Tips for a Starving Salesperson: Part Two

Credit: Bill Gillespie

So the phone rings or you get an email. It's a company you have no relationship with. They know of your firm and want you to participate in their RFP. They put you off when you ask for a meeting and say "that can come later. Right now we just need you to complete our spreadsheet."

How do you respond? Before I share my opinion, what’s yours? Share your strategy.

As you ponder your answer let me share that I received my first RFP type document in 1995. I was thrilled. I had a chance to be added as a vendor to a large bank. We got super aggressive with our numbers as we wanted to show we were the best answer.

We weren’t added. Follow up conversations made it clear that the RFP confirmed decisions the bank had already made. This reality hasn't changed, even once, in 29 years.

Please know that the person sending you the RFP isn't a decision maker. They might say they are. They might even think they are. But they aren't. They are the "bid collector."

The decision maker is higher up. They are going to look at numbers on a spreadsheet to justify a decision they have already made. They know who they want to do business with. They have a relationship with those companies. Your bids are used to exclude you, not add you. You confirm their preferred choice.

If you don't deserve a meeting to qualify the opportunity, the bid collector doesn’t deserve your estimates. The only thing they will know about you is price. Your compliance allows companies to evaluate you totally on bids.

That's junk and ignores your value. You're leaving the selling up to a calculator.

As reps, our job is to bring qualified opportunities to our companies. Our owners and sales leaders depend on us for this. They expect reps to qualify leads and not waste valuable company resources. They depend on us to not waste our time either. It's valuable.

Now, wanna guess how RFP's have gone for me and any rep I managed?

Business earned from a RFP from someone new - $0
Business lost from a RFP if we already knew them - $0

I’ll add this too. Guess how many times I missed an opportunity because “a contract or RFP system was in place” if the prospect wanted to add me. Not one single time!

Trust me on this. If a company you know asks you to help them and submit to their RFP, it is not going to cost you business. You'll get multiple bites at the apple. You're being a partner.

If, on the other hand, a company refuses to meet with you, evaluate your credentials and hear your story but wants you to complete their spreadsheet, you'll be wasting your time. They have solutions and they want you to confirm them.

The "bid collector" might not say that, but they aren't deciding anything. Their job is to get completed spreadsheets.

Put a value on your time. Bidding on spreadsheets is like dating someone because of their wallet. It's a dead end.

Gotta go. Spencer has been working on a RFP for days. He's gonna starve with that sales strategy.