THE RFPIO BLOG

Start Responding Like a Pro

The RFPIO blog is full of insights and best practices, giving you the tools you’ll need to streamline your process and respond with confidence.

Thank you for subscribing.

Something went wrong.

Featured Post

What is proposal management?

What is proposal management?

Productivity

I often say that proposal management is like baking a cake. Alright, that might not be the most original thought, […]

Category: Tag: Proposal automation

What is proposal management?

What is proposal management?

Productivity

I often say that proposal management is like baking a cake. Alright, that might not be the most original thought, but when you bake a cake, you expertly pull together diverse ingredients, typically from multiple sources. Then, you add your skill and flair to create a gorgeous and delicious pastry.

Proposal management is about pulling together diverse people and information, typically from multiple sources, adding skill and flair to create a compelling and persuasive sales document. Fortunately, at least in my case, a well-baked proposal will add to the bottom line instead of, well, you get the idea.

Proposals are generally either a response to a request for proposal (RFP) or from a salesperson whose customer wants well-defined information, usually including pricing, onboarding or logistical details, company information, and so on.

The objectives of proposal management

The primary objective of proposal management is to help drive more sales. More specifically, the process objectives include:

  • Determining the right opportunities
    • Is the bid winnable based on similar past projects?
    • Can you fulfill the customer’s needs?
    • Is the request consistent with your company’s business objectives?
    • Can the response nurture brand awareness?
  • Selecting the right team – A typical response team might include a proposal manager, writer, editor, and a team of subject matter experts (SMEs). The SMEs, and frankly, the whole team, can come from any department in the company as long as their expertise aligns with the request.
  • Crafting a quality response – Proposal management is just one of the places where sales and marketing intersect. It’s vital that the response represents the company in the best possible light, adhering to the company voice and tone while providing incentives for the customer to buy.
  • Meeting customer expectations – Submit your well-crafted proposal within the allotted timeline and in the customer’s preferred form

The necessity of proposal management

If I were to describe a proposal management process with a single word, it would be consistency. Oh wait, maybe I mean accountability. Perhaps there isn’t a single word to describe proposal management, but the consistency and accountability that come from having a proposal management process generate benefits that resonate throughout your organization. Some of those benefits include:

      • Increased productivity – Productivity is perhaps the essential goal of a proposal management system. When you design a repeatable process, you can start right in on your response rather than reinventing the wheel each time you receive a request.
      • Better collaboration – A well-designed proposal management process helps form a team of allies, even in a remote or distributed environment.
      • Streamlined workflow – Project management is a core part of a proposal management system. Track your project’s and stakeholders’ progress to ensure on-time delivery.
      • A single source of truth – Another critical component of a proposal management system is consolidating and continuously auditing your company’s records, documents, and previous proposal question-answer pairs. Democratization of your content library puts knowledge into the hands of everyone who needs it.
      • Greater revenue – The more winnable proposals you produce, the more revenue you will generate.

Eight elements of brilliant proposal management

If you’re a proposal manager, you might feel pulled in many directions simultaneously. A brilliant proposal management system will help you maintain a manageable cadence while improving results.

If you run a sales team, you know that proposals are necessary for any significant sale. The same proposal management system will enable your team to drive more revenue while using fewer resources.

There are several key features of a brilliant proposal management system, and they include:

      • Project management
      • Automation
      • AI
      • Collaboration
      • Content management
      • Eliminating paper
      • Knowledge sharing
      • Insights and analytics

Project management

A proposal manager has a lot of roles. When a proposal response system includes a robust project management platform, they’ll be able to track the team’s and project’s progress and manage their own time more efficiently.

Automation

There is a lot of redundancy in a proposal response. In fact, as many as 80 percent of questions on an RFP have been asked by other customers and answered in different responses. An automated system acts as a librarian of sorts, directing you to the correct answers in moments.

Additionally, automation facilitates better collaboration, helps you establish roles, and maintains brand consistency.

AI

Artificial intelligence is an end-to-end proposal response assistant. It can help you:

      • Leverage data to qualify RFPs in your go/no-go process.
      • Estimate how long the project will take
      • Break the project up into relevant sections
      • Auto-identify the response content
      • Assign the right questions to the right subject matter experts
      • Proofread the response
      • Enable an intelligent postmortem process through data analytics
      • Conduct regular content audits

Collaboration

Two-thirds of employees work from home at least sometimes. That number is expected to increase. More than half of organizations operate in silos. Communication silos cost the average team about 20 hours a month.

Even when people call the same office home base, some, especially subject matter experts, might work on the road. It’s no wonder that collaboration tools are some of the fastest-growing software solutions.

Simplify collaboration with a platform that provides access to all your stakeholders, no matter where they are.

Content management

The best way to prepare for the next RFP, even if you have no idea who it’s coming from or what it will ask, is to maintain a comprehensive content library. Store each question-answer pair as they are answered. Systematically audit your content to ensure it is up-to-date, valuable, usable, and regularly used.

Eliminating paper

The average RFP response is 132 pages long. You would be shocked, or maybe not, to learn how many companies still rely on analog, paper-intensive procurement and response processes. That could cost a typical midsized organization more than around $1,500 per year in paper alone.

Of course, there are the environmental costs of chopping down trees and processing and shipping the paper. Then, when it’s time, there’s the cost of shredding out-of-date paper.

Next-day shipping on a single paper response averages between $50 and $80, with an annual cost of around $18,700.

Electronic submissions are nearly carbon neutral and usually free.

Knowledge sharing

Eighty-one percent of organizations see content as a core business strategy. Ninety-one percent of employees experience knowledge-sharing challenges. Employees spend about 11 percent of their time, or nearly six weeks a year, searching for or re-creating information. Executives lose even more time.

Collaboration is vital, but when company knowledge is withheld from people who work remotely or in other departments, it doesn’t do anyone much good. A brilliant proposal management system uses collaborative tools and artificial intelligence to help democratize knowledge.

Insights and analytics

Sherlock Holmes once said, “It’s a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” That statement is even more current today, 100 and some odd years after Arthur Conan Doyle invented the fictional detective.

Accurate and well-presented insights and analytics help you determine whether to respond to an RFP. The data helps create company buy-in for establishing and maintaining a response process. It demonstrates your win-loss rate, the amount of revenue you’re generating, the types of bids you win, the quality of your content library, and so on.

Who is responsible for proposal management?

Organizations tend to approach proposal management very differently. Some organizations have dedicated proposal managers, while in others, salespeople manage their own proposals. Some proposal managers are technical writers, while others write for their marketing teams.

Enterprise organizations might have a dozen or more people working on each proposal, while small and medium companies might have just one or two. Obviously, that seems to put small and medium-sized companies at a disadvantage, but we’ll get into how they can overcome the apparent shortcoming in a moment.

The RFP response team

An RFP response team consists of everyone involved in the response process. The roles might include:

      • A proposal manager – The proposal manager is the project manager. They’re responsible for overseeing the entire operation.
      • A capture (or sales) manager – A capture manager provides the sales expertise to an RFP response.
      • Proposal writers – Proposal writers are responsible for using the art of storytelling to address customer needs and accurately answer each question.
      • Proposal editors – Proposal editors check each response for errors and typos while ensuring that it matches the brand’s voice.
      • Subject matter experts – Subject matter experts aren’t typically permanent parts of proposal teams. Proposal managers might ask for SME expertise from any department, including finance, sales, product, IT, HR, fulfillment, onboarding, customer service, and so on.
      • Graphic artist – Almost no one likes to read through dense pages of technical details and statistics, which is why it’s vital to break your proposals up with some colorful graphics. Bring in a graphic designer to add charts and images to make your proposal more readable.

Proposal manager

Your company’s proposal manager is responsible for overseeing everything that’s proposal-related. They are project managers, librarians, and historians. They’re writers, editors, and sales enablement experts. Some are salespeople, and some are even graphic designers.

Once a company has agreed that an RFP aligns with company abilities or goals, it’s the proposal manager’s job to keep the response train on the track. They ensure that everyone is meeting their deadlines and that their work is accurate and professional. Then, it’s the proposal manager’s job to oversee the final product before submitting it before the deadline.

When the proposal is safely in the customer’s hands, the proposal manager should enter each new piece of company information into their knowledge base. Then, they should supervise periodic knowledge base audits.

The challenges of proposal management

Most large business deals require proposals, which means that proposal managers are vital to achieving company revenue goals. Dedicated proposal managers understand the challenges of their jobs, and hopefully, they’ve established systems to address the challenges before they become problems. That’s not always the case, however.

Here are some of the challenges that full- and part-time proposal managers face:

Company buy-in

Do you ever feel a little like you’re whistling in the wind at work? You know you need processes for timely and accurate responses. You know you need the cooperation of subject matter experts, but finding support is a challenge. Buy-in from executives and other key stakeholders is critical for a successful response management process.

Consistency

One of the key factors in an effective system of any kind is repeatability. For example, your proposal go/no-go process should be nearly identical from one RFP to another, even though each process might yield different results. Your collaboration, writing, editing, and design process should look very similar to your last response, even though the two responses might be very different.

Quality responses

Think of each response as a marketing document. It should look as polished as your website or any other asset.

Take the opportunity to tell compelling stories highlighting how your company will meet the customer’s needs. Be sure to include graphics and other images to break up dense copy. Edit each document for accuracy, character counts (if there are limits), and grammatical errors.

Submitting your proposals on time (or early)

When a proposal is due at midnight on Tuesday, it’s due at midnight on Tuesday. Don’t shrug your shoulders, assuming no one will be in the office in the middle of the night to confirm. Customers pay attention to time stamps. Some customers give higher priority to early responses.

Maintaining a knowledge library

One of the most time- and resource-saving aspects of a quality proposal management system is a well-maintained knowledge library. In an ideal world, your knowledge library will house, in an easily accessible manner, every relevant piece of information from the day your company opened its doors to today. No one, including SMEs, wants to repeat answers.

It’s a never-ending circle. Workers spend almost 20 percent of their time tracking down company knowledge. Employees are far less likely to share their knowledge when stored company knowledge is inaccurate or difficult to find. When that happens, workers spend even more time trying to find knowledge, at least until they throw their hands up in frustration.

How RFPIO can help

Building your proposal management system is a bit like building a house. The proposal manager coordinates the materials, hammers the nails, and decorates the home. RFPIO can provide the building plans and all the tools to help you overcome the challenges outlined above.

Company buy-in

Company buy-in is a top-down process. First, you must prove to executives that a system like RFPIO will improve your proposal management process and drive more revenue. Then, you need to show SMEs that by investing time in setting up the Content Library, they’ll save time in the future.

