ANACOTSTEEL

Director of Sales

Unsolicited RFP - Waste of time? Or total fucking waste of time?

Pretty much said title.

I keep getting bombarded (2-3 week on a busy week) with unsolicited RFPs. Has anyone actually ever won business with an unsolicited RFP? Just firin off into the ether, pissing off your compliance guy, etc.

Let me know if you've ever gotten paid via unsolicited RFP. Cause right now, I junk em quick.

In my experience, these inevitably lead to me wasting hours jumping through paperwork hoops, then a demo where the peons show up but the C(IO/ISO/EO) was "unable to make the call", no questions are asked and there is a general malaise on the buyer side.

Anyone have a good story about - I once bought a house with commission via an unsolicited RFP?

If you have a silver bullet for an unsolicited RFP and something you dropped in that caused a nuke for the preferred vendor, please share.

Love you guys.

🙏 Mental Wellness

20

27 comments

Sort by:

MSPSales

Politicker

20

Partner Development Manager

RFPs are like when some companies do public interviews but already know their hiring the CEOs nephew

CuriousFox

WR Officer

2

🦊

I SNORTED 🤣

ANACOTSTEEL

Member

0

Director of Sales

Yeah man 100% on this.

The things is I don't even mind coughing up the majority of the information - but at least tell me straight up what the goods are.

"We are strongly considering going with X - however, we'd really like a second opinion to discuss the problem we're having and what <name of co> would bring to the table.

Can we have a call to discuss?"

For real, I'd be all over making that call - I'd be aggressive with pricing, have a nerd in the wings, at the very least to learn more about the issue and hey who knows maybe down the road, always good to have options.

Just please don't divebomb me with bullshit paperwork just before a long weekend and be all like we need this right away to be considered.

I mean if Taylor from Billions is all ANACOTSTEEL we'll need to see that RFP by end of day -- all right I'll take care of this and check all the boxes, but its more like Papertech for like a $13,000ARR deal.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

7

☕️

As I've said many a time before: RFPs are a way to check boxes when you've already picked the solution you want. Could you win? Sure...but I would encourage you to hope in one hand and shit in the other and tell me which one fills up first.

InQ5WeTrust

Arsonist

4

No marketing, mayo isn't an MQL

^this x1000

At best, you'll force the incumbent to pony up an extra seat or throw in some free training.

If you can churn them out, then sure, but don't sweat over them.

JECU

Opinionated

6

Account Manager / Co-Founder

Haven’t won any we’ve applied to. In my experience the incumbent helps write the RFP tailored to their existing solution. They just do the exercise for compliance. Unfortunately wasted a lot of money before figuring this out.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

2

🦊

Exactly. They want the exact specs that are only unique to one client. I normally let this go. Except there was this one time I protested a RFP award 3 times. Won on the third protest. I was pissed and going off of principle.

jefe

Arsonist

1

🍁

This definitely happens A LOT.

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

4

Sales

I’d reply if your company offers something unique. Are you minority or women owned? You can grab business that way, for sure. If you’re a semi standard large provider with no in at all, the you’re not gonna win.

We get unsolicited RFPs a lot because we are the largest company on the space and turn them down if we don’t have an in.

dcarb

Good Citizen

0

Account Manager

exactly...like if the CEO of your company belongs to the same golf club of the CEO of the other company. I've won several deals where there was a executive relationship somewhere that trumps whatever bullshit RFP the IT group had put together. This happens waaaay more often that you would think because rich dudes hang out with other rich dudes. My previous company won a large project for a Yacht Manufacturer several years ago. Why? Warning, the answer might make you throw up in your mouth a little🤮....because our CEO was considering making a purchase for a $3Mill 56' Hatteras. Needless do say both companies made a sale. 🙄

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

2

Rolling 20's all day

Unsolicited Rfp’s make me want to pound liquor when I get 7 words into the email because I know it will be a waste of time

jefe

Arsonist

2

🍁

I think it really depends on the industry and resources available.

When I was in educational software, RFP’s were the name of the game for any large deal, and definitely won unsolicited RFP’s.

I’d imagine it’s similar for other public sector clients as well.

