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Win more bids by scaling your response management process – part 1

Win more bids by scaling your response management process – part 1

Selling & Enablement

You have probably heard the expression that you can’t win if you don’t play. The business equivalent of not playing […]

Category: Tag: Response management best practices

Win more bids by scaling your response management process – part 1

Win more bids by scaling your response management process – part 1

Selling & Enablement

You have probably heard the expression that you can’t win if you don’t play. The business equivalent of not playing is failing to respond to an RFP. You might ask what that has to do with you and your response management team. After all, your team responds to every RFP that comes their way, right?

Playing to win requires more than filling in the blanks, however. It requires updated and defined RFP response processes to maximize efficiency and accuracy while saving time and company resources – all with the ultimate goal of winning the bid!

This article will discuss the revenue-driving and resource-saving Association for Proposal Management Professional (APMP) best practices for updating and defining your organization’s response management process.

End-to-end processes help future-proof your RFP response flow.

Organizations that consistently follow a defined business development process win more business and use fewer investment resources. ~ Association of Proposal Management Professionals  

If your company is anything like ours, and I’m sure it is, you have dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct personalities and work styles. You also have attrition, onboarding, PTO, etc. Yet surprisingly, you rarely devolve into chaos.

Why is that? It’s because you’ve established defined processes. So if, for example, a client calls with questions for their customer service rep who’s out of the office, your CRM will arm everyone else in the department with the information they need to answer the questions. 

CRMs are great at helping define processes, and so is RFPIO.

Do you have a defined response management process?

If you won the lottery today, would someone be able to pick up your job tomorrow? How fast will it take your replacement to ramp up?

According to the APMP, every organization should design its own end-to-end process suited to its organization and customers.

Sure, we’d all like to feel indispensable, but if we are the exclusive key holders to critical processes, we’re doing a huge disservice to our companies. I would even argue that the best employees, at least those whose values align with their organizations, are transparent about their work processes. 

In turn, the best-run organizations have processes to ensure that when an RFP manager takes a day or week off, or even leaves, it won’t derail responses. 

If you have a defined process, have you recently reevaluated your processes?

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s change. Just a little over two years ago, remote work was relatively rare. Then, everything suddenly turned upside down, and we all needed to adapt. 

Guess what? We did, at least for the most part, and the world didn’t implode. I don’t think it’s a giant leap to say that defined processes kept the economy humming, despite unforeseen challenges. Defined processes certainly helped keep RFPIO thriving, but only because we regularly reevaluate them.

In the software industry, especially in SaaS, things change quickly. At RFPIO, we have to be agile. As our customers’ needs change, so must we. When the market or regulatory environment changes, we have to adapt. That’s why we have new releases almost monthly. 

**It only takes about 15 minutes each month to learn about the new features.**

Of course, defining your processes requires more than updating software. Do you regularly interact with your subject matter experts? Do you ask them for feedback on your Content Library? If you don’t, your subject matter experts may be frustrated, but they may start to feel heard by opening the door to collaboration. Also, they’re a potential wealth of ideas. 

After speaking with the experts, bring your Customer Success Manager into the fold. Ask them about the challenges they have run across. They might have solutions that they’ve previously been reluctant to mention.

How to identify a response management black hole

In an ideal world, we’d have months to respond to each RFP. But, unfortunately, that’s rare. Often, we have two weeks or less. I’ve even seen two days! But, thankfully, that’s also rare. 

How often does this scenario happen: The RFP landed in your inbox just days before it was due, but you saw that it was issued weeks earlier! 

Obviously, two days is an extreme example. A more common scenario might look something like this: The RFP was issued two months ago. It sat somewhere, untouched, for weeks. Then, just as you were confident you were on track for all your deadlines, the RFP lands on your lap, and it’s due by the end of the week. 

The fact is, you can’t win them all. So when buried under an avalanche of response deadlines, many companies choose to triage, or employ the bid/no-bid strategy, where you bid the RFPs with the higher win rates and let the less viable opportunities go. 

But what if the RFP that sat in the pipeline for weeks has a high win rate? What happened to the RFP during those weeks? Where is that black hole, and how can you plug it? Let’s see if we can help you identify the problem(s) and help you create a bid/no-bid strategy with this attached downloadable worksheet.

In the second of our two-part series, we’ll explore the tools RFPIO provides to help scale your response management process and, of course, win those bids!