RFPIO’s proven ROI is as high as 600 percent. Many customers reach a total return on investment in less than a year. RFPIO’s advanced analytics provide the data executives want.

Introduce your SMEs to the Content Library. Show them that they have ownership over their content and that you’ll only call on them for clarification or answers they haven’t already provided. Review the content auditing features to ensure that regular content review cycles will require less work in the long run.

Consistency

RFPIO is a project management platform. It will provide the data to help with your go/no-go process, help you assign tasks, and track progress. Its built-in integrations with the most popular communication, productivity, and customer relationship management apps help keep everyone together, even if they aren’t physically together.

Maintaining your Content Library

RFPIO will track your review cycles and remind you when it’s time to look at a document or answer or when a record approaches its shred-by date.

Quality responses

I already mentioned that RFPIO’s auto-response feature could answer up to 80 percent of an RFP’s questions with marketing-approved content. That means more time to craft an accurate, competitive, and genuinely compelling response.

Submitting your proposals on time (or early)

RFPIO’s project management features help keep your project humming along and will remind you when each deliverable is due.

About those small and medium-sized companies

RFPIO can help you level the playing field by providing the same actionable insights, project management features, Content Library, and accessibility as enterprise organizations receive.

*Next Action*

RFPIO isn’t just an RFP response platform. It’s a powerful revenue generator. Schedule a free demo to see how we can help you win more bids and become more profitable.

3 ways RFPIO-HubSpot integration streamlines proposal management and closes more deals

3 ways RFPIO-HubSpot integration streamlines proposal management and closes more deals

Integrations

Selling a product takes work. Sales agents spend their days calling leads, responding to inbound queries, tracking progress, meeting quotas, and juggling a lot of paperwork in partnership with revenue and finance teams — but that’s where RFPIO and HubSpot come in to make life a lot easier.

Sales platform technology has improved so much that the tedious, manual parts of the sales process — like proposal management, document generation, and content sourcing — can now be handled by great AI, like the proprietary technology that powers RFPIO. 

RFPIO is an AI-enabled software that makes it easier for sales teams to create their best content, respond to opportunities, and deliver on expectations.

And HubSpot is a powerful CRM that enables sales, marketing, and customer care teams to find, track, and nurture prospects, engage existing customers, and deliver the right message at the right time.

Companies of all sizes can benefit from combining RFPIO and HubSpot. Sales, presales, proposal, marketing, analyst relations, customer support, IT, and legal teams can collaborate better and save time on proposal workflows by cutting out the tedious, manual tasks from the process. 

Customer revenue teams and sales teams already spend their days in their CRMs, so it’s easy to keep momentum and reduce screen-switching by extending proposal operation right into the platform where they’re already working.

Benefits of integrating RFPIO with HubSpot

With the RFPIO and HubSpot integration, teams can submit project requests, track progress, and access proposal content without ever leaving HubSpot. Sales and proposal teams do their best work when they’re truly collaborating, and connecting HubSpot with RFPIO is the best way to save time and win more business.

3 ways to use RFPIO with HubSpot to automate and streamline proposal management

1. Launch and track RFPIO projects directly from any HubSpot Deal page, leveraging existing content from account and opportunity objects

Sales teams across industries can use this integration to streamline the project creation process for anything like RFPs, RFIs, and Security Questionnaires. With RFPIO and HubSpot, sales teams on HubSpot get direct visibility into project completion status, without needing to log into the RFPIO platform. The integration can also be configured to send automated notifications and task assignments to project owners and SMEs, jumpstarting collaboration between revenue and proposal teams.

You can also drill down and track project status from any HubSpot Deal page at the project, section, or owner level, with built-in executive dashboards and summaries providing the insights your team needs. 

Example: A salesperson has gotten their excited prospect over to the contracts phase of closing their deal. Because of a high volume of deals closed thanks to a major promotion, the revenue team is a little under water and needs more time to finalize the contracts. But with the HubSpot-RFPIO integration, the salesperson can follow the progress of the paperwork within HubSpot and provide updates to the prospect without needing to further bog down the revenue team with requests for status updates.

2. Customer-facing teams can automate much of the response process when answering requests and questions

Teams can program and automate the right answers to prospect or customer questions in real time, and when creating proactive proposals. This leaves sales teams with more time on their hands to handle queries and proposals that are more complex. 

RFPIO’s patented import technology works for all types of proposal request document types. RFPIO also exports polished and personalized responses onto templates or original files. And the dynamic Content Library serves as a content repository and collaboration hub that’s enhanced by an AI-powered answer recommendation engine.

This automation results in significant process efficiencies, which in turn allow all customer-facing teams, especially those who triage incoming asks, to focus on personalizing responses that optimize the sales, onboarding, and customer support experiences.

Example: A sales manager notices that his team is getting the same handful of technical questions over and over again about their product via email and on the website’s chatbot. He goes into the RFPIO Content Library and fills in the answers that need to be fired off to these customers, and thus reduces the volume of questions routed to live sales agents by 10%—so they can better spend that time on the phone and closing deals. 

3. Sales managers can keep teams aligned and projects on track

Managers can receive automated notifications and send task assignments to project owners and SMEs—and project requesters and creators can track the progress of current projects from the same place they submitted them within HubSpot. 

This means proposal and customer-facing teams are better aligned, and can enjoy a significant reduction in status updates via email, Slack, or phone that just waste time. They can check project status on the related HubSpot Deal, communicate whether a project is “Approved” or “Declined” through HubSpot, and access completed response packets in HubSpot that have been delivered by RFPIO. 

Example: A proposal team is anxiously waiting to hear back from their partnering sales team about several large accounts waiting to be signed and closed. Instead of sending a Slack to the busy sales manager, they can log into HubSpot themselves and see the status of the RFPIO project items in the contact page. 

Knock out inefficiencies and give sales teams the time to win more than ever with RFPIO and HubSpot

Your sales, proposals, and revenue teams need to collaborate to close as many deals as they can, as quickly as possible. Using the RFPIO integration with HubSpot, this collaboration is easier than ever and happens within the software where these teams already spend their days. 

 

 

The proposal management plan for a one-person team

The proposal management plan for a one-person team

People & Teams, Product & Best Practices

An effective proposal management process is like a jigsaw puzzle; it takes multiple pieces, and they have to fit together just right. If you’re a one-person team, putting all the pieces together can be a challenge, but it’s manageable, at least if the right processes are in place. 

With small and medium-sized businesses, it’s common for one-person teams to manage the entire proposal management process. However, they can hopefully count on support from collaborators, such as the sales team and subject matter experts (SMEs).

If you’re a one-person team, you might have other job responsibilities on top of responding to RFPs. In addition, a proposal manager can oversee many different aspects of the RFP process. 

If that’s you, we’re here to help you bring order to the chaos, starting with incorporating these factors into your proposal management plan—powered by collaboration and automation.

How a proposal team of one can optimize the proposal process

A proposal manager is in charge of the proposal management process. Whether they are a one-person team or the head of an entire department, an effective proposal management process incorporates three essential factors: 

  1. Saying “no” as part of your proposal management plan
  2. Engage your sales team
  3. Leverage subject matter experts

There are many aspects to the proposal management process. Let’s dig into three of the most critical and why they matter.

Saying “no” as part of your proposal management plan

RFPs are a great opportunity—and maybe your CEO has the impulse to throw a hat in the ring for each one. That might sound like a great strategy, but it’s also a way to rack up a lot of losses. 

Sometimes your product or service isn’t what the customer is looking for. Responding to poorly-qualified opportunities can put well-qualified prospects at risk because they pull resources from winnable bids.

Establish a go/no-go process to focus your organization’s efforts on suitable proposals.

Work with sales and executives to perform a win-loss analysis on past bids. Understand the likelihood of winning business when new deals are on the table by researching the requirements before writing a single sentence of an RFP response.

A viable proposal management plan is based on data and research. Rather than reactively pressing “go” every time an RFP arrives, pause and analyze to ensure the opportunity is the right fit. Taking this extra time will ensure your time is optimally spent.

Engage your sales team

Salespeople are motivated to sell, and they have a lot to keep up with, so responding to an RFP may not be topmost on their list of selling activities. Yes, you need their support with response content, but what level of support are you offering them in exchange?

Proposal managers can provide a lot of value to their sales teams.They can help sales with time management, content management, and seamless collaboration. With proposal automation in place, you’ll enable your sales colleagues to respond to RFPs faster and more effectively.

Your response process will run smoothly when salespeople have instant access to high-quality content in the Content Library. Since RFPIO® LookUp is accessible via a web browser or CRM, the same content library will come in handy for them on discovery calls and prospecting.

Using proposal automation software, your sales team will collaborate using the same communication tools they’re comfortable with, including CRMs such as Salesforce and HubSpot, and communication solutions such as Slack and Microsoft Teams.

By showing sales teams the value you can provide, they’ll be more willing to help you out, so get sales on board early and use RFPIO proposal automation software as their support system. Show them how they’ll save time and improve client-facing communication.

Many subject matter experts are a one-person show, just like you. Proposal automation makes their lives easier by reducing time spent responding to RFPs and other internal queries. An important aspect of your role as a proposal manager is to continue improving your process to minimize unnecessary SME involvement and protect their time by bringing them in only when necessary.

SMEs are process-driven individuals; they expect clean processes and clearly defined responsibilities, tasks, and deadlines. Your response process will be most effective when your subject matter experts’ time is protected and valued. Proposal automation offers a more intelligent approach to response management, allowing SMEs to contribute and move on with their day.

The first step to transforming your proposal management process into a well-oiled machine is to consolidate all of your organization’s content in one place. Whether you are an enterprise or a small business, proposal software is key to a well-run process. 

The Content Library offers standardized and curated content, effectively breaking down information silos and saving time. You can automatically fill in most of the RFP responses with help from the Content Library and save SME contributions for any revisions or customizations.

Once an SME has provided expertise on one RFP, the proposal manager can seamlessly update the Content Library with the new answer. 

The next time you have an RFP that includes similar queries, RFPIO’s AI-driven content management system and answer recommendation engine will automatically present the responses for your approval, further reducing the time SMEs spend responding.

Successful response management revolves around processes and people. As a team of one, you lead the charge by creating a viable proposal management plan and providing value to colleagues that support you. How can you make collaboration easier? What steps can be automated? Stay focused on plan improvements to keep your team happy, supported, and productive.