I think they’re worth considering, but it totally depends on the deal size and, more importantly, the internal resources you can lean on in your company. Do you have to do it all yourself? Do you have anything prebuilt like @SADNES5 ? Or a template?

Guard your time and your bandwidth but I wouldn’t write it off immediately.

SADNES5

Politicker

1

down voters are marketing spies

They all ask the same 10-20 questions. Have them all in a template. Cut as needed. Win that $.

jefe

Arsonist

1

🍁

Love it

SADNES5

Politicker

1

down voters are marketing spies

Jefe. Let's be friends.

jefe

Arsonist

1

🍁

😊

Diablo

Politicker

1

Sr. AE

Wish I had a success story but all I have is a lot of rusty stories of RFP 😄

SADNES5

Politicker

1

down voters are marketing spies

Hi King,

Unsolicited RFP champ here. I win tons of business with these and I have a pre built deck ready.

LordBusiness

Politicker

1

Chief Revenue Officer

I think this is pretty industry specific, I work in B2B advertising and media and from time to time we'll win unsolicited RFPs from media agencies. That being said, our win rate (and the average deal size) are 5x what they are with when we have a clear champion we know is connected to the RFP.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

0

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

^^ this. Our company will be included in RFPs because we are a leader in our space. However, blind RFPs always come with a healthy dose of risk, and having a partner or internal champion always makes a huge difference.

Justatitle

Big Shot

0

Account Executive

The absolute worst. They never work out and companies do them for internal compliance.

TheRealPezDog

Notable Contributor

0

Account Manager

I actually had a client that I stopped wasting my time with their stupid RFP's actually find one of my old sales email to her and reach out asking if I would be participating in their next one and all I was thinking about was "Sounds like you're getting desperate, that's good, keep moving in that direction and call me again when you're REALLY desperate." (Quick backstory this client sucks and has a laundry list of impossible standards and absolutely no flexibility to change their ways)

ChumpChange

Politicker

0

Channel Manager

I just received an RFP on Thursday late afternoon asking for it to be ready for them by Friday morning... on Labor Day weekend. These fucking companies are so out of pocket sometimes. It's a come-to-work hassle that unfortunately is a dice roll unless you get past the stack.

jefe

Arsonist

0

🍁

.

cw95

Politicker

0

Sales Development Lead

'tis a no go!

dcarb

Good Citizen

0

Account Manager

Unless you had a hand in writing the RFP for the customer then I'd say you are wasting your time. I've helped many a customer with the "design" or product specification for their RFP. And you can bet that I made the specification SO specific to our strengths that it would make it hard for our competitors to bid against us.

There are some exceptions. For example, the construction industry is largely RFP process for every project but even then a lot of business is won based on relationship in that industry. I've been in sales 25 years and I can count on one hand the number of unsolicited RFPs that I have won.

The most recent was for a school district so everyone in town was bidding. This RFP did not have a "hard spec" so we were able to be a little more creative with our design (it was an audio visual project). Through our narrative we were able to establish that we knew what we were doing so that was great news....until they issued an addendum asking everyone to quote the specific hardware that we had in our design. I was pissed but we were still able to win because we had product registration that gave us a slight edge. This definitely is not normal. Most RFPs that I have seen have a specific list of services or hardware that have already been put together by the incumbent vendor or a consultant. I've never met a consultant who didn't recommend the same 2 solutions/vendors on EVERY project.

When you read an RFP you will be able to see language in there that gives you clues to the RFP bias. Sometimes they've blatantly copied marketing verbiage or data sheet info directory from a competitor's website so it's pretty obvious of the bias.

Personally, I scan most RFPs and delete them because I know it's going to be a race to zero and even if I can win I'm not going to make any money because of the slim margin required.

DealDonkey

Acclaimed Answer

0

Director of Business

My current employer has a policy of not responding which is a breath of fresh air. I have never won an unsolicited RFP in the past. One thing I did used to do was ask the sender for a one on one call to discuss, if they refused or indicated it would be done in a group session or via group email then run away.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

© 2024 Bravado Inc. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy Legal and Privacy Center Sales Jobs

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.