In the meantime, let us know if you’d like to learn more about RFPIO and how we can help you scale your response management process.

How to write a winning RFP executive summary—er, briefing (with template)

How to write a winning RFP executive summary—er, briefing (with template)

Selling & Enablement

Executives don’t want to be summarized. They want to be briefed, which is what your executive summary needs to do. While common terminology is “executive summary,” approaching it as an executive briefing will put you in the proper persuasive mindset.

It all tracks back to Dr. Tom Sant. Know him? If you prepare proposals or briefings to make your sales living, then Dr. Sant’s subject matter expertise needs to be in your toolbox.

He’s written a few books, one of which is Persuasive Business Proposals. I highly recommend it, and not just because I used to work with Dr. Sant at one of the companies he founded. Its value is in how he ties proposal writing to the psychology of how humans make decisions. It’s a master class in how to use persuasive language in sales when building proposals and their executive summaries.

For the sake of this article—and to help keep us focused on the executive summary—I want to focus on one of Dr. Sant’s most helpful guidelines, which goes by the acronym NOSE.

  • Needs: Spell out your understanding of the prospect’s problems.
  • Outcomes: Confirm the results they anticipate when their problems are solved.
  • Solution: Recommend how you can solve the problem.
  • Evidence: Illustrate how you’ve solved similar problems in the past and who else trusts you to solve such problems.

According to Dr. Sant, by organizing your executive summary to align with NOSE, you’ll address three questions that executives want answered while being briefed:

  1. Are we getting what we need?
  2. Is it really worth the investment of resources and time?
  3. Can they really deliver?

Many salespeople make the mistake of focusing more on “summary” than “executive.” Summaries tend to not provide answers. They’re more like glorified tables of contents for the larger proposal.

Create the executive summary with the understanding that it’s likely the only part of a proposal that executive-level decision-makers will review. You have to elicit the desired response from a proposal without including everything that goes into a proposal. No doubt it’s a top-flight challenge in persuasion, but it’s the hurdle your executive summary has to leap.

Executives want to see that you understand their needs and desired outcomes, their pains and wants. Seeing this level of understanding articulated in the executive summary helps relieve any anxiety they may have as check writers. Many executives just want the briefing to overcome their fear of making the wrong decision or selecting the wrong vendor, which can be a career-damaging move.

5 more tips for writing an executive summary that packs a punch

There are heaps of tips written in-line in the template. It’s a template with instructions, like one of those fresh dinner boxes you can have delivered that has all the groceries and the recipe you need to make a meal, but without all the surprise prep work that no one ever mentions (“Wait, I still have to marinate this meat and chop all these veggies?”).

In fact, there’s so many tips that I didn’t have room for these four, so I’m dropping them in here:

  1. Create a title using a dynamic verb: Sadly, the most popular title for an executive summary is “Proposal for Prospect Company.” Use the title as an opportunity to capture the executive’s attention. “Increasing lead-generation…,” or “Visualizing revenue forecasting…,” or “Streamlining cloud storage…” or whatever it is that your solution is going to do for them.
  2. Use the recipient’s actual name whenever possible: It makes recipients feel important and personally attended to when they see their name on the front page.
  3. Aim for a 3:1 ratio of recipient company name versus your company name: Make the document feel customized to them, not you.
  4. Show how well you understand your prospect’s needs: Sales or business development representatives should provide this information either from experience or from a formal discovery phase that needs to happen prior to your building a proposal with an executive summary. List only 3-5. Six and beyond are dismissed by the brain as trivia, and are almost never read.
  5. Make sure your key functionalities match your prospects’s desired business outcomes: If they don’t, it’s probably not a good fit.

Executive summary template: Use it or reference it, whichever works best for you

I could tell you *how* to write an executive summary until the cows come home. But, if you’re anything like me, things don’t really click until you see these best practices put into action.

That’s why I pulled together an executive summary template based on Dr. Sant’s NOSE. Replace the in-line instructions with recommended content and you’ll end up with an executive summary that’s bound to impress. Or, at the very least, that’s bound to address executive-level strategic concerns about your proposal. Download the full template here.

Pro-Tip: When you’re ready to write your own executive summary, make a copy of the template. Then, delete all the comments. That way you don’t accidentally fire off a document complete with my tips and tricks.

Create effective executive summaries consistently

Some of us around here at RFPIO are prone to saying, “A proposal on its own is not likely to win a deal, but it can certainly lose it.” The same can be said for an executive summary.