The next step in your new and improved proposal management plan is bringing on RFPIO. See how proposal automation allows you to thrive as a team of one. RFPIO can help proposal managers thrive, no matter the resources. 

 

The proposal manager’s success guide for stronger RFPs

The proposal manager’s success guide for stronger RFPs

Selling & Enablement

You are the glue holding everything together for a critically important process. Winning an RFP means winning new business. It’s that simple. What isn’t simple is how you get to that win.

Responding to RFPs isn’t always a high priority for other teams at your organization. Your email gets ignored. The deadline is missed. Shinier work wins their attention over an RFP most of the time. But, for you, proposal manager? RFP response makes up a significant (too significant, sometimes?) part of your world.

Rest easy, hard-working proposal manager. A hyper-efficient response management process is now absolutely possible with the right technology. Best-in-class organizations know this already and they are choosing proposal management tools like RFP software to support their efforts.

By the time you’ve finished reading this post, you’ll understand that:

  1. A manual approach to RFP response used to be the inefficient norm
  2. AI-enabled technology is making the proposal management role more important that ever across organizations
  3. Proposal managers find the support they need in RFP software
  4. Each RFP project’s import and export is a time-savings opportunity
  5. Better RFP project management is possible with the right tools
  6. Knowledge sharing makes your organization more successful
  7. You have the power to lead a stronger RFP response process

proposal manager role

Source: APMP U.S. Compensation Report

What does a proposal manager do?

If you’re like most of the proposal managers I know, you have days when the more appropriate question is, “What do proposal managers not do?” Sometimes it feels like you’re the symphony conductor as well as every musician in the orchestra, pinballing around from instrument to instrument, struggling to achieve a harmony that seems just out of reach.

There are survival guides out there that help you wrangle the RFP process. This is different…this is your success guide.

By taking time out of your hectic day to read this guide, you’ve already made the choice to become the kind of proposal manager that leads your organization to greater heights with RFP response. Let’s discuss how to make it all happen with the most advanced proposal management tools you can get your hands on.

Life for proposal managers during the pre-technology era

Once upon time, there were no proposal management tools. For the sake of this dramatization, we’ll call it the Dark Ages for RFP responders.

The plague was an inefficient manual process, one involving complex spreadsheets and documents that infected the health of entire organizations. Responding to RFPs took too long to complete and deadlines were inevitably missed.

SMEs (subject matter experts) and proposal managers found it difficult to collaborate. They rushed the deliverable and submitted outdated, boilerplate responses instead of customizing the strongest possible content for each prospect.

Eventually this plague of RFP inefficiency caused a famine for organizations. They responded to fewer RFPs, and they did not win the RFPs they did submit. No matter how hard the proposal managers tried, they couldn’t manage on their own.

“Boilerplate responses end up providing generic, basic, and bland information. They do not help the team win proposals. In fact, over-reliance on boilerplate responses can actually decrease pWin (Probability of Win).” – Kevin Switaj  

What does a proposal manager do when backed by AI?

Thankfully, we’re not in the Dark Ages anymore. There is a wealth of technology available to support the RFP response process. However, a surprising 84% of proposal managers are still using a manual approach with RFPs today. The question is: Why?

manage rfps

As with many other industries, technology is causing an important shift in the proposal management industry, empowering teams to be more successful. Technology allows proposal managers to:

  • Do more with less and become experts at efficiency. “Doing more” might mean the ability to submit more RFPs, which translates to additional opportunities for generating revenue. The “with less” part of this equation might mean fewer hours required from SMEs to pursue these opportunities.
  • Establish a collaborative ecosystem that works. Collaboration is a necessary step in every RFP project. Having an easier way to communicate makes the entire process run smoother, whether you need to ask sales to contribute to a section or ping marketing for the final buff and polish.
  • Achieve more quality control, and more wins as a result. Quality responses separate winning organizations from the rest of the herd during vendor selection. More time to focus on creating the best content will help you stand out as the partner that cares, versus another who cuts corners.

The initial investment into a proposal management system is ultimately worth it when the organization saves time and resources. With a good solution, typically these benefits are visible as early as the first RFP project. Response teams see an immediate increase in productivity, so they can do more of their best work.

“Technology also can prevent the need to send countless emails back and forth, reduce the number of internal meetings, and facilitate final content review and approval by the response manager.” – Steve Silver, Forrester Research

How proposal managers lead the charge with RFP response

You’ve probably heard some negative things about RFPs from your peers and colleagues. It’s common for professionals to dislike RFP projects because of the inefficiencies they have faced firsthand over the years.

But, the importance of responding to RFPs cannot be stressed enough—they are a must for any growing organization. If you want more sales wins, you have to do the work. And, teams have to work together.

But those teams need a leader. Organizations with dedicated proposal managers submit up to 3.5x more responses than those without. Give those proposal managers RFP-specific technology and they can submit 43% more proposals per year than those not using RFP-specific technology.

All the more reason to get the support you need to handle everything, right? RFP software helps you with:

  1. Importing and Exporting – Importing from any file source (yes, even PDFs and spreadsheets) and exporting back into the original source or customized template allows you to focus on a quality deliverable.
  2. Knowledge Sharing – Bringing greater accessibility to company information not only promotes collaboration on RFP projects, it also breaks down document silos across departments and even the organization.
  3. Project Management – Being able to track real-time progress of RFx completion helps you see when sections are being taken care of. Communication with SMEs is quicker without email, since you can use @-mentioning and Slack.

It’s not easy to be in your shoes, dear proposal manager. You handle the complexities of RFP responses and it’s up to you to keep your team motivated. If you bring in a proposal management tool to support your RFP response process, then your job becomes a lot easier.

Start each RFP project right and finish brilliantly

The bane of pretty much any proposal manager’s existence is the import and export process with RFP responses. When an RFP lands in your inbox, it should be cause for rejoice. Responding to an RFP is a chance to win new business, after all.

Yet, when starting an RFP project, you’re working with a source document that could be anything from a long-winded Excel spreadsheet to a pesky PDF. Copying and pasting, organizing and filtering suddenly fill your days as you try to ready the documents for your SMEs.

It’s the end of the RFP project, now you’re ready to rejoice. Or, so you thought…now it’s time to export everyone’s responses back into the prospect’s source file.

Exporting is the stage where hours slip by as formatting blunders take over the Wednesday evening you were hoping to spend at home cooking dinner with the family. Instead, even though you thought you had this project under control, you’re at the office trying to submit an RFP right before the deadline.

proposal manager hours worked

Source: APMP U.S. Compensation Report

How RFP software makes importing and exporting easier…

Every import and export is actually a time-savings opportunity.

“Finding content and information is a significant productivity obstacle for sales teams.” – Phil Harrell, Forrester Research

RFP software allows you to start your RFP project off on the right foot by importing effectively from any source—docs, spreadsheets, even PDFs (RFPIO is the only solution that imports PDFs). Instead of copying and pasting like crazy, you can simply pull the source document right into the platform and start organizing and assigning sections to SMEs.

Exporting back into the original source or a template of your choosing ensures consistency with your deliverable, without the manual labor.

We’ve heard plenty of disheartening stories from proposal managers who stay after-hours or work weekends to submit an RFP before the deadline. With the exporting capabilities you enjoy with RFP software, you will dramatically speed up this process so you can have more work-life balance, even if you’re a one-person team.

Break information silos with easier knowledge sharing

Information silos are truly a point of weakness for any organization. When teams don’t have equal accessibility to important company content, it causes inefficiencies well beyond the RFP response process. On the flipside, organizations with centralized information promote collaboration and growth.

With RFPs, the expertise SMEs provide is indispensable. They harbor technical specs and product information that you certainly don’t know, because those details are outside your domain—not to mention, this information is practically a foreign language.

As long as SMEs contribute to RFP responses regularly, you’re fine, right? As long as they don’t leave and take that knowledge with them. Workflow is fragile business with RFPs, so you want to do everything in your power to store company information in a place where anyone can find it quickly.

How RFP software makes knowledge sharing easier…

The way we share information impacts the way we work.

RFP software promotes a culture of knowledge sharing, and ultimately strengthens communication companywide. An RFP content library eliminates document silos entirely, because it offers one place for company content to live. Instead of being in Google docs or email folders, RFP responses are organized with tags and star ratings to help you and your team find the best content in seconds.

The great thing about having all company information handy like this is how easily you can improve the quality of your content. Performing regular content audits ensures that you keep your most valuable RFP responses up-to-date and ready to grab on the go.

“Workers spend nearly 20% of their time looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks. A searchable record of knowledge can reduce, by as much as 35%, the time employees spend searching for company information.” – Mckinsey Global Institute

Better RFP project management is all yours

Effective project management is truly the heart and soul of the RFP response process. Every RFP project requires multiple team members to share their expertise, as a proposal manager only knows so much about the organization.

size of proposal organization

Source: APMP U.S. Compensation Report

This is where the SMEs come in to offer their support. But trying to track them down often proves difficult for proposal managers. SMEs are busy and they have other high-priority projects on their plates. With a manual RFP process, collaboration with team members is more challenging because much of the communication happens through email and meetings, which get missed or forgotten.

Protecting the time of your team—and your time as well—comes down to the technology you’re leveraging to achieve maximum efficiency. Here’s some good news from a survey conducted by Project Management Institute: “75% of senior executives said investing in technology to better enable project success was a high priority in their organization.”

How RFP software makes project management easier…

You don’t want to just get the job done, you want to get it done well.

Having full visibility into the RFP project means you know which SME is handling specific sections, so you can keep tasks and owners straight. With the project overview dashboard, you’ll see where SMEs are in terms of progress so you can avoid beating down their office door when the deadline is looming.

Integrations with Slack and Salesforce make communication more seamless for busy teams, with less of a chance for an important email to be missed. Fewer emails and meetings keep SMEs focused on what they need to accomplish so they can share their input and move on to other priorities.

success for proposal managers

“Without access to effective tools that support and reinforce the business development lifecycle, companies cannot maintain a managed, repeatable business acquisition process—thereby reducing their overall chances of winning business.” – APMP’s Body of Knowledge

Lead your team to success with RFP response

The proposal management industry continues to evolve with advances in technology. No longer do proposal managers need to feel alone, and no longer do SMEs need to dislike contributing to RFP projects.

Knowledge sharing and collaboration are becoming more common among organizations who recognize the need to band together to be more successful with RFP response. This improvement in teamwork positively affects multiple aspects of the business, far beyond the next RFP project.

RFP response is your business—more so than anyone else’s at your organization. Be the leader that takes charge with your RFP response process and guide your team toward greater success.

