Let’s change the way we think about RFPs

What do you want from a business interaction with a prospective buyer of your services? The answer we hear most often is “to win the business” and whilst this is an admirable pursuit, shared by anyone, selling anything, it’s important to remember that this is just a result of something much more important to you and your business; a relationship with your customer. Why then, do we so often waste opportunities to forge these precious relationships? There’s a simple way to look at it: Is the time and effort you spend on an RFP equal to the prospective value of the outcome? The time it takes to fill out an RFP can be thirty hours plus, of the least rewarding admin work, at the end of which, you may not even get the deal. So it really comes down to this question: Do you perceive this opportunity as a genuine opportunity or not? Or is it just a hoop you need to jump through to get it over and done with and minimise the “RFPAIN”? But what if we can re-balance the scales? What if time and effort could be minimised, but quality and efficiency could be optimised? This could transform our B2B interactions into what they should have been in the first place, business prospects! By re-balancing this scale there’s also an epiphenomenal outcome: without the costly burden of a time investment on the process, the imperative of closing a deal changes in its quality. That doesn’t mean it’s any less important; it just means you are now more able to focus on what should be the number one goal in any business interaction. Making new relationships! Automating the process allows you to objectively review your fit with potential businesses and take back the reins. As our strategy officer & leading pre-sales guru Don Carmichael puts it:

Many smaller tech startups choose to qualify out of the process as early as possible to focus on opportunities better suited to their USP.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Don is absolutely right, the system is broken, and it is archaic, but the tools we have are changing fast. At Avnio, we’re giving all companies the opportunity to stop chasing their tails and start viewing these proposals as a chance to create new relationships, to be a player on the stage and ultimately win more business.

Stop running from RFPs and start looking at them for what they truly are, opportunities.

This isn’t the future of the RFP process, this is right now!