Remember that executives buy a solution for different reasons than a production team (sales, marketing, IT, etc.) wants to use it. Executive teams have strategic goals while production teams have daily workflow improvement goals. In RFPIO’s case, while prospect executives may want to increase sales pipelines, sales and proposal teams just want time back for sanity.

I hope you find this template and walkthrough helpful. It’s been my experience that very few organizations or individuals get any training on writing executive summaries. Hence, on the sales side, there can be a lot of inconsistency across the organization when it comes to executive summary approaches. With RFPIO’s ability to work from templates for executive summaries and proposals, uploading this template can help establish a consistent foundation for executive briefing creation moving forward.

To learn more about RFPIO and functions such as Salesforce Proposal Builder, schedule a demo today.

How managers can set their proposal teams up for success

How managers can set their proposal teams up for success

Product & Best Practices

In 2019, 23.8% of the total workforce in the US was working from home, according to the US Labor Bureau of Statistics. Although the Labor Bureau hasn’t released stats for 2020 yet, I think it’s safe to say that the percentage of remote workers will be significantly higher than 23.8%.

While the media published plenty of grim predictions about what the sudden shift to remote work could mean, the anticipated doom and gloom has yet to appear. In fact, the majority of Americans have embraced remote work with open arms—one recent survey found that 54% of Americans want to keep working remotely, even after offices can safely reopen.

As we all settle more comfortably into remote work, lots of managers are getting creative, looking for new ways to help their teams succeed when working from home. Once you figure out the right workflow for your team, remote work presents lots of opportunities for your team to grow and thrive.

A few weeks ago, I talked with Kevin Knopf, the Sr. VP of Marketing and Communications at Keenan & Associates. Before the imposed lockdowns, 95% of Kevin’s team was coming into the office every day. In one day, this percentage flipped on its head, where 100% of his team was suddenly working from home. As he navigated this new working environment, he learned three key things about setting his team up for success.

1) Make productivity a priority

The one thing Kevin knew for sure is that he needed to do everything in his power to make the transition as smooth as possible, while also keeping his team productive. He started by focusing on his people.

The first thing Kevin did was encourage his team to adjust their work schedules according to when they were most productive, instead of sticking to the regular 9 to 5 routine. This small change greatly boosted the team’s productivity and helped them to better serve their clients.

As a manager, it’s important to listen to your team members and understand what they really need. This might mean telling them to take tomorrow off when they’re stressed out. Or making sure they log off at their designated quitting time. Giving your team the chance to take some time off helps them recharge and to come back mentally refreshed, ready to do their best work.

It’s also important for managers to find ways to be flexible and go with the flow when unexpected things happen. Maybe your team member’s kids bounded into the room during a video call. Taking a moment to smile and greet them shows your team members that you care about them as people and spreads positive energy throughout the team.

2) Strengthen your response process

When you’re thinking about strengthening your response process, the first thing you should focus on his finding technology that works for your team. For Kevin, having a solution like RFPIO was mission-critical when it came to creating remote workflows.

RFPIO has made a huge difference, especially the project management features that enable them to set up tasks and checklists. In addition to helping them organize their RFPs and respond to them in record time, these checklists have helped team members keep track of each project.

While Kevin’s team had always valued technology’s role in the RFP response process, the transition to remote work encouraged them to further explore some of RFPIO’s features that make remote work easier, especially features that support collaboration and project management.

Another part of setting up remote-friendly workflows is finding an onboarding process that works. Kevin starts the onboarding process with a video series that gives new proposal managers a virtual tour of the RFPIO platform. Kevin also provides a PDF step-by-step manual that the managers can follow as they review the training videos.

This remote onboarding process has been hugely successful at Keenan & Associates, giving new team members a chance to quickly get comfortable with the platform.

3) Build connections with team members

Having a close-knit team that values cooperation and creative problem-solving is key for making remote work a success. And this process starts with establishing connections among team members.

Since positive teams are more productive teams, he stayed on the look-out for ways to bring his team closer together, even though they were no longer sharing a physical space. He set up an open Zoom meeting where team members were free to talk about life outside of work. He also organized different “theme days” on Fridays—one Friday, everyone showed up to the video call wearing their favorite tie-dyed shirt.

