How Much RFP Business Are You Planning To Lose?
Do your hands go clammy when you see those dreaded letters…RFP?
Do you hate prospects who ask you what you do and how much you charge?
95% of business people answer those two questions with different answers. I don’t get it.
Requests for proposals are exactly that. Someone (and that someone is usually a national or international company or a public agency or a branch of government) wants you to give them a proposal. That means they want you to make them an offer! Are you making so much money that you don’t want to make an offer to a large, potential customer?
Does your business plan state that you are going to ignore large prospects? Probably not!
Like most owners of Canadian small businesses, you pay taxes to the federal government, your provincial government and municipal government. You probably also contribute to the revenues of the power company, phone company, various insurance companies, airlines, automobile companies…well, you get the picture. You are paying a lot of money each year to very large organizations. Wouldn’t it be nice to get some of it back and maybe get a very profitable return on your contributions?
Every one of those large organizations has a purchasing department, and every one of those purchasing departments is mandated to get the best deal they can for their organization. Virtually all of their external purchases are tendered through RFPs. That’s billions of dollars every year.
This is an important topic, so stay tuned for more installments…