It’s time to take this success guide a step further. Schedule a demo to learn how RFPIO will make your RFP response process a mighty one.

Improve user adoption in 7 steps

Improve user adoption in 7 steps

Products/Features/Solutions

Give a person a fish, they’ll eat for a day. Teach a person to fish, and they’ll eat for a lifetime. Surprise all the end users of your new software purchase with a fishing trip and they’ll wonder, “Do I have to do this, and how do I get off this boat?”

As a proposal manager with a shiny new RFPIO lure guaranteed to attract every big fish you can reach with a cast, sometimes it feels like you’re stranded on dry land with a map to the fishing hole but no way to get there.

Introducing new software into your sales enablement tech stack and workflow is no joke. Change management is a sophisticated discipline that examines the processes behind organizational transformation. It’s way too deep a rabbit hole to fall into here, other than to say that 99 out of 100 proposal managers I work with during RFPIO onboarding don’t have any specific experience in change management or software deployment. Which can make the prospect of convincing end users that their jobs and lives will improve with RFPIO somewhat daunting.

As soon as I get my chance to work with the person or team in charge of deploying RFPIO — whether it’s a proposal manager, sales manager, or IT specialist — I recommend inhabiting the following mindset: “How do I set myself up for success?” Now we have a bite-sized challenge we can overcome, rather than an amorphous source of anxiety such as “change management.”

My response to the question, “How do I set myself up for success?” is “Follow 7 steps to improve user adoption.” Let’s roll through them.

#1: Get executive buy-in

Trying to implement any change without executive buy-in is akin to growing a garden without any seeds. The need and desire may be there, but you just don’t have anything to get started. So take that need and desire and use it to build a business case for adding RFPIO to your sales technology stack.

This all has to happen before deployment even appears on the horizon. Gaining and maintaining buy-in from managers and executive sponsors will be critical to making end users more receptive to your excitement and the possible benefits. According to Steve Silver at Forrester, a leading global research and advisory firm, “Every business case must have an executive to champion the investment.”

To build the business case, Silver advises to call out timing of adding RFPIO (i.e., answer, “Why now?”), identify risks and dependencies (key to which he includes this nugget, “Tie the consequences of not using the technology to failure to meet specific goals that a sales organization has committed to attaining”), and clarify budget allocation and source of funding.

After you secure executive buy-in for the purchase, you’ll need to keep them engaged with monthly or quarterly status updates on implementation and RFPIO benefits. It’s important to obtain and maintain their endorsement so that they continue to encourage their teams to use RFPIO.

Here’s an email template of what one of the initial updates might look like.

SUBJECT: RFPIO has already accelerated response time by 40%

Hi [EXECUTIVE NAME],

We’re off and running with RFPIO, and I wanted to give you a quick update on how it’s going:

    • [X#] of end users are now using RFPIO
    • We have used it to respond to [X#] of RFPs this month
    • Compared to the same month last year, we responded 40% faster to RFPs
    • Of the RFPs submitted this month, we know we won [X#] at a valuation of [$X]

End users are picking it up quickly: “It takes about 10-30 minutes to train the client-facing teams on how to search for information in RFPIO.”

As we continue to add content to the Content Library, we expect to see an even greater leap in proposal quality, greater usage of Auto Respond functionality, and more efficient workflows.

I’ll send another update next month, but feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

Thanks,
[YOUR NAME]

#2: Make sure you have bandwidth

Before you kick off your RFPIO implementation, make sure you have an accurate expectation of the amount of time you’ll need to dedicate to the project. It will require some extra bandwidth. On average, expect to spend about five hours per week for the first three to six months.

Some RFPIO admins prefer to assign their regular duties to another team member so they can “cram” on RFPIO. They’ll spend 15-25 hours per week to focus solely on the rollout and learn RFPIO as quickly as possible. Then they’re able to pare back to a few hours a week. You’ll need to determine which method works best for your team and goals.

As far as what you’ll be doing with that time, here’s an overview of what to expect:

  • Deployment processes: From generating excitement to coordinating with IT, and from amassing content to scheduling training, you need to balance your daily workflow and responsibilities with what’s expected of you during deployment. This will be a short-term issue. While we’ll be there to lend you support, you need to make sure your bandwidth can handle being the point person on this project.
  • Ongoing “office hours”: End users will have questions, especially at the outset. And every time there’s a new hire in sales or pre-sales or proposals or customer support you’ll need to make sure they’re trained and able to thrive in RFPIO. Plus, you’ll want to encourage feedback, negative and positive, to adapt your usage, increase functionality, or add integrations in the future.
  • Driving response management processes: Any tool is only as good as the processes behind using it. Even a hammer has to be swung accurately to hit the head of a nail. A huge benefit to AI-enabled tools like RFPIO is that it will be able to automate most of your existing manual processes. You will still need to work behind the scenes to execute schedules, push collaboration buttons, and drive deadline management. In other words, the robot can swing the hammer as long as you put the hammer in its robotic appendage.
  • Auditing content: Do a full content audit to make sure you are starting off with a cohesive, succinct Content Library. Watch this webinar to learn more about completing a content audit in RFPIO, or follow these four steps to set your Content Library up for success:

#3: Admin team, assemble!

Make sure to recruit admin team members from each department that needs to be involved, and has the bandwidth to help with implementation, rollout, and RFPIO day-to-day operations. Sometimes admin teams are made up of only one or two people, and that’s okay, too. Whatever the makeup, they will in turn be responsible for evangelizing RFPIO, reinforcing the value message from executive sponsorship, and liaising with you to provide team-specific training for end users in their department.

For larger, global organizations, the admin team will also be responsible for figuring out a rollout plan. They’ll determine which departments get onboarded first, taking into consideration metrics such as proposal volume, knowledge sprawl or content silos, and collaboration challenges. They’ll also develop a repeatable onboarding process that can be turnkey for new hires or other new end users.

This team will continue to exist beyond the initial deployment of RFPIO. Their meeting cadence will likely be weekly at first, but that cadence will slow down to monthly as you meet a critical mass of end users.

The admin team will also create and monitor milestones that mark success and check in regularly with leadership to report on the milestones. It will be responsible for communicating RFPIO’s value to leadership and end users, promoting transparency for feedback and user expectations, and overseeing the strategy for #4…

#4: Generate excitement through an “awareness campaign”

Start generating excitement, even if you’re still finalizing the purchase. Involving your power users during the early stages of launch will increase the likelihood that they’ll use new software by 55%.

You can do this by setting up an internal email campaign. In addition to informing end users what’s coming, this will also get the organization used to hearing from you about RFPIO training and product updates. Ultimately, you want to provide clear concise answers to the following questions that are common to end users:

  1. Why do we have RFPIO? (e.g., “To automate manual response processes, streamline content management and access, and create higher quality proposals.”)
  2. Why is RFPIO exciting for me? (e.g., for a sales end-user, “Locate answers to prospect questions in near real-time based on updated content that’s searchable from the application you’re already working in.”)
  3. How will it help me do my job better? (e.g., for pre-sales end-user, “Spend more time creating innovative solutions instead of answering the same questions over and over.”)
  4. When will I be trained on RFPIO? (e.g., “Go-live for RFPIO is XX/XX/20XX. Your department is scheduled to be trained the week prior to that go-live date.”

One of the first couple of emails should come from the executive sponsor (some proposal managers like to send a short teaser about an impending big announcement about changing the game for sales enablement). It will validate the addition of RFPIO to your sales tech stack while communicating a high-level value proposition of improvements in productivity, efficiency, and outcomes. It will also set the expectation of cooperation and collaboration among end users to plow the road for your deployment.

Make each email short and informative. Respect your readers’ time. Include links for more information for end users who choose to learn more. Set up the next step in the process. Here’s an example of an announcement email to get you started.

SUBJECT: Announcement: Help with sales response and content is on the way!

Hi everyone,
I’m excited to announce that we are adding RFPIO — one of the best AI-powered sales enablement solutions available today — to your toolbox in the next few weeks. RFPIO will save us a bunch of time, allow us to focus on improving response and proposal quality, unify all sales content, and improve how we collaborate.

You’ll receive more information about RFPIO from me or your manager as we finalize the rollout plan. I’ll also schedule you for a quick training so you can hit the ground running (no worries, RFPIO is super intuitive and will integrate with other apps you’re already using!).

Meanwhile, learn more about how RFPIO will make life easier and more productive:

Let me know if you have any questions. You’ll be hearing from me again soon!

Thanks,
[YOUR NAME]

#5: Train yourself

You’re the tip of the spear on this project. No matter how much help you have from your admin team, executive sponsor, IT, or evangelized end-user base, you’re going to be the person handling initial questions. Even when you tell everyone that they’re free to create a help ticket of their own with RFPIO, they’re going to ask you first.

Best to be prepared.

During onboarding, we’ll take you through extensive training until you feel comfortable with the tool. We’ll also be available when something arises that stumps you. But you can also refer to the following for help, too:

  • RFPIO Help Center (RFPIO customers only): Access an RFPIO self-guided tour and New User Training Checklist as well as expert insight into importing your first documents, organizing your Content Library, and more.
  • New User Training Checklist: Follow this checklist to get the most out of your RFPIO experience. Each step includes links to Help Center articles to set you up for success.
  • RFPIO University (RFPIO customers only): Watch video training modules on project management, content management, and other powerful capabilities such as user management and Auto Respond.
  • Customer webinars: Sign up for the next live webinar or dig into the on-demand archive of recent webinars for further instruction, product updates, and response management best practices.

#6: Schedule training by role

RFPIO is an intuitive tool. Even so, we have your back when it comes to user adoption. Institutionally, we have prioritized it. You’ll recognize our efforts in user experience upgrades, the new learning management system (LMS) RFPIO University mentioned above, and certification events designed to help you train end users.

Learning how to use RFPIO is relatively simple. Eric Fink, Dynamics & Business Applications Specialist at Microsoft, said, “The first time I logged into RFPIO, it took me about 10 minutes to get comfortable with the platform. After that, I quickly found responses to all of my open questions — seeing 100% value from the very beginning.”

Sales users are savvy. They can pick it up in an hour-long training. You should follow up with shorter, recurring training sessions to make sure they’re really using it, understand its benefits, and feel comfortable asking for help, if necessary. Respect end users’ time by training them only on what they need to know.

Again, manager buy-in is crucial here. Work closely with sales managers to make sure they fully comprehend the opportunity offered by RFPIO. They will help you overcome any pushback from sales end users, who may hesitate at the request to disrupt their workflow for a training, no matter how short and helpful it may be. They will also help ensure their team is using the tool consistently.