It’s also important to hold regular meetings at least once or twice a week to touch base and make sure everyone is on the same page. These meetings should cover each team member’s home life as well as their work life. Talk about what’s happening at home, and what non-work responsibilities they have to take on this week. Regular check-ins like these help team members to understand what’s going on in each other’s lives and helps bring them closer together.

Take your proposal team to the next level

Remote work is here to stay, which gives proposal teams plenty of opportunities to rise to the occasion and embrace innovation in the workplace. This is the perfect time to take advantage of technology solutions such as RFPIO to establish efficient RFP workflows that boost productivity whether working remotely or in the office.

Watch my full webinar, below, to learn more about how to take advantage of technology to best support your remote team. Or schedule a demo to learn about how RFP software can help your remote proposal team.

Level up your RFP responses through the power of storytelling

Level up your RFP responses through the power of storytelling

Product & Best Practices

Any marketer knows you need to build trust and credibility with your audience from the very beginning. Studies show that 81% of people consider trust to be a key factor in making purchasing decisions, which just goes to show how important it is to develop content that builds trust with your prospects.

In addition to blog posts and customer case studies, RFPs also provide lots of opportunities to establish trust with your prospect. And one of the most powerful ways to achieve this is to incorporate authentic storytelling in your RFP responses. Here are some reasons why you should include impactful stories in your RFP responses and a few tips for getting the process started.

How stories can strengthen your RFPs

Good sales reps know how to uncover their prospects’ needs. But great sales reps know how to use stories to build lasting relationships.

They know that an RFP is not just a sales pitch or proposal. It’s also a great opportunity to make an impact. And the most effective way to make an impact is to tell your organization’s story in a way that resonates with your prospect.

Why are stories so powerful? For one thing, stories are remembered up to 22 times more than statistics, and they also help to make your brand more human. Using stories that speak to your prospect’s needs and pain points can get them to really listen and engage with your brand.

By showing prospects you really understand what they’re experiencing and have a solution to their problems, you set yourself apart from your competitors. Stories are a powerful tool to help you show your prospects why they should choose your product or service over a competitor’s.

Great stories begin with great content

If you’re serious about crafting winning RFP responses, you need to find the right stories to tell. When choosing your stories, make sure they both inform and captivate your readers. To accomplish this goal, ask yourself what your prospect really wants and needs. Having a clear understanding of your target clients and how your company meets their needs can help you figure out the best stories to include in your RFP responses.

You might show how your company was founded to address the specific problems your prospect is looking to solve. Or how your company’s founders understand your prospect’s pain points because they were once in the same position.

When choosing your stories, here are some things to keep in mind:

  • Requirement: What are your prospect’s underlying needs?
  • Output: What sort of impact will your product or service have on their business
  • Solution: What problem will your product or service solve for them?
  • Evidence: Why is your product or service the best solution for them? Make sure you use data, testimonials, or customer case studies to explain why.

Once you’ve come up with brand stories that really strike a chord with your prospects, there’s no need to keep updating them. That’s because telling the same story makes you seem reliable and consistent, which helps you stand out. And most importantly, it can help you build trust with your audience and prospects.

So don’t change your stories, but make sure that your message is the same across all marketing channels and in every conversation with prospects and customers.

To keep things consistent, you also need to train your team on how to use storytelling when answering a prospect’s questions and helping them make a buying decision. Let them know that reciting a list of features just won’t cut it when it comes to engaging prospects with your company. Instead, it’s the stories you tell that make the biggest impact on them.

Show your team how to make use of your organization’s story, and how to explain why your product or service is the one prospects need the most.

Why a content library is a must for RFP storytelling

Deciding on which stories to include in your RFP responses is the first step. The next step is making sure your team can access this content quickly and easily.

A high-quality RFP response tells your story with accurate, engaging detail that makes it clear why you stand out from the competition. At the same time, your content needs to be well-organized if you want to communicate this story effectively.

That’s why you need an RFP content library to help you organize your stories so your team can access them quickly when necessary.

