Lisa Rehurek, CEO and Founder of the RFP Success Company was recently on the GrowFast Podcast.

Lisa, an RFP expert, shared key strategies for success. Emphasizing collaboration and value delivery, her approach focuses on aligning proposals with client goals. Clear objectives are crucial, and understanding the buyer's needs positions organizations as trusted partners in the competitive RFP process.

Key takeaways stress the importance of relationship-building before the RFP release. Attending events, early Zoom participation, and leveraging diversity programs establish connections and goodwill, setting the stage for success. Lisa underscores tracking metrics like wins, losses, response time, and go-no-go criteria for continuous improvement and informed decision-making.

Lisa advocates utilizing the Freedom of Information Act to gain insights into past RFPs and competitor proposals. This proactive approach enhances strategic advantages, providing a deeper understanding of the competitive landscape. Analyzing past submissions and competitor strategies empowers organizations to refine their approach and increase their chances of success.

In conclusion, Lisa Rehurek's RFP expertise offers a valuable roadmap for navigating this complex landscape. Emphasizing collaboration, understanding client objectives, building relationships, and leveraging data-driven insights, organizations can elevate their RFP responses and achieve better results.

You can find the whole episode of the Grow Fast Podcast with Lisa here:

‍Youtube

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

TheGrow Fast Podcast is brought to you by Breeze, the fastest, easiest, and lowest-cost way to process RFPs, RFIs, security questionnaires, and other important documents.

‍

This is the transcript for this episode:

‍

Mark Shriner [00:00]
Welcome to the Grow Fast Podcast, where we talk to leading sales, marketing, and business development professionals about how to accelerate sales, optimize marketing, and grow your business fast. Let's go.

Mark Shriner [00:11]
Hey Lisa, how are you?

Lisa Rehurek [00:14]
Hi, I'm good. How are you?

Mark Shriner [00:16]
Awesome. First off, thank you so much for being a guest on the Grow Fast Podcast. I'm a big fan of your RFP Success Podcast and your site. We're going to talk a lot about RFP best practices and all that. But before that, let me just ask you a couple of questions. Where are you located?

Lisa Rehurek [00:37]
I'm located in Tempe, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix.

Mark Shriner [00:41]
Awesome. And this time of the year must be beautiful and probably like sunny and 75 or something like that every single day.

Lisa Rehurek [00:48]
Mostly, except the last couple of days have been a little chilly for us, which is hilarious because people are like, "What are you, low 60s?" which is about what we are.

Mark Shriner [00:57]
Yeah, that's not chilly. I'm from Washington State, and that's a nice summer day for us. But I'm calling in today from Zagreb, Croatia, and it's been in the 20s Fahrenheit for the last few days. You want to wake up really quick in the morning, just step outside when it's 20 degrees.

Lisa Rehurek [01:20]
I'm a wimp, which is why I live in Arizona.

Mark Shriner [01:23]
What do you do in the summertime?

Lisa Rehurek [01:26]
You know, I go up north. I have a cabin about two hours north of here, and it's about 30 to 35 degrees cooler. So I escape for two months.

Mark Shriner [01:37]
Are you up near Prescott?

Lisa Rehurek [01:39]
No, a little bit further east, an area called Forest Lakes. It's right on the Mogollon Rim.

Mark Shriner [01:45]
Oh, very nice. Yeah, my mom lives in Prescott, and I'm down there two or three times a year to visit her and do mountain biking. My sons have soccer tournaments in Phoenix and Tucson, so I'm down there often. Unfortunately, most of that is in the winter, but even in the summer, Prescott is pretty nice because of the altitude. It's 5000 feet.

Mark Shriner [02:08]
When we started the Grow Fast Podcast, we deliberately made it cover a wide variety of sales and marketing-related topics on how to grow your company quickly. A couple of people asked me, "Why don't you just do a podcast based on RFPs?" I thought we'd run out of topics soon. Then I came across your site and your podcast. How many episodes have you recorded?

Lisa Rehurek [02:31]
It's about 140-something, I think.

Mark Shriner [02:36]
That's amazing. I've listened to many of them, and there are so many different areas of specialization and different rabbit holes you can go down in terms of how to respond to RFPs effectively. I've learned so much. So I was wrong, there is enough content there, and you are the proof. Let me ask you, you started the RFP Success Company about 13 years ago. What was the impetus for you to do that?