#7: Monitor, collect feedback, adapt

The push for greater user adoption is never complete, but it can most certainly be less painful and onerous. The good news is that user-adoption pushback fades as win rates increase.

After the rush of your initial rollout, you’ll be re-investing some of the time you used to waste on all the manual tasks of building proposals and chasing down content and subject matter experts into RFPIO administration. Beyond driving your underlying processes of project, content, and user management, you’ll also be communicating regularly with your admin team and executive sponsor.

RFPIO makes it easy to report on usage because every action is captured within the tool and spun into insight for your desired output. However, you’ll want to gather anecdotal input as well. Speaking to end users and their managers about what’s working and what’s still a struggle with regard to RFPIO or your response management strategy will help you adapt to future needs.

Depending on the size of your organization, you can expect to see value from using RFPIO 90 days to six months after implementation. You may see value in as few as 35 days if you push it, but be wary of setting unrealistic expectations that can circle back around to sabotage the overall adoption.

Want to hear from someone other than RFPIO? See how Hyland Software managed user adoption: “By making sure RFPIO is something everyone can use… everyone is using it. User adoption has been outstanding.”

9 key RFP metrics for minimizing risk and enhancing efficiency

9 key RFP metrics for minimizing risk and enhancing efficiency

Products/Features/Solutions

When I first started responding to RFPs, few people were paying attention to RFP metrics. Sure, there were definitely some trailblazers who were measuring performance, analyzing wins and losses, and optimizing efficiency… but I certainly wasn’t one of them. For me, responding to RFPs was less of a process than a mad scramble to the deadline.

Since then, my approach to RFP response has evolved. Admittedly, this is likely aided by co-founding a company that streamlines the response process via automation and analytics. This article will focus on the latter.

If you do it right, data-driven management can help sales teams sell smarter. But it can also provide insights into how proposal teams can identify—then either avoid or plan around—process challenges, such as resource management challenges, reduced ROI, missing deadlines, and inefficient content development.

By the end of this article, you will understand which RFP metrics you should be tracking—and how to use these metrics to minimize risk and enhance efficiency.

RFP metrics overview

Responding to RFPs can be an expensive undertaking. When you’re working with limited time and resources, you need to be strategic about which projects you take on. Improving your odds of a win starts by determining whether you’re a good fit, and identifying risk factors early so you can avoid surprises and plan for success.

Don’t let dollar signs, commas, and zeros distract you from what’s possible. Go for that big deal, but don’t do it just because of the logo or the dollar value. Do it because the data tells you, “You have a great shot at winning!”

For answers about your future, look to the past. Use data from past wins, losses, and incompletes to determine whether a project is worth pursuing. When you capture an RFx and upload it as a new project to RFPIO, the system will evaluate past projects for comparison and provide a dashboard that gives you an idea of what to expect.

Here’s a small taste of some of the data points that will help you enhance efficiency and gain new insights throughout your response process:

Project Type: Segment your RFP data according to project type. If you respond to RFPs, Security Questionnaires, and DDQs, then you can set each of those as a project type so you’ll be able to compare apples to apples. You can also segment based on industry, size, geo, and more.

Segment your RFP data according to project type
Focus on Wins: How many similar past projects have you won? Lost? Understanding what kinds of projects have been submitted and won helps you focus your efforts only on projects you’re most likely to win moving forward.

Focus on RFPs you're likely to win
Project Scope: Identity total volume of work required to complete the project.

Identify project scope before starting any RFP
Time to Completion: See the shortest, longest, and average times for similar past projects. In a recent survey, we found that 57% of proposal managers said their primary goal is to improve the proposal management process to save time.

Understand the shortest, longest, and average times for similar past RFPs.
Resource Needs: Examine content that may need to be created or moderated. Identify primary authors and moderators from past projects.

Identify primary authors from past RFPs.
Content Needed: Understand what kinds of questions are being asked, and whether you have that information on hand.

Clearly understand the content available in the library
Taken in isolation, each of those data points means very little. Homing in on a single datapoint is just like trying to ride a bike with just the wheels—you can’t get anywhere without the pedal, seat, and handlebar.

Instead, it’s best to approach RFP metrics in context of the greater RFP response process. The trick is learning how to apply insights from each individual data point in a way that enhances efficiency and reduces risk.

To make this easier on you, this blog breaks down the RFP metrics you should be paying attention to according to how they fit into the RFP response process:

  • RFP metrics to inform bid/no-bid decisions
  • RFP metrics for planning, implementation, and finalization
  • RFP metrics for ongoing optimization

By the time you finish reading, you’ll understand which RFP metrics you should be tracking and how to track them.

RFP metrics to inform bid/no-bid decisions

The first step of the RFP response process is figuring out whether an RFP is a good fit. Is this RFP worth the time and resources it’s going to take to complete?

In making your fit analysis, you need to be selective. You don’t want to waste time and resources on an RFP you’re probably not going to win. But you also don’t want to walk away from a potential opportunity, and leave money on the table.

RFP metric #1: Determining whether you’re a fit

While this isn’t *technically* a metric, decomposing the RFP to determine whether you’re a fit is extremely important to the bid/no-bid decision making process, and worth mentioning here.

Before you spend anytime answering a single question, the first thing you’re going to want to do is determine whether your solution is in line with the key requirements. Do a quick scan to see if anything pops out at you.

What problem is the issuer looking to solve? What are the features and functionalities on their “must-have” and “should-have” list?

This is also a great way to determine whether you’re dealing with a wired RFP, where an incumbent exists and the issuer is just going through the motions. If there are a considerable number of requirements that seem irrelevant or very far off base, that’s a good sign the issuer isn’t interested and the RFP might not be a good use of your time.

If your solution isn’t in-line with the issuer’s needs… go ahead and throw it on the “thanks, but no thanks” pile.

Remember: Your time is valuable. Don’t spend it on proposals you’re not likely to win.

Even if you are a good fit, you may still decide it’s a no-go due to other priorities, deadlines, and resource commitments.

If you do find you’re regularly passing up potential opportunities due to bandwidth, you might consider a proposal automation solution. According to a recent survey, organizations using RFP-specific technology submit nearly 50% more RFPs than those who don’t.

RFP metric #2: Do your homework on the RFP issuer

Yes, okay, we’re two for two for metrics that aren’t technically metrics. But you’re going to want to do a background check on the RFP issuer before you do a single iota of work. Nothing is worse than putting the final touches on an RFP, only to discover you already submitted a near-identical RFP two years ago.

Once you’ve determined the decomposition of data is a fit, there are a few questions you’ll need to answer:

  • Has this company previously issued RFPs?
  • If yes, did you win? Were you short-listed?

If you did submit an RFP for this particular company before—and you lost—it might not be worth your time. But if you were short-listed, and the company ended up going with another vendor, it could indicate that they weren’t happy with the other vendor’s solution… and this might be your chance to shine.

If you have submitted an RFP for this particular company before, pull that old RFP from the archives, and examine it with a critical eye. What did you do well? What can be improved? You don’t always get a second chance to demonstrate your competitive advantage—don’t let this opportunity slip you by.

RFP metric #3: Analyzing past wins based on company profiles

Compare company size, project value, and vertical to your typical customer profile. If you usually work with enterprise companies, and the RFP you’ve just received is from a startup, your solution might not be a good fit.

Save yourself some time in the future by tracking these data points as you go along. Each time you receive a new RFP, make a note of the parameters you want to track. As a starting point, I would suggest tracking*:

  • Vertical
  • Company Size
  • Product Line
  • Project Type*
  • Project Stage*
  • Number of Questions*
  • Project Value*

*RFPIO tracks project type, stage, number of questions, and project value by default. You can track vertical, company size, and product link by creating a custom field.

Be diligent about tracking each parameter whenever you receive a new RFP. Over time, you’ll see how well you perform for each of your chosen parameters.

If you’re using RFPIO, you’ll get a performance snapshot each time you import a new project, including project status (e.g. won, lost), time spent, and Content Library usage (i.e. how many of the questions were answered using Auto Respond).

With RFPIO, you'll see a performance snapshot each time you import a new project.

RFP metric #4: Tracking your average RFP response rate

Your average RFP response rate is a function of the number of outgoing RFPs divided by the number of incoming RFPs.

Average RFP Response Rate = # Outgoing RFPs / # Incoming RFPs

There is no rule of thumb for what your average RFP response rate should be. For some companies, an 80% response rate is too low; for others, a 30% response rate is too high.

One thing that can be said for certain is that if every RFP that comes in is being responded to, something is off. It means you’re not qualifying what’s coming in. By going after everything, you end up wasting time and effort on deals you’re probably not going to win.

You can adjust your average RFP response rate as you go along. If your win rate is astronomical, it could be a sign that you want to start responding to more RFPs (and vice versa).

On the flip side, if you’re responding to 50% of RFPs, and your win rate is abysmal, it could be a sign you need to better qualify the deals you’re going after.

RFP metrics for planning, implementation, and finalization

Once you’ve decided this RFP is a go, it’s time to get to work. That means building out your team, keeping your project on track, and submitting a polished final product.

RFP metric #5: Determining Workload

Before you do anything, check the project size (i.e. number of questions) and the due date. This will give you a general idea of how much work you’ll have to do based on past performance.

After that, you can start assigning work out to your team. As you’re choosing SMEs, the most important metric to track is current assigned workload. If one of your SMEs has four projects due by the end of next week and you’re adding another one, you’re just asking for trouble. That’s the time you proactively find an alternate SME.

If you’re using RFPIO, you can check current SME workload right in the application. The system will tell you how much work is assigned to which SMEs, what the workload looks like, and if there is any overload.

If you’re not using proposal management software, you can also keep track of SME workload using spreadsheets; you’ll just have to make time to keep your spreadsheet up to date.

RFP metric #6: Readability Score

If a proposal is difficult to understand, it increases the cost for bidders during the procurement process. Confusion leads to delays. Delays drive up costs. And everyone loses.

Most people read at a 10th grade level. Make life easy for your buyers by writing at that same level. Avoid delays by calculating readability as content is being added, using an editing tool like the Hemingway App or the Flesch reading ease test.

RFP metric #7: Probability of Win Score (PWIN)

Here’s where you take an honest look at your work so far and ask yourself: How can I increase my odds of winning?

A PWIN (Probably of Win) score is calculated based on the answers to a variety of questions designed to best determine how well the company’s team, experience, and contacts match those required for the opportunity. The higher the score, the better chances of winning the contract will be.