Here are some best practices for building your RFP content library:

  • Curate compelling RFP content: When building your RFP library, choose content that both informs your readers and draws them in. Aim for detailed, colorful answers that clearly illustrate the benefits of your product or service and show the human side of your business. Teach your team members how to create compelling stories so they can contribute additional RFP responses to your library.
  • Organize your responses: Once you have your library of responses, you’ll need to organize them. The best way to go about this is to categorize your RFP content using tags and collections so it’s easy for team members to find. There are lots of different technology solutions like RFPIO that you can use to set up a tagging system that works. Make sure your tagging system has clear guidelines for your team members and hold regular training sessions to make everyone’s on board with your tagging strategy.
  • Keep your content fresh: Keeping your content fresh and up-to-date is a must for maintaining a library of RFP responses. Be sure to schedule regular audits to check the quality of your content and update it when needed. During these audits, assign content to subject matter experts and set up a tagging system to help them update and rearrange content.

The power of storytelling in RFP responses

When it comes to RFP responses, remember that RFPs are more than just a sales pitch, but are an amazing opportunity to tell your brand’s story and win over your audience. By bringing effective storytelling into your RFP responses, you can show prospects that you really understand their needs and set the stage for a long-term relationship with them.

Check out my full webinar below to learn more about the importance of using storytelling in your RFP responses. Or request a demo if you want to learn how to use RFPIO to create your own RFP content library.

4 steps to achieving work-life balance in your SME role

4 steps to achieving work-life balance in your SME role

Company & Events, People & Teams

Do you feel like security questionnaires and RFPs have taken over your life? This is common feedback we hear from subject matter experts (SMEs) involved in the proposal process.

You receive a request from your proposal manager at the last-minute and you drop everything to jump in and lend support. From there, it’s a mad dash to the finish line. To “catch up,” you end up working late into the workweek evenings—or even Saturday mornings—to contribute your response content.

So, how do you adjust your SME role in the proposal process to work in your favor? Let’s help you achieve work-life balance and get your weekends back.

1. Find the root cause of your work stress

Something is taking up all of your time…what is driving that? Maybe you feel generally overwhelmed, because you wear multiple hats in your SME role. You’re pulled in a million different directions and you don’t know which way to go first. Everything is a priority.

This feeling is very common for SMEs who respond to RFPs. There is no simple cure for overwhelm, but you can find the root cause of your work stress. Start by looking at how you and your response management team might improve your proposal process to save time.

Maybe you’re a really slow writer or you can’t stand writing. Creating content isn’t quick and easy for anyone, but it’s definitely easier for professional writers. If you don’t have internal proposal writers on-hand, maybe it’s time to outsource writers who gather informational bullet points from you then bring the response content together.

Once you understand what is taking up your time, the next step is getting support. Many subject matter experts are afraid to ask for help and they are worried they will not seem proficient. If you ask for help now, you will be less likely to say “no” later when you are overwhelmed by tasks.

You and your team are better off with an honest conversation about workloads, especially when everyone is dealing with the pressure of tight deadlines and burnout in the proposal process.

2. Play to your strengths to succeed

We all have strengths and weaknesses…that’s human nature. Figure you how to play to your strengths so you’re in a position to be as successful as possible. Who else should you get involved in the response process?

One person can’t possibly know everything there is to know about the organization. When providing the most relevant and accurate responses, it’s best for you to stay in your lane—and for other SMEs to provide responses to the other areas of the business you are not an expert in.

It’s better to be proactive with solutions, so you’re not saying to your proposal manager: “I’m too busy, so I can’t do that.” Instead say: “You know what? That’s not my area of expertise, but I know that X, Y, and Z can fill those roles and fill them well based on my interactions with them on previous proposals we completed together.”

Your organization will be better served and more efficient if the appropriate team members respond to the appropriate questions and sections. Stick with what you know and help your proposal manager find right-fit resource alternatives so you don’t leave anyone hanging.

3. Have the right people and processes in place

You and your proposal management team will work better and faster when you have the right people and processes in place. Get more people involved and be sure that each contributor knows which part of the process they step into.

Technology like proposal software supports you and your proposal process. Proposal software unifies your entire proposal management team. Because there are unlimited user licenses, everyone works more efficiently within a dedicated response management platform.

Integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams eliminate back-and-forth emails and unnecessary meetings. The searchable Content Library stores and organizes all of your existing responses, so you select relevant content, customize at will, then move onto the next task on your list of priorities.

Again, responding to security questionnaires and RFPs should never fall on one person…you or any other team member. Response management is absolutely a team effort. To win a deal, you must submit high-quality content. The only way winning content will happen is with a team of specialists banding together, owning specific sections that relate directly to their subject matter expertise.

