Don’t give ’em what they want
It seems obvious that the most important thing you should do in responding to Request for Proposals (RFPs) is to meet the requirements and give the requestor exactly what he or she has asked for. But when there's only one winner, you can't afford to play it safe. That will only get you a seat alongside the other spectators when what you really want is center stage and a standing ovation.
As my friend John Sharpe told me, make sure you understand the rules, then ignore them.
Before you throw out the RFP, though, hear this. John was talking about advertising pitches to private companies. Ignoring the rules in that world might give you a better chance of wowing the client and winning the business. In the world of government proposals, however, you better follow the rules or your proposal might never land on the desk of the decisionmaker. You have to get past the gatekeepers—the procurement officers who typically write the requirements. Once you're over that hurdle, then you can be big and bold.
It's what I call the one-two punch. One: don't get kicked out. Two: make sure you stand taller than the rest. In other words, be perfectly compliant and outstandingly compelling.
How do you pull that off? When we work together, we'll first break down the RFP and make sure we know every detail. Then we'll get down cold every possible thing that will affect the decision in addition to the stated requirements: the client's emotional needs, economic drivers, political pressures, and the end result they seek. What is the overarching outcome they want? This may or may not be spelled out in the RFP (most often, it is not).
Blair Enns of Win Without Pitching says it this way in a recent article:
The lesson we take from it is not that we should never give the client what they want, but that often, when the client is constructing the brief on their own, they leave out things they haven’t considered or with which they have no previous experience.
In other words, they don't know what they don't know, so the RFP may not tell you what is really going on. Blair goes on to say that often firms focus on checking the boxes and the internal voice they listen to is the one who says, "[L]et’s give the client what they asked for and not screw this up."
Ignore that voice and get to know their needs better than they do. Then be bold and tell them what you're going to do and what it's going to achieve for them, even if it's outside their stated scope. To paraphrase John and Blair, don't play it safe! You might get shot down when you stand up on the field of battle, but it's your best chance to lead your side to victory.
Go for it.