Ask questions like:

  • How does the language compare to previous projects? Is it accurate, positive? Does it align with winning RFPs from the past?
  • Have you answered all the questions? Have you met all the required conditions?
  • How often do you answer in the affirmative vs. negative?

Be honest with yourself. Have you said “no” to a certain percentage of must-have or should-have requirements? Are you qualifying too much, or agreeing to build too many features? It might not be worth the final proofing and polishing to primp your proposal to perfection.

Just because you’ve spent a lot of time getting your proposal this far, it doesn’t mean you need to spend even more time getting it over the finish line. Your time is valuable. It’s okay to throw in the towel.

Regardless of whether you decide to submit the proposal, make note of the requirements you’re missing, and coordinate with your product management team to get them into the roadmap.

RFP metrics for improving win rate and optimizing efficiency

You should constantly be looking for opportunities to optimize efficiency and improve win rate. Tracking metrics and analyzing the data can help you do that.

RFP metric #8: Identify Content Gaps

Auditing your Content Library is an art unto itself. From an RFP metrics perspective, RFPIO includes an insights tool that helps you identify content gaps, content that needs to be updated, and content that needs to be created.

What terms are being used in search? What’s being found? What’s not being found? Let’s say a security product company is seeing a lot of requests for “zero trust” but no content exists because it’s new terminology that has quickly become industry norm.

The insight tool alerts content owners that content needs to include “zero trust” in order to stay relevant—and could provide insight to leadership and product teams on where the market is headed.

Sometimes you just need new content in your library. For example, if a lot of people are looking for information about “outages” (i.e., what has been your longest outage?), but turning up empty-handed, it might be a good idea to reach out to your product team to let them know new content is needed.

RFP metric #9: Determine content library health

To determine how healthy your content library is, see what percentage of RFPs can be completed with auto-respond, as opposed to manually creating answers from scratch. With a well-curated Content Library, 40-80% auto-response is realistic. 30-40% of content exists but needs editing. 20-30% needs to be brand new.

If your auto-respond is hovering below 40-50%, that’s a good sign you’re in need of a content audit. If this sounds like you, check out our guide on how to conduct a content audit in 3 steps.

4-Step RFP Content Audit

Future impact

There’s more to discover after delivering a project. Before you even know if you won or lost, you can start mitigating future risk based on what you learned during this project.

How long did it take (longer/shorter than average)? How many deadlines were missed? How much content was re-used? How much content was missing? Set up a feedback mechanism to share these findings with content owners and SMEs so you can continue to improve knowledge management and the response process.

Time matters

Our success metric is not to have users spend more time in our platform. This is not social media. We want users to be able to work responses faster and more effectively than they’ve ever thought possible. Which brings me to the last RFP metric I want to mention here: how well you’re using your team’s time.

Generate an Application Usage Report to gain insight into which modules (Project, Content Library, etc.) your users spent their time. Compare that time spent against past similar projects. Did you save the team time? Did it take longer than average? From here, you can dig into why and start minimizing risk for the next proposal.

Gain insight into which modules your users spend their time
Schedule a demo today to see how to use some of the RFP metrics mentioned in this article to improve proposal management.

How to turn proposals into a revenue-driving engine

How to turn proposals into a revenue-driving engine

Revenue generation

Can the best proposal in the world win a sale on its own? Honestly, probably not. Proposals are just one element of a lengthy and involved sales process.

Flip the question on its head and ask, “Can a poor proposal torpedo a sale on its own?” Absolutely. As can a bad demo, negative reference, or a disagreeable price.

My point is that while the proposal cannot win you the sale on its own, it still plays a pivotal role. Whether it’s reactive (RFP, RFI, Security Questionnaire, etc.) or proactive (sales-generated to show product solution or value), a proposal’s job is to advance the sale. How do you propel something forward? Build an engine.

Build your revenue-driving proposal engine

A revenue-generating response engine can change how your organization feels about proposals, turning it from a necessary evil to a strategic advantage in the sales lifecycle. I’ve broken the engine down into four key components, the first of which is people. Based on my experience, with respect to the way proposals are handled, organizations fall into one of these categories :

  • Ad hoc: 20% of organizations have no dedicated proposal team, instead relying on sales to take it on. This is a reactive approach that typically produces low-quality proposals and poor win rates.
  • Tactical: By far the most common, 60% of organizations have a proposal support team. It’s more efficient than an Ad-hoc approach, but still reactive, not highly prioritized in the organizational structure, and results in a win rate that makes stakeholders hem and haw over whether it’s all worthwhile every year.
  • Strategic: This dedicated proposal function with defined processes and staffed by capture planning specialists, bid and proposal managers, proposal writers, and content managers—in place at only 20% of organizations—produces the highest quality proposals that result in the highest win rates.

People need processes—the second engine component—to optimize their efficiency, enable visibility, and forecast accurately. A well-documented process will help with qualifying opportunities, deciding on win themes, building the response team, assigning roles, tracking and reviewing proposals, assembling the final proposals for publishing, etc.

The third engine component is no surprise: content. Obviously, you need to illustrate how your product or solution solves the problem that has necessitated the response. The differentiator here is in content quality, access, re-use, and personalization.

All three of the components mentioned above will be highly influenced by the fourth engine component: the technology tools you invest in for your response management engine. These will include your CRM, collaboration and web conferencing tools, and, of course, proposal software solutions.

When the engine is firing on all cylinders

After you build the engine, you can expect improvements in the following:

Repeatability

This refers to whether you have a streamlined process that you can apply any time a response is required. Once you’ve established your process, it can be triggered by intaking a project in your proposal software or CRM.

Whether or not your process is easily repeatable depends on content. Do you define service level agreements that can be adhered to time and again? Are you capitalizing on the wealth of information that already exists in your proposal software’s Content Library? If you’re finding ways to reuse existing content, you’re already well on your way to repeatability.

Visibility

Gain macro clarity of your proposal team’s performance. Are there any patterns where win rates vary? This will help identify key characteristics of your most winnable deals. Which content is most popular? Most effective?

This will help identify where to invest subject matter expert (SME) time in content development.

Efficiency

Make everything easier and faster—from finding content and assembling documents, to working with collaborators. Teams that do so are often able to increase efficiency by 40%. Sometimes it’s even more.

There’s no question that proposal software saves time, no matter how many people you have responding to proposals. Friend and peer BJ Lownie, managing director and principal consultant at Strategic Proposals believes that, “Situations exist for one-man shows and full-blown proposal departments.” Having proposal software on hand will help produce higher quality proposals faster, filled with brand-approved content and output according to your style guides.

Quality

Give everyone back time to reinvest in improving the quality of their work. Salespeople can spend more time on revenue-generating operations. The proposal team can spend more time on creating high-quality responses. SMEs can focus their efforts on their primary job functions and other equally important operational activities.

The purchasing decision is a consensus activity these days. Emotional and political factors are also at play. On balance, you always want to put your best foot forward. Proposal quality matters. It can positively influence deals.

Revenue

Link 1-4 together and you discover that proposal software fuels your revenue-generating response engine!

Ultimately, you want your revenue-generating response engine to guide your organization to the point where you’re only responding to winnable deals. Data output from the engine will help you answer questions like:

  • What is your relationship to the organization you’re responding to?
  • Have you had any prior engagement with that organization?
  • Do you have any insight into why that organization is soliciting responses?

Time is finite in the response world. The response due date is a deadline not a guideline. To paraphrase a quote I recently read on LinkedIn, proposals are never done; they’re just due. This engine will help you be more discerning with how, when, and where you invest your time and energy.

Proven value of proposal software

At RFPIO, our mission is to provide technology that streamlines the proposal process. No question that a library of pre-written content is a backbone to increased productivity. As are collaborations with sales and SMEs. We want to reduce the friction of hunting for content and herding SME cats. With proposal software, RFPIO customers are able to:

  • Submit 25% more responses with 100% accuracy while staffing is down 50%.
  • Increase win rate by finding more time to craft compelling win messages.
  • Triple proposal capacity and create efficiencies across all teams.

We deliver time back. How would you like a week back in your typical three-week proposal
process? How that time is reinvested will determine your win rate success. With a response team firing on all automated cylinders, you can unleash proposal development best practices while protecting sales and SMEs from the inefficiency rampage of a frenzied response process.

Start building your revenue-generating response engine by scheduling a demo to see how much time you can free up to reinvest.

Integrating Salesforce is a simple way to add tons of value to RFP software

Integrating Salesforce is a simple way to add tons of value to RFP software

Integrations

This is about as “meta” as it gets in RFP software sales: RFPIO client Salesforce is currently in the process of integrating Salesforce with its RFPIO response management solution. How can a CRM integrate with itself? As Cosmo Kramer once said, “I must be at the nexus of the universe!” 

More than 30% of RFPIO customers who use Salesforce have already integrated the solutions. The Salesforce integration is by far the most popular CRM integration at RFPIO — 20x more customers use it than our next most popular CRM. So why do customers love it so much? 

Visibility and efficiency to start, but there’s more to it than that. 

“Each response we complete builds upon the experience of previous responses (good and bad). Our account executives spend a significant amount of time in Salesforce and the integration is valuable to them once a project has been submitted. My first RFP response using RFPIO reduced prep time by almost 70%, so now we can focus more on customised content instead of boilerplate responses.” ~ PerfectMind (read the full case study here)

Why you need it: Integrating RFP software with your CRM makes everything easier

Integrating Salesforce and RFP software workflows gives proposal and sales teams bi-directional access to all response management functionality. In other words, whether they’re working in Salesforce or RFPIO, users can perform all response management functions—from launch to development to publishing—seamlessly, without any redundancy or confusion. Here’s one possible workflow of how it can work for you:

Step 1: Sales rep launches RFPs, RFIs, Security Questionnaires, or any other response project directly from Salesforce. Expedite project creation by launching with existing Salesforce data in a few button clicks.Sales teams can send intake requests to the proposal team right from their favorite CRM (Salesforce).

Step 2: Proposal manager receives automated trigger notification of new project launch, analyzes what’s needed at intake to determine if it qualifies as an active project, and either rejects it or begins proposal development in RFPIO.Track and monitor progress in real-time

Step 3: Sales rep and proposal manager can track and monitor project progress in real-time from either application.When a new project launches, proposal managers are automatically notified

Step 4: Response packets and related documents are automatically published back to Salesforce so sales rep can send them to the prospect or customer.Sales reps can automatically send response packets to their prospects after they're published back to Salesforce

Step 5: Fine-tune proposal operations for sales and proposal teams with in-depth analytics output through Salesforce Reports Builder.Sales and proposal teams can fine-tune operations with detailed ananlytics

“The Salesforce integration has helped us align sales and proposal teams. Now, sales has full visibility into project status. They can see how a current project is progressing, or check which future projects are in the queue, all from the RFPIO dashboard in Salesforce.”