4. Unplug, recharge, and do your best work

Achieving work-life balance is something we all want—but, it’s also something we all need. We live in a hyper-connected world, where it’s all too easy to “stay on” even when we’re supposed to be off. To do your best work, you need downtime to unplug and recharge.

If you’re responding to RFPs on the weekends, that takes you away from family time and personal time. I know that in my personal life, I need to have an outlet to reenergize. For me, that means playing golf. For you, that could be a completely different hobby, sport, getaway, or even blissfully binge-watching your favorite show on Netflix.

Unplugging can also mean taking 10-15 minutes on a weekday afternoon to take a walk. Even if you’re in the middle of working on a complex security questionnaire with your team, it’s okay to give yourself a timeout or shift something to the next morning so you can get back into the project when you’re fresh.

Communicate with your proposal manager to keep them in the loop. Reassure them that you will do your best work if you have a little more time to develop high-quality responses. Let them know exactly when you will deliver the responses, so they know you’re handling the assigned task.

Security questionnaires and RFPs aren’t going anywhere. Today’s organizations are seeing an increasing number of these documents during the sales cycle.

The goal with any response submission is to put your organization’s best foot forward. Take a breather and spend some time thinking about what support mechanisms you need in your SME role.

Working through this actionable plan will help you add more value to your organization. And you’ll finally achieve what you thought was unreachable before…work-life balance.

_____________

You deserve to get your weekends back. Reach out to our team and we’ll show you how RFPIO saves you time and helps you prioritize.

5 tactics for developing brand consistency in response management

5 tactics for developing brand consistency in response management

Product & Best Practices

Today’s buyer is very selective when the time comes to purchase a product or service. Buyers not only expect more from brands, they also like to know what to expect. Why is every Target store set up the same? Why does McDonald’s feel familiar no matter what country you’re in? Because those well-known companies have mastered brand consistency.

Organizations that get this know that creating a consistent user experience helps customers and clients easily find what they need. Brand consistency is the foundation for a positive user experience because it delivers a sense of comfort and familiarity. This concept applies to B2C and B2B organizations—small, mid-sized, and enterprise.

Brand consistency is a key factor in the ultimate success of your response management process, whether you are submitting an RFP (request for proposal), SOW (statement of work), security questionnaires or other form of proposals. Let’s dig into several ideas that will help you create a more consistent brand experience throughout the sales process.

Brand consistency techniques for better response management

The average revenue increase attributed to always presenting the brand consistently is 23%. Establishing brand consistency within the response management process allows companies to scale faster.

To build a cohesive brand experience in your response management process, everyone involved in responding to business queries should be aligned by a strategy. Brand consistency is a technique. And like any technique, it takes dedication to master it.

1. Create a messaging framework.

You have a messaging framework for all other marketing content. Your response management process should be treated with the same approach. Often this is not the case, as marketing teams fly into the process much later during review and finalization of the deliverable.

Every marketer should be prepared to put out fires, but that means being prepared well before the fire begins. Proactively create a one-page messaging strategy for each type of business query your team responds to. To serve as a reminder, be sure to include the goal of what your content hopes to achieve at the very top.

2. Optimize your most repetitive responses.

RFP issuers typically ask similar sets of questions, with perhaps a few variations or wild cards along the way. There is no need to create content from scratch every time you respond to a business query. In fact, reinventing the wheel with responses leads to brand consistency challenges.

Repurposing content is perfectly acceptable, assuming you go the extra mile by tailoring the response to address each prospect’s goals and needs. You know the repetitive questions already. Spend time perfecting these responses, so they are optimized and ready to go. And audit this content quarterly, versus setting and forgetting.

“Successful branding yields benefits such as increased customer loyalty, an improved image, and a relatable identity.” – TSL Marketing

3. Standardize information with brand guidelines.

Brand guidelines act as the North Star in standardizing all of your organization’s communication efforts. Yet, typically the response management process tends to go rogue and operate outside these guidelines your marketing team has painstakingly developed.

Contributors from multiple departments respond to questions in an RFP, using their favorite fonts. Headers and lists are mismatched—and you end up with a huge formatting mess. Keep your cool and remember that responders like SMEs and salespeople aren’t nearly as connected to the brand as you are. Make sure responders have a copy of brand guidelines and that they understand how to implement them in everyday situations.

4. Store all content in an accessible location.

Knowledge sharing in our content-driven world is becoming an increasing challenge for organizations. Cloud storage solutions can only do so much. Everyone has their own way of organizing folders and files, leaving a maze of content to navigate.