Lisa Rehurek [03:06]
You know, I actually started another business initially, which has been 14 years, as just a general business coach/consultant. It's like the kiss of death, right? I could do anything for anybody. That was me in my solopreneur days. About six years in, I started getting people coming to me for RFP help because that's a lot of what I did in my corporate life. I always like to tell people the niche kind of found me. I wasn't looking for it. I mean, I was looking for a niche, but not RFPs. A friend of mine said, "I think your niche might have just found you." I thought there can't possibly be enough work, to your point about the topics, right? There can't possibly be enough work. But, if you think about it, state government, federal government, corporations, the government uses RFPs to purchase almost everything, and they are the biggest buyer of goods and services. So why would we not think there's plenty of business there? So we started testing it. In 2008, I officially rebranded to the RFP Success Company, and in 2019, I hired my first employee. It's all history from there.

Mark Shriner [04:31]
That's awesome. It's interesting because it doesn't matter the size of the company. From my experience, small, medium-sized, up to enterprise-level companies have the option and opportunity to respond to RFPs. When we were doing market research before we launched the Mimikyu RFP, we went through the private sector and public sector. I remember being on the California government procurement portal, and there were RFPs for pest control. If you want the government contract, guess what, you're going to have to do an RFP.

Lisa Rehurek [05:16]
You're going to do an RFP. We get some random ones, like mortuary transportation. These things you don't think about. But if you have a mortuary, how great to get a one to three-year contract with the government to give you more consistency in your business? The government's got to transfer dead bodies, right? It's crazy what you don't think about the government buying.

Mark Shriner [05:44]
And just to give you one more example, I have a relative who works for a playground equipment reseller. They're probably about $10 million a year in revenue, a pretty small company, but a big part of their business comes from responding to RFPs. It's school districts and city governments. So let's jump into some of the lessons you've learned and the lessons you pass on to your customers. First off, should a company have a process to respond to RFPs? A lot of companies just come in, and the business development manager or sales manager says, "Hey, we got this RFP," and they kind of just shoot from the hip. Should people have a process? And why? What should that process look like, if so?

Lisa Rehurek [06:48]
Yes, of course, people should have a process. Here's why. Your competitors are going to go in and answer the question, meet the requirements, be compliant, have the qualifications, and answer the questions as they think they should based on how they're asked. That's what everybody does, like, "Let's just get an answer in there. Let's get this thing out." The industry-wide average win rate is somewhere around 20%. Would you be satisfied with that win percentage in regular business development? I don't think so. Without a process, that's all you're going to be able to pull off. Without a process and the right team of experts, you can't just pull a salesperson off the street and say, "Here, bid on this RFP," just because they're a salesperson. Salespeople are not attentive to detail. The process helps you ensure you don't miss anything. One of the things we do on the front end is something called shredding the RFP. That's one of the first parts of the process where we go through and make a list of all the requirements, including multiple questions within questions. It's easy to miss those. We shred the RFP; that's the first part of the process. Another key component is the calendar, mapping all the key dates when things need to be done. Salespeople think, "This is due on the 28th; I can have this done on the 27th or maybe the morning of the 28th." But so much has to take place between the writing being done and the proposal being done. You've got to map all of that out for reviews and have a process for how that works to submit the proposal that will get you the win. You won't get many wins if you're just hobbling along.

Mark Shriner [08:56]
Right? I think a lot of times RFPs can put stress on an organization because it comes in and says, "Oh, who's responsible for this?" and you end up with the sales manager or the salesperson. They don't have access to all the information because RFPs ask for financial information, HR information, security information, diversity equity inclusion information, product and service-related information. The salesperson doesn't have access to all that information, so they knock on people's doors and say, "Hey, man, I'm busy with my day job. Leave me alone." So maybe you can talk about the internal friction in getting something out?