-Lauren Joy, Proposal Team Manager at Hyland (full case study here)

How you get it

The Salesforce integration raises awareness of RFPIO with more people in your organization. It becomes recognized as more than just a tool for the proposal team. It becomes the platform for expanding opportunities with prospects and customers. For example, after an integration, you can use the Salesforce Proposal Builder to create personalized proactive selling documents based on the up-to-date, brand-approved RFPIO Content Library. 

CRM integration is usually a high priority for our customers. Especially one or two years into a subscription, after their proof of concept for response management has hit its goal. 

Compared to other applications available through the Salesforce AppExchange, integration with RFPIO is a light lift. It all starts with a demo. This can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on the stakeholders you want in the “room” and what you want us to prepare for them.

After you decide to add the Salesforce integration, the process moves pretty quickly. The integration fully supports Salesforce Lightning as well as the classic Salesforce configuration. It works with either or both. A seasoned Salesforce admin can have it ready in 1-3 hours as long as there isn’t a lot of custom mapping. If there are a lot of custom fields, then the configuration can stretch into a few days–still on the lighter side of configuration. 

We often recommend a trial integration. Connect an RFPIO production environment with a Salesforce sandbox to test the integration in a safe space that won’t create disruptions in your Salesforce production environment. It’s simple to migrate this trial setup to a production environment.

If security is a concern, it shouldn’t be. We’re already published on the Salesforce AppExchange, which means we went through the Salesforce security review. Also, we are quite comfortable navigating any enterprise security review. So far, we’ve passed 100% of every one we’ve been through.

“We’re using the Salesforce integration to pull data in from an existing account or opportunity. This both ensures the data is matching and also means there are fewer fields to fill out–saving time and avoiding errors”

-Lisa McNeely, Proposal Services Team Manager at Hyland (full case study here)

What you can expect 

You’ll start seeing the value of real-time visibility and increased efficiency from the Salesforce integration almost immediately. Another huge value comes from the reporting capabilities, and this value grows over time. By creating associations between Salesforce objects and RFPIO projects, managers, directors, VPs of sales, and other teams can identify which projects were successful, which RFPs were won, and how that impacted the Salesforce opportunity outcome. You can find patterns that help identify more successful opportunities and the teams involved with those opportunities, which will ultimately lead to higher conversion rates and more revenue.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Salesforce integration with RFPIO, then contact us to set up a demo.

“The Salesforce integration for intake requests is a game changer. When I started the proposal process from the ground up at my company, sales people had no idea where to send RFPs—they were just throwing them to legal. Now there’s an easy way to request support right in Salesforce!”

How a 2-person team simultaneously responded to 16 RFPs with proposal software

How a 2-person team simultaneously responded to 16 RFPs with proposal software

Customer Stories

When a software company quickly grew its customer base from 0 to 2,000, they knew they needed to start formalizing internal processes and enhancing data security—which is why they focused their attention on the RFP process.

The cloud-based content management system they had been using to store RFP-related content couldn’t guarantee the security of sensitive information. They needed a solution that both met their security requirements, but also had the features and functionalities to bring their RFP process to the next level. 

It was then that they began their journey to improve data security and revolutionize the way they respond to RFPs. To do this, they turned to RFPIO. 

Uniting knowledge into a universally accessible content management system

Before they implemented RFPIO, the proposal team had been storing their responses in a cloud-based content management system.

While the system was equipped with an import function, it was too cumbersome to use when uploading just a handful of question-answer pairs. Instead, they relied on manual entry to add new content.

Because uploading content into the database was so labor-intensive, they often weren’t able to make time to do it—as soon as they finished an RFP, they’d already be off and running on the next one. Before they knew it, they would have a backlog of RFPs waiting to be uploaded into the system.

With RFPIO, this is no longer the case. The content management system within RFPIO is so easy to update that they’re able to ensure their team always has access to the latest and greatest information.

And the Content Library is continuously becoming more robust. When they first implemented RFPIO, they had imported around 2,500 question-answer pairs from their previous content management system. After using RFPIO for just 5 months, their content library nearly doubled—and the entire organization has benefited. Thanks to RFPIO’s unlimited license model, everyone at the organization can access this rich knowledge database at no extra cost. 

“The biggest reason we decided to go with RFPIO was that we could give everyone at our organization access to the tool at no additional cost.”

Assigning tasks and managing RFP projects with proposal automation software

Before RFPIO, the proposal team managed projects using color-coded spreadsheets or documents. Each SME would be responsible for responding to questions in their assigned color. 

This system was manual, tedious, and time-intensive. Not only that, but it increased the potential for human error. “I couldn’t tell you how many times I received a finished document from an SME… only to discover they answered the wrong questions,” someone on the team explained.

Proposal automation software has totally transformed this process. With RFPIO, the proposal team first uploads an RFP in any format (including Word, pdf, and excel) onto the system.

After everything is in the system, questions are assigned to SMEs on the platform itself. SMEs then receive an email listing their assigned questions; they can then log into RFPIO and respond to the questions there, or simply respond to their email, which will automatically populate answers into the platform. 

Once they’ve gathered all the information they need, the proposal team can export the answers back into the source file or into a custom template—and any new question-answer pairs will enter a moderation process to determine whether they should be added to the library.

Responding to 16 RFPs simultaneously with a 2-person team

At the end of Q1, the proposal team received a pile of RFPs that needed to be responded to—16 to be exact. A proposal manager on the team remembered that last year, “we also had a similarly substantial number of RFPs we needed to respond to, but we had to push back.”

This year, with RFPIO, they were able to upload all the RFPs into the system, assign tasks, and collaborate with pre-sales teams located all over the world—including North America, Europe, and Singapore—to successfully submit all 16 RFPs on time.

The proposal manager clarified that the difference with RFPIO is being able to keep track of numerous projects at one time. “When we were responding to 1-2 RFPs at a time, we could keep track of everything via email and Word Docs. But there’s no way we could have responded to 16 RFPs simultaneously using a manual process. You just can’t keep that much information straight in your head.”

“The key area we’re seeing success with RFPIO is being able to handle multiple RFPs at the same time. There’s no way we could respond to so many RFPs at the same time using a manual process.”

You need RFP software. Here’s how to convince your boss.

You need RFP software. Here’s how to convince your boss.

Selling & Enablement

The first question will be, “Why do we need it?”

Tell your boss, “Because we can’t afford to gamble our relationships, and our contacts cannot afford to gamble on us.”

Now let’s crack open this fortune cookie and unpack its meaning.

In sales, relationships are everything. Many companies won’t even respond to an RFP if they don’t have relationships established with the RFP-issuing group. Sales professionals protect these relationships like they’re hoards of treasure. Much time and effort is put into cultivating them.

However, the art of the deal has changed over the many years I’ve been in the proposal game. The deal that used to be made via handshake with a high-powered decision-maker now has to be vetted by multiple stakeholders. A single decision-maker won’t gamble their career on selecting a vendor anymore—no matter how strong a relationship exists.

In a highly competitive RFP, multiple prospective vendors will have strong relationships within the RFP-issuing organization. You as a sales organization don’t want to gamble your hard-earned relationship by underperforming at the proposal stage and losing the deal.

In the modern sales landscape, your relationships plus a high-quality proposal will give you the best chance to win the deal. RFP software helps you create proposals that eliminate your contacts’ need to “gamble.”

Now that you’ve explained why you need RFP software, answer these three questions to close the RFP software deal with your boss:

  1. Which of our corporate initiatives does this investment support?
  2. What is the ROI and over what time period?
  3. Why do it now?

Build on these 4 initiatives

Find a way to align RFP software to a stated business imperative. Anything relating to revenue or margin impact is good thing, like the following:

Proposal value isn’t always obvious to an organization’s stakeholders. Aligning it with your business imperatives makes it harder for stakeholders to ignore the fact that response management is an essential cog in your sales lifecycle.

Cut to the chase: ROI in less than 2 months*

One of our more impressive recent data points is that Crownpeak saw a 5-6x ROI after using RFPIO for just a few months. If your bosses hang their hats on ROI, then don’t hold back. Calculate your ROI here to include an estimate in your pitch to your bosses.

Efficiency is going to be your primary ROI metric. With RFPIO, organizations increase response management efficiency by 40%, on average. Broken down by role, we are currently seeing the following:

  • 63% of salespeople said RFPIO enables them to automate their process, so they can make time to pursue new business with RFPs.
  • 71% of marketers said RFPIO helps them centralize company content for easy access.
  • Subject Matter Experts (SME) gained back 39% of their daily hours with RFPIO.

RFPIO doubles as a knowledge management tool, which will increase proposal production for sales and reduce the burden on SMEs from legal, IT, security, procurement, contracts and other departments that typically contribute to responses. It’s a cost-effective method to give everyone at your organization access to your Content Library, while also empowering your proposal team to do more.

*On average, based on verified customer reviews collected on G2.

ROI calculator

See How Much You Can Save With RFPIO

Why do we need RFP software now?

For you, it’s about leveling the playing field. Harking back to my earlier reference of an RFP where five proposals are delivered and three of them likely have relationships with the RFP issuer…In this case, at least one of the vendors that responds will be using RFP software. They will have completed up to 70% of the RFP using automated features, which means they can put 100% effort on the remaining 30%. How likely are you to win any race when you give your competitors a 70% head start? (Flipside bonus you’ll want to call out to your bosses: On the off chance that you’re the only one using RFP software, then you will have a 70% head start!)

For your bosses, it’s about showing accountability to their commitment to success. If sales is the lifeblood of your business, then a fine-tuned RFP process will be as valuable as a multifunctional CRM, an integrated marketing strategy, a highly responsive customer service system, or any other support system that is already included in your budget.

But are proposals really that important?

YES!

The most common pushback you may need to address is that a proposal is just one part of a complex and lengthy sales process. That is true, and the best proposal in the world will not win you the deal on the spot. But a poor proposal will likely cause doubt in the issuer’s mind. At best, this will extend the sales cycle. At worst, you lose the deal.

A good proposal provides the opportunity to encapsulate everything you have learned during the sales process. RFP issuers never say they’re hemorrhaging clients or cash or taking a beating from their competitors, even though you understand that’s probably why they’re issuing the RFP.