The best way to create a “grab and go” option with company information is to keep it accessible in one location—preferably an Content Library in a response management platform. An Content Library stores brand-approved content, allowing responders to quickly hunt down information through searches or filters. And, you get to have a much better handle on brand consistency.

5. Automate your response management process.

Responding to business queries is a notoriously time-consuming activity for you and other contributors. Automating with strong technology really opens the door to a repeatable and scalable process.

A response management platform like RFPIO automates everything, helping teams cut their response time by 40%-50% on average. Even if responders get wildly creative with formatting, you can export into a custom branded template in seconds then perform a quick sweep of the document. Automation frees up your time to produce the highest quality deliverable possible—and, of course—move on to other priorities on your to-do list.

Brand consistency holds a ton of value in steering your approach to response management. How you present these sales documents to a prospect influences whether a potential client becomes your future client…or your competitor’s client.

You already know that people who love your brand then become advocates for your brand. Creating a positive feeling through content that is “on brand” has the power to build relationships and earn trust. It’s time to cultivate a positive brand experience with your response management process too.

Achieving brand consistency is a cinch with RFPIO. Schedule a demo right here and we’ll get you all set up for success.

Benefits of RFP software for analyst questionnaires

Benefits of RFP software for analyst questionnaires

Products/Features/Solutions

Spring is a special time for marketing teams. Event season is around the corner, semi-annual budgeting and reviews are due soon, and lead volumes are starting to ramp up after the holiday season. But if there’s one thing that spring means for marketing, it’s analyst questionnaires & reports. You know—the all-powerful grids, benchmarks, reports, and quadrants that prove to the world that your solution is the best one out there.

Like most marketers I love analyst reports—at least the potential value they bring. They are instant pieces of rich content. Analyst reports bring credibility and brand recognition to a campaign, and they deliver a spike in confidence both internally and externally around your core offering. However, filling them out can be a challenging process.

You may be asking yourself what this has to do with RFP software? Well, this year I joined the RFPIO marketing team, and during my on-boarding product training, I kept thinking, “Why didn’t I have this for my analyst questionnaires?!” It immediately made the case to me for a robust response management platform to make the process easier.

I’d like to address some of the challenges analyst reports bring, and then give you my list of reasons why a response management solution like RFPIO can help you, my fellow marketer.

Marketing Analyst Questionnaires RFPIO

Analyst questionnaires require extensive resources

To be honest, I would sometimes dread seeing the yearly analyst questionnaires arrive at my desk. My job as a product marketer was busy enough. But in reality, these projects always required a team effort. Much like RFPs, marketing analyst reports require detailed answers from subject matter experts scattered across many departments.

Industry analyst questionnaires typically come in the form of an Excel document, with dozens to hundreds of questions. The questions range from basic company info to detailed summaries of annual user activity, and even the long term executive financial strategy.

As it turns out, even as a product expert I was only ever able to answer about 30 percent of analyst questionnaires independently. I would need to engage with 10 to 15 SMEs to answer a hundred questions, usually setting me back about 20 to 25 hours.

Marketing Project RFPIO Platform
Many of the questions I found myself searching for had previously been answered by an SME as well. RFx and security questionnaire answers were often forwarded to me with comments like, “Hey Phill, I answered that question in a recent RFI, you will find your answer in the attached document.” It didn’t make sense to duplicate efforts, but this wasn’t a very efficient process either.

Licensing analyst content to support sales and marketing efforts can also be very valuable. While ROI from these assets is often hard to directly credit, keep in mind that 57 percent of the purchase decision is complete before a customer even calls a supplier, and 67 percent of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally (Curata). This all means that it’s wise to invest in content that influences the buyer as early in their journey as possible.

But it’s not cheap. An average marketing team can expect to pay anywhere from $10,000 to over $100,000 per report, for various levels of licensing rights.

The analyst questionnaire response process takes time

Filling out the marketing analyst questionnaires and then waiting on results happens over a period of months. Here’s what that process typically looks like:

Early Spring: Potential participants briefed on report, given required materials to complete with strict deadlines.

Early Summer: Reports and questionnaires due back to analyst groups. One to three months for review & processing.

Early Fall: Drafts of completed analyst reports issued to participants, along with licensing options.