Lisa Rehurek [09:46]
Yes, absolutely. Salespeople are not wired to be attentive to detail or putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. They want to win, but it's going to be the ugly stepchild for them. It is in many organizations where it's a slog because, A, you don't have a process that helps walk you through it, B, you don't have the expertise, and C, you don't have the pieces of the puzzle ready to go, like library contents. Companies that don't pay attention don't have that library content. Now they're thrown into this RFP with two and a half weeks to respond, and it's hard to start from scratch. It's much harder than editing something else. There are many pieces to the process. Internally, we see it at the very front end: should we even be bidding on this? One of the things that is so heartbreaking is somebody will hire us, and we'll be like, "Did you look at the RFP? Do you know you can respond to this without deal-breakers?" Then, halfway through working with us, they finally look at the terms and conditions and realize they can't meet the insurance requirements or don't have a particular expertise. There's no time to find a subcontractor. So, there's much on the front end that you need to do well, including vetting the RFP. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. You should be going after opportunities that align with your high-value client and what you want for your business. People get excited and go for it without paying attention to any of that. I've seen both where they get excited and then become disillusioned because they see some of those requirements and decide to forget about it.

Mark Shriner [11:50]
Which for me is disappointing because I'm a true salesperson, business development person at heart, and I don't want to leave any business on the table. I want to take it all whenever possible. Of course, if they're asking for something we can't deliver on, okay, let it go. You have to be efficient with your time. But when it comes down to that go/no-go decision, what are some best practices that you advise companies to follow?

Lisa Rehurek [12:18]
One of the big ones is what I mentioned: does this fit with your high-value targets? With government contracts, you're going to get a one to three-year contract, and you're stuck with them. You want more business, but do you want the kind of business that will hurt your team, be a slog, and be hard on your team members? No. You should look for the business that is a mutual fit. Otherwise, you'll be stuck with them for up to three years. Another deal breaker is sometimes finding something like you must have staff on site in a particular state when you're in another state. Are you willing to do that? No, we didn't notice that. Looking for those small requirements that you can easily skim over until you're in the throes of the RFP response is crucial. Matching up with: Can we do the work, not stretch? Sometimes there can be a stretch, but be careful with thinking, "We can do 60% of it, but this other 40% we'll figure out." You know, it's a bit of a stretch.

Mark Shriner [13:44]
And I think the first three or four letters of "stretch" are "stress." So, you've got to be careful there.

Mark Shriner [13:55]
How important is it, or how would you advise, let's say, I'm a sales manager, and I'm having trouble managing these RFPs. Lisa, come and help me out. I need to involve other people in the organization, and they're always busy. What can I do to make them more open to helping me respond to these documents, whether it's the HR team, the finance team, and so on?

Lisa Rehurek [14:23]
Yeah, it's a loaded question because it depends on the internal culture. What are the goals and objectives of the leadership team in overall business development goals? What percentage of that do they anticipate coming from RFPs? One thing we find is most people don't understand the culture needed to be a winning RFP entity. The culture means the commitment of everybody on board with that kind of work, just as much as anything else. If they tell the salesperson, "I don't care, just go make it happen," the salesperson will struggle. We've seen times when we've helped put together a business case, talking points, or maybe brought us in to have that conversation with leadership to say, "Look, if you want to go after this kind of business, everybody's got to be on the same page, or you're going to keep losing." Here's what that's costing you. It costs a lot of money in time and expenses to bid on an RFP. So why settle for a 20% win rate? You should be up in the 70-80% win rates. If the whole company isn't on board with that, you must have a game plan to get them on board. Can you drill down a bit? I'm sure you've been involved as a change agent in some of these organizations. How do you facilitate that?

Lisa Rehurek [15:57]
We meet them where they are and get a sense for the team. We often send out a survey to ask questions ahead of time. We get on the phone and drill down into their goals and objectives for the company from a business development perspective. What percentage of that is coming from entities requiring RFPs? The big piece is doing the numbers. What is it costing you right now? How many times do you bid? How many times do you lose? Looking at those numbers, most of the time, the C-suite will pay attention when you start talking revenue numbers, expense numbers, and what they're losing. We have an ROI calculator, and we walk them through the return on investment when winning versus losing. That gap is usually very eye-opening. The data is crucial to track and take back to your leadership. That's first and foremost. Sometimes, it's as simple as educating them. This is what a process looks like, and this is why it's important. Everyone thinks it's just about the writing, but when you get to the writing, one of the things we always talk about is distinction. Distinction is vital because everyone else will have requirements and qualifications. How are you going to stand out? You can't stand out if all you know is the RFP. If the only information you have is in the RFP, it will fall flat. You need different information, insight information, and then you can start writing at a different level. So, we educate them on some of that. It's education and data.