The proposal is your opportunity to document how well you understand the issuer’s underlying needs or pains. You can do it passively (“We help with client retention by…” or “We’ve helped X clients increase revenue by X%…” or “3 out of 4 industry leaders rely on us to….”), but stating your solution to an unspoken problem validates your expertise. Ultimately, that’s exactly why they should choose to work with you.

And the only way to communicate that information to all stakeholders involved in the decision is through your response to the RFP.

Ready your pitch for RFP software

Twenty years ago, I expected RFPs to go the way of the dodo. Because of the Internet, you see. I thought that any generic information an issuer would need about a company could be found on the Internet. I was wrong. RFPs didn’t go away.

The way companies select vendors based on RFP responses is what changed. Out went the single decision maker, in came the decision by committee. The proposal management market is booming ($3.1B by 2024) and RFPIO has more than 1,000 customers only three years after signing its first.

RFPs have grown in complexity and require more customized responses. Part of a response is cookie cutter (another reason you need response management software), but the part of the response that requires more customization to explain your value—the part that shows you an issuer wants to deal rather than just kick the tires—is the part that you need to spend the most time on.

If you see any variation of this question, then you know the issuer is serious and in need of innovation: “What can your company offer that others cannot?

Want help prepping your RFP software pitch to your boss? We can help. Schedule a demo to get started.

How Crownpeak realized a 6x return on investment with RFP software

How Crownpeak realized a 6x return on investment with RFP software

Customer Stories

When brands need great web and digital experiences delivered through the cloud, they choose Crownpeak’s Digital Experience Management platform. The world’s only true-SaaS digital experience platform empowers organizations to quickly create, deploy and optimize powerful customer experiences with industry-beating time-to-market.

As regulatory, privacy and accessibility standards become increasingly complex, organizations lean on Crownpeak’s Digital Quality and Digital Governance tools to help get and stay compliant. Faced with complicated implementation and compliance issues, many organizations choose to start their purchasing motions through RFPs.

With up to two-thirds of enterprise deals starting with an RFP, Paul Taylor, VP Solutions Engineering at Crownpeak, knew he needed to move beyond manual RFP response creation—and quickly.

Paul set off to find an automation solution to the RFP process. He wanted something that stored all their response content in one place, automated the process, and simplified collaboration across a global team. It was quickly obvious that RFPIO was the only solution that could do what they needed.

They knew almost immediately they made the right choice. Within just a few months, Crownpeak saw incredible results—including a 1000% increase in efficiency and a 6x return on their investment.

When everyone has access to company knowledge, responding to RFPs is a breeze

Before RFPIO, response content was scattered across old RFPs, dispersed across hard drives, or trapped in the heads of senior team members. Sales reps looked for answers in old RFPs and email threads. When this didn’t work, they wrote answers from scratch. With knowledge so intensely siloed, each new RFP response was like taking a journey into the unknown.

Now, all response content is stored in the RFPIO Content Library—and powered by AI. All sales reps have to do is click “Auto Respond” and RFPIO instantly fills out 80% of an RFP. And that percentage is only going up. Whenever they come across a question not stored in RFPIO, they’ll work with SMEs to write a high-quality answer, and store it in the content library. So next time they see that question, they’ll be ready.

“Today we’re filling out 80% of an RFP with Auto Respond. But next time we get an RFP, that percentage might be 81%. The more answers we put in the library, and the more RFPs we respond to, the more accurate Auto Respond becomes,” Paul explained.

“Auto Respond is absolutely brilliant. We just click on it and RFPIO answers 80% of an RFP in a few seconds.”

-Paul Taylor, Vice President of Solutions Engineering at Crownpeak

RFPIO is more than RFP software. It’s a knowledge base.

When sales development representatives at Crownpeak get a question from prospects, RFPIO is the first place they go for answers. Now, SDRs can answer their prospects questions as soon as they ask them—shortening the sales cycle and keeping prospects happy.

For the senior sales representatives, giving the SDRs a place to find answers means no longer answering the same question again and again. “When a sales development representative asks me a question, I’ll point them to the Content Library. If they can’t find the answer there, I’ll write a really good answer and send it to them—and then add that answer to the Content Library, so they won’t have to ask me next time,” Paul explained.

RFPIO is also where the compliance team keeps the most up-to-date security and compliance information. The compliance team moderates any content before it is stored in the library—and ensures content surrounding compliance and security is regularly audited. The result? The entire Crownpeak team trusts what is stored in the library. And responding to Security Questionnaires has never been easier.

Crownpeak increased efficiency by 1000% and saw a 6x return on investment within months of implementing RFPIO

Before RFPIO, it would take the Crownpeak team several days to respond to a single RFP. They would often work nights and weekends just to submit an RFP before the deadline.

Now, they can answer 80% of an RFP in just one click, and they’re measuring total response time in hours, rather than days.

With so much extra time, the sales team can focus on activities that add value to the business. They’re improving the quality of their demos. They’re building relationships. They’re talking to prospects one-on-one, and really understanding their needs.

They’re also tailoring RFPs to each customers’ needs, greatly improving the quality of their responses. The better the responses, the more RFPs they win, and the more revenue they can generate.

Paul has just a few words to anyone still manually responding to RFPs: “You have no idea what you’re missing. Once you start automating your process, the only way to go is up.”

Are you ready to respond to RFPs faster, and improve the quality of your responses? Get started by scheduling a demo today.

Robust proposal automation software integrations for sales

Robust proposal automation software integrations for sales

Sales Enablement

You want one thing: To achieve your sales goals. But there are many steps between “wanting to achieve” and “actually achieving”. Effectively responding to RFPs is one of those steps.

Your team generates revenue when you win RFPs. Yet, responding to RFPs involves a substantial time commitment from sales, adding fuel to the fire for the 68% of salespeople who struggle with managing their time to focus on sales-related activities.

Rather than dwelling on what you can’t control, you’re here to take control. Proposal automation software has sparked your curiosity. You know it will save you time, but how exactly? You know it integrates with some technology, but which solutions? Let’s dig deeper into proposal automation software integrations so you know which benefits to expect.

RFPIO Salesforce integration

Many sales departments live and breathe in Salesforce. When your team isn’t interacting with prospects and customers, they probably turn to Salesforce for information. Your proposal automation software must integrate with the existing CRM system your team uses.

The RFPIO Salesforce integration helps sales teams like yours communicate more efficiently both inside and outside the platform. Integrating your customer relationship database with RFP response automation software consolidates your technology and makes RFP responses a breeze.

With the RFPIO Salesforce integration, you’ll have:

    • Instant access to your organization’s content library (RFPIO’s Content Library) and to all relevant CRM data inside one platform.
    • The ability to start a project by tying it to a Salesforce opportunity, automatically pulling in relevant data.
    • An easy way to submit RFP opportunities as intake requests.
    • Full visibility to track opportunities, active RFP responses, and sales.
    • A comprehensive overview at a glance to track progress and know where a project stands.
    • Salesforce reporting integration, which is key for both sales management and decision-makers.

In addition to the RFPIO Salesforce integration, RFPIO has several CRM integrations, with one certain to be the best fit for your organization. Other CRM integrations include: Pipelinedeals, HubSpot, Dynamics CRM, and Pipedrive.

“We have a more streamlined, collaborative process now. Our team works more easily together than ever before. If someone is looking at a Salesforce record, it is really convenient for them to be able to click on the RFPIO project to see those details.” ~ PerfectMind (read the full case study here)

Easy communication and simple access

As a sales professional, your day is filled with interpersonal communication. You need access to information for customer inquiries, working with prospects, and closing deals on the fly.

When you’re asked to respond to an RFP, the same need is just as critical. Technology like proposal automation software should work harder and smarter for you, making communication easier and access to information simpler to come by.

Slack and Microsoft Teams

RFPIO offers convenient communication integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams. With a cloud-based communication platform like Slack, you know how easy it is to instant message across multiple devices and platforms in one shot.

With the RFPIO Slack integration, you’ll be able to:

  • Have a conversation with your whole team at a single point.
  • Send notifications to both RFPIO Slack and a configured channel.
  • Reply to messages from Slack and populate them in RFPIO.
  • Search your organization’s content library in Slack.

RFPIO provides integration with Microsoft Teams too. You’ll experience many of the same benefits. RFP projects can be added to a Microsoft Teams board. Respond to questions, use the recommendations library, attach documents, add clarifications, and export responses.

No more tracking emails and instant messages in multiple platforms, searching through spreadsheets, and making unnecessary phone calls to busy colleagues. Slack and Microsoft Team integrations with RFPIO simplify your communication tactics and improve team collaboration on RFP responses.

SSO (Single-Sign-On) Authentication

Single-sign-on (SSO) authentication integration streamlines your daily processes even further. RFPIO has integrations with Microsoft ADFS, Microsoft Azure, Onelogin and Okta. When an RFP, RFI, or security questionnaire project comes up, jump right into the project with one simple and secure login no matter where you are.

63% of salespeople said RFPIO enables them to automate their process, granting them more time to pursue new business with RFPs. Instant and secure information access simplifies your RFP responses, saves you time and effort, and lets you focus on your prime directive—sales.

Cloud integrations streamline information

RFPIO is a cloud-based solution that automates and streamlines the process of responding to RFPs. Leveraging this technology, we’ve integrated with several popular cloud storage platforms, including Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Sharepoint, and Box.

Cloud integration enhances collaboration—and better collaboration makes everyone’s job easier. The next time you’re assigned a handful of RFP questions, you won’t have to deal with information silos. Documents and collateral materials are readily accessible across platforms and devices in the cloud.

Easy online content access with RFPIO Lookup

Last but not least is RFPIO Lookup, which is one of our most popular integrations for sales teams…after Salesforce and SSO. RFPIO integrates with Google Chrome so you can access content right from your web browser. You can smell the sweet scent of time-savings already, can’t you?

Simply download and install the Chrome extension and search your organization’s content library by keyword—Lookup delivers advanced search capabilities with filters. Another important aspect of RFPIO Lookup is being able to create a project in RFPIO, even when you’re responding to a question.

You’re looking for an RFP response automation solution to work hard for you so that you can stay focused on closing deals for your organization. With several robust, bi-directional integrations, RFPIO is the answer. Let RFPIO work harder and smarter for you on your next RFP response. Schedule a demo today.

Get the latest stories delivered straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our blog and never miss an important insight again.

Thank you for subscribing.

Something went wrong.