, leverage your enthusiasm. Learn everything you can about how to write a winning bid. This will help your team meet deadlines, catch tiny mistakes and provide a positive representation of the excellence with which you work.
Build an Amazing RFP Response With Design Software
You absolutely need to know your audience when it comes to designing the perfect RFP response. Some bids might require very strict responses with predefined style guides. But at The Bid Lab, we find that RFP reviewers often crave proposals that stand out from the pack. This leads us straight to RFP response tip #2: look for user-friendly document design tools.
Design software tools offer valuable opportunities to help you convey complex information concisely. At the same time, they demonstrate your firm’s creativity. Design tool options like Adobe’s Creative Suite or a free alternative can help your RFP show rather than tell. They offer helpful shortcuts and beautiful templates to incorporate charts, graphs, images, videos and more. These elements can make the difference between a response and an amazing RFP. So, embrace those tools that can help an RFP get its message across effectively. Evaluators value a well-designed proposal because it speaks to an organization’s dexterity, prowess and out-of-the-box thinking.
Utilize RFP Artificial Intelligence Tools Intelligently
Automated RFP tools leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) can sometimes help organizations complete an amazing RFP proposal quickly and effectively. We haven’t yet found a bid software tool that can drive an RFP response fully. But, some may help your organization save time or create certain efficiencies. This typically requires that you complete a large number of RFP responses to be worth the investment. So, hold off on this until your volumes are really high.
Bid database software options can be helpful in auto-filling responses, facilitating team communication and providing possible search optimizations. However, these tools remain quite limited in their effectiveness without a dedicated human element. Prices can range dramatically among different options as well. This makes it hard to scale up RFP operations enough to fully leverage the AI-enabled benefits.
Collaborate With Technology
Our next RFP response tip: leverage powerful online organization and storage platforms. Whether you use an open platform like Google Shared Drive, more secure options like Dropbox, Skype or something entirely different, using technology to collaborate is vital. Amazing RFPs aren’t written alone. Instead, they benefit from the engagement of myriad internal stakeholders to achieve completion.
From budgets and technical functions to legal reviews, RFPs mandate all relevant inputs are correct and approved. This not only helps to confirm buy-in when it comes to budget allocation, but it also assists in implementation after the project concludes. With such high stakes, you need a collaboration tool that helps you provide feedback quickly, track and manage schedules, communicate effectively and share voluminous data efficiently. A tool that also allows you to audit multiple versions of your proposal is your best bet.
Use Your Toolbox to Create an Amazing RFP
Now that your RFP toolbox is metaphorically stuffed to the brim, it’s time to get out there and start winning bids. No tool can make an impact gathering dust. After all, winning the perfect RFP opportunity requires time, effort and practice. However, we know which RFP tools work, and they can certainly help with the writing process. Luckily, these tools offer some of the best support and efficiencies we’ve seen and can help your proposal team start winning bids today.
You Don’t Have to Go It Alone
If you or your business need additional support and expertise to help you manage a bid response, reach out to The Bid Lab today. After all, we’re experts and have plenty more RFP response tips to share! We not only assist our clients in finding RFPs that strategically align with their business needs, but we also help manage their responses to ensure a win-worthy proposal. Yes, even in a difficult market. If you’re interested in learning more about what we do or have questions about how we do it, contact us today for a complimentary consultation. Get started by calling 1-844-4BIDLAB or emailing respond@thebidlab.com.