Mark Shriner [17:58]
I think that data is something most companies don't have when they don't have a process. They don't have the data. They don't know their win rate or how much they won. If you look at it, sometimes you realize you've won a significant amount of money, but your win rate is lower. Imagine if we could increase our win rate from 20% to 35%. What would that mean to the bottom line? If we become more efficient in responding, we could do more RFPs because we'd have greater bandwidth. That momentum, that snowball, really starts to grow. I want to return to the go/no-go question for a second and then get into content.

Mark Shriner [18:40]
Sometimes you get an RFP, and there are insurance requirements or a need for SOC 2, and you're like, "We hit 99% of what they want, but this one thing we don't hit." What do you advise your customers in situations like that?

Lisa Rehurek [19:01]
The first thing is to ask the question however you can. In government RFPs, there's generally an open Q&A period. This is why it's crucial to review the RFP upfront. Ask the question, "Are you open to negotiating terms and conditions?" Especially if you're a small business, we just had one where the client couldn't meet the insurance requirements. She called the company, a corporate RFP, and explained she was a small business. They said, "Oh, we didn't adjust for small businesses. We'll adjust that." It was as simple as that, just asking the question. First and foremost, ask the question. Secondly, if you need a subcontractor, you need to know that early on. Review the RFP early for all those things that are not sexy or fun but essential. Have someone on your team pick all that apart and say, "Here are the things we need to consider." We also recommend an RFP go/no-go scorecard. It has all the company's criteria, and there's a score based on the priority of that criteria. Over time, it becomes robust because you start seeing the same requirements. It reminds you to look for them. You have a guide to check insurance requirements and ensure you meet all qualifications. That's something you do on the front end before deciding. Our scorecard is fancy because you answer yes or no, it scores it, and pops up a note saying you should not be bidding on this, go for it, or this deserves more discussion internally.

Mark Shriner [21:33]
Is that a customer-only tool or public-facing?

Lisa Rehurek [21:35]
At this point, it's only a customer-only tool, yes.

Mark Shriner [21:39]
A lot of customers could benefit from that. I'll have a follow-up conversation with you after the podcast about that because that's something I think we could introduce to our customers. Many get stuck on the go/no-go question and want to bring structure to it, but it's challenging. I'm curious, in your consultancy, do you ever get asked, "Here's an RFP, could you tell us if we should do this or not?"

Lisa Rehurek [22:00]
We do, particularly with clients we've been working with long-term. We get to know them well. We have a retainer for companies that want that kind of partnership. Those long-term clients will bring RFPs to us, and we'll review them, go through the go/no-go for them, and make a recommendation or have a discussion.

Mark Shriner [22:39]
Let's get into content now. Some companies have an RFP writer or outsource to an RFP organization. Most companies try to cobble stuff together on their own and answer the questions. What is your advice? Do you just answer the question deadpan, or does it make sense to gussy things up, put a little marketing spin on things? Are there other things you'd advise on putting together the appropriate content?

Lisa Rehurek [23:21]
Content is one of my favorite things because there are so many great things companies can do to fix it. We look at the RFP, and there's a question asking about us. Naturally, we respond by answering their question, but they don't care about you until they care about you. They want to know how what you offer will solve their want or need. It's a subtle shift but important. Instead of saying, "We help you," or "We provide," you flip it around to make it about them. My team member, Ted, always says his favorite radio station is WII-FM, "What's in it for me?" Everyone cares about that. That's when they'll lean in and pay attention. Remember, these evaluators review at least two or three RFP responses, and we just had one with 30 bidders. There's a human reading these 30 responses, and they might score you.

Mark Shriner [24:59]
Is that part of the go/no-go decision as well, like how many other companies are in this? If you told me there are 30 other companies, I might say, "They're not really interested in us. They just have to tick a box." What are your thoughts on that?

Lisa Rehurek [25:00]
Yes, it depends on the relationship you have. If it's just an RFP that came across your desk, you have no relationship, and they don't know about you, you're probably not going to know how many bidders there are. Maybe there's a Q&A or a bidders conference, and you see many bidders. If you don't have an in, I wouldn't bid. That would be part of the go/no-go. But it depends. The client who bid with 30 other bidders won. She was shocked and excited. Not only did they win against 29 other bidders, but they also beat out several big competitors. She wanted to go for it strategically to get her name out there, and they won. You can position your content better than anyone else if you have the right information. If you pay attention to the right things, the content is crucial. But you need a lot of knowledge to make it the best it can be.

Mark Shriner [26:12]
Can you give me an example of when you helped a customer optimize a specific piece of content?

Lisa Rehurek [26:18]
One thing we like to do is integrate what we call credibility statements. You can say, "We help companies win up to 60% more of their RFPs." But then, if we reposition that statement to say, "In the 30 years we've been working in the RFP space, we've seen XYZ distinguishers that make your win rate increase exponentially. It's as simple as doing one, two, and three." It positions you as a trusted advisor and shows versus tells. We can talk about our success with other companies all day, but what does that statement even mean? We need to prove it through testimonials, case studies, or statistics, showing that we're the premier company. It just positions you differently and builds trust. You want those evaluators to lean in and pay attention to what you're writing. Otherwise, you'll blend in with everyone else and likely lose.

Mark Shriner [28:52]
It's funny you mention that because I wrote a book on sales, and one of the chapters is about trust. If people love your product but don't trust you, they won't buy from you. I'm listening to "The Wolf of Wall Street" by Jordan Belfort, and he talks about the three things customers need before they buy: trust in you, trust in your organization, and trust in your product. Trust takes time, especially in an RFP process without face-to-face meetings. You need to find ways to accelerate that trust. You support a statement with something like, "We take security seriously. We have ISO 27001 and SOC 2." Your examples of specific customer wins or testimonials are huge. Personal introductions are even better. When a business owner says, "I worked with Lisa; she revolutionized our business. You need to work with her," there's no selling involved. You just go in and start problem-solving.

Lisa Rehurek [29:24]
I have a couple of things to say to that. One, a friend of mine was invited to be on the advisory board of HR.com. She works in the HR realm. That's a beautiful credibility thing. Immediate credibility. If you have anything like that, those are great credibility boosters. Second, RFPs hand you some of that on a silver platter. I've seen many versions, but they must have a need if they release an RFP. They have the money, though it might not be the budget you want. Your job in the RFP is to build trust and connect the solution to their need. That's what it's all about.

Mark Shriner [30:51]
Let's imagine a company has done an amazing job on an RFP and created wonderful content with your advice. Then, next month, another RFP comes in. Often, companies run around trying to find the last RFP and copy and paste stuff. The questions aren't always the same. There are best practices in reusing content. Can you talk a bit about that?

Lisa Rehurek [31:20]
We recommend finishing your RFP and then waiting a month before reviewing it. In the throes of a timeline, things can get messy. Give it some time, review it, and pull out the standard questions asked repeatedly. Build your repository. There are great software options to help with that. But you need a process, and you can't just copy and paste it into the new proposal. Customize it. It's much better to edit than to start from scratch. We've heard horror stories where companies get an RFP response with the wrong company name. It goes in the trash because they're looking for any reason to disqualify you. When you take it from the RFP and put it into a library, remove company mentions and make it evergreen for customization.

Mark Shriner [33:03]
One challenge with RFPs is that I'm a salesperson and sales leader. My mantra is always to get the meeting. Especially before COVID, it was about getting face-to-face meetings. With RFPs, you're dealing with procurement departments that won't meet you. They might be across the country. How can you develop a relationship with the prospective customer in an RFP context, given all the barriers?

Lisa Rehurek [34:03]
It's more difficult now post-COVID because you don't know where they are, and you can't just pick up the phone. But building relationships before the RFP hits the street is crucial. Once the RFP is out, you can't talk to anyone other than through prescribed Q&A or bidders' conferences. On the front end, attend state events and corporate events. Show your face. Always show up to the bidders' conference, even if you don't have questions. Back in the day, we told people to walk in, shake hands, make eye contact, and tell them what you do. They remember you because most people sneak in and sit in the back. On Zoom, show up a minute early. Send them information, like a white paper or article, showing you understand their struggles. Build goodwill. Target both agency and procurement people, especially if you're a woman or minority-owned business. Supplier diversity departments are there to help you connect.

Mark Shriner [36:23]
That's valuable advice. We'll create a short video of that part and put it on YouTube because there's so much great advice there. You mentioned government. What are the major differences between responding to a government RFP versus something from the private sector?

Lisa Rehurek [37:29]
I'll speak to state government because that's our sweet spot. Federal is a different beast with more certifications and red tape. For state, local, and education (SLED) and corporate, there aren't many differences. In corporate, you can sometimes have conversations even after the RFP is out if they don't state otherwise. In SLED, once the RFP hits, no more conversations. There's also the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) on the state side, allowing you to get past proposals and scoring sheets. In the private sector, it's harder to get scoring sheets, but they're more likely to have a conversation with you to debrief why you didn't win.

Mark Shriner [39:05]
Can I use the FOIA to request the score sheet of why they decided on the last RFP? These government contracts can be two to three-year contracts. Can I go back two years and get that information?

Lisa Rehurek [39:05]
Yes and no. If you've bid, you can. Some states require you to have been a bidder. They might redact some information, but the scoring sheets are gold. If you bid on anything and lose or win, you should get that scoring sheet. You might have won because you were the best of the worst, so you want to improve. The scoring sheets are gold.

Mark Shriner [39:58]
That's worth the price of admission for this podcast. I've never heard of using FOIA for RFPs. Understanding decision criteria or areas for improvement is valuable.

Lisa Rehurek [40:28]
You can also get copies of your competitors' proposals. Sometimes they're redacted, but just getting that gives you a lot of intelligence. If you get these RFPs over a year or two, the bank of knowledge you'll have about your competitors is huge. It's a beautiful thing in state governments, but you must have resources to do it.

Mark Shriner [41:26]
That's amazing advice. Is that something you help your customers with?

Lisa Rehurek [41:28]
Yes, we do.

Mark Shriner [41:54]
Let me ask, do you help your customers search for new RFP opportunities?

Lisa Rehurek [42:04]
We do. We have a sourcing option, mainly for our long-term retainer clients. We help them understand their go/no-go criteria and their high-value client, then find the right opportunities. There are also aggregators, but they're not the best. You put in keywords and get notifications, but you get them seven to ten days after they're released, which is precious time lost. We recommend getting registered in the states or corporations you're targeting to get bids directly.

Mark Shriner [43:16]
When it comes to tracking, what are the key criteria you tell your customers to capture and reflect upon?

Lisa Rehurek [43:29]
Wins and losses, obviously. Time to respond, how many hours you're putting into a response, who your competitors are, who you lose to, who you win against. You'll start seeing trends. You'll know if you lose to a specific company often and can adjust. Tracking time to respond helps you understand costs. Also, track your go/no-go decisions. Our scoring tool can show you the success rate when following or ignoring it.

Mark Shriner [44:54]
Let's turn the table and imagine I'm a potential customer. You want to figure out if you can bring value to my organization. What are the first questions you're going to ask me?

Lisa Rehurek [45:11]
We'll ask about your goals and objectives with the RFP or RFP environment. Are you just trying to offload to someone else, or are you looking for a long-term strategy? We want to know how well you know the buyer. Are you bidding cold or with good information? What kind of content do you already have? We need to understand your goals and strategy. Are you a high-value client for us? Will you value our expertise? Is the leadership committed? Are the writers committed and hitting their timelines? It has to be a partnership to work with us.

Mark Shriner [46:28]
What's your go/no-go criteria?

Lisa Rehurek [46:30]
It's based on whether the client values our expertise and is committed to the process.

Mark Shriner [46:34]
Thank you, Lisa. I've enjoyed this conversation. We could probably do a whole episode on each subtopic. If our listeners want more information, what's the best way to reach you?

Lisa Rehurek [47:14]
Probably through LinkedIn. I'm Lisa Rehurek, and you can easily find me there. If you have a direct question, or visit our website at therfpsuccesscompany.com. You'll find all sorts of information there.

Mark Shriner [47:39]
You have a magazine, a podcast, a blog, and so many articles. I had no idea. Thank you so much, Lisa. Wish you a great 2024.

Lisa Rehurek [47:46]
Thank you so much for having me. I wish you the same.

Mark Shriner [47:50]
Awesome. Cheers.

‍

‍

‍