This is pretty standard across the board, for all the major players. Some of the most popular and influential analyst research reports for technology companies include the Forrester Wave Report, Gartner’s Magic Quadrants, IDC, and HSF, to name a few.

Allocating time and resources to the process of submitting analyst questionnaires usually limits companies to participating in one or two reports per year. And even then, they may not like the results enough to license the content!

Some opt out of participating in the questionnaires altogether, but that runs the risk of not being represented on the grid at all. And that can give your competitors a leg up. So even if you choose not to license a report, by submitting the analyst questionnaire at least your logo will be represented.

Instead of deciding which one to submit, or whether or not to submit at all, with response management software you don’t have to choose.

7 response management platform benefits to marketing

By leveraging RFPIO’s Content Library, marketing teams can now participate in all questionnaires. I wish I had a time machine to go back and approach each of the above problems through the lense of response management software—specifically RFPIO. Instead, I will offer you the benefits that I didn’t realize were at my fingertips:

1. Saves Time
This is big. Multiple analyst questionnaires can be answered in less time and with fewer resources than a single questionnaire would require without response management software.

2. Mitigates Risk
The ability to complete all available questionnaires affords marketing teams the freedom to wait for all the results, and choose to invest in whichever licensing report tells their best story.

3. Improves Results
The recommendation engine within your RFPIO Content Library draws from proven content already crafted by your subject matter experts, so you know what works.

4. Consistent Responses
You won’t be reinventing the wheel every time you fill out a questionnaire. With response management software our company’s voice will stay consistent and on brand across the board.

5. Project Management
All your concurrent projects and competing due dates are managed in a central location, to help you keep track of progress and monitor success.

6. Formatting Ease
Take back those hours you usually spend making fonts and spacing match up, and let RFPIO do the work. Then you can export right back to the source file or an approved template.

7. Familiar Platform
If your company is already using RFPIO, all this functionality is available to you right now. There are no add-on costs associated with using the platform for different types of projects.

If you’re struggling with analyst questionnaires, my fellow marketer, feast your weary eyes upon RFPIO. With a response management platform, you can challenge those old processes, make your job easier, and help your company tell its story in a more impactful way.

Interested in seeing a demo? Let us know.

Why listening is the key to a satisfying customer experience

Why listening is the key to a satisfying customer experience

People & Teams, Product & Best Practices

In the age of snake oil salesmen and traveling doctors, a “quick close” was the best (and only) way to do business — gotta close the deal before anyone finds out it’s all a sham. 

For organizations today, closing the deal is only the first step. After a prospect becomes a customer, successful organizations work on forming real partnerships with their customers — rather than treating them as another tick up on their quarterly revenue quota.

In other words, organizations are putting more value on customer experience. And one of the tried and true ways for improving the customer experience is listening to your customers.

“Because customers today are so discerning and powerful, most organizations need to invest far more in customer experience” –PwC 

Encourage customer feedback

Many organizations are leery about encouraging their customers to leave reviews because they fear a bad review might come out in public on a third party site, like G2 Crowd or Capterra.

But in this day and age, reviews are the lifeblood of any organization. The more reviews you have, the more credibility you have — even bad reviews up your credibility as an organization. And the truth of the matter is that, unless you’re selling ice cream, you’re not going to make everyone happy.

“90% of people believe brand recommendations from friends over advertising.” – Hubspot 

So why are reviews so important? A big reason is that we have all been trained to distrust advertising and marketing material. A 2017 Deloitte Global Study found that 75% of North Americans engage in at least one form of regular ad-blocking. 

Meanwhile, 75% of people mistrust advertising and only 8% of people agree that internet advertising is the best source of information, according to 2019 Hubspot data.

However, people trust people. According to the same Hubspot data, 90% of people believe brand recommendations from friends, while 70% believe other consumer opinions. 

When it comes to establishing credibility and trust, it’s smart to have a plan in place to focus on gathering support from your customers on these review platforms.

Ditto, for product feedback. You want to have your door wide open, so customers feel comfortable leaving suggestions. Whether that’s a user community, a customer success team, or any combination that works, your product and your organization should be equipped to accept requests easily and often.

Read and react to your customers’ reviews

Having your door open is one thing. To truly make the customer feel welcome, you have to be a good listener. Each review your organization receives should be read (not scanned), and whenever possible, shared with your team.

At RFPIO, our CEO Ganesh reads each review aloud to the marketing and sales team. Our development team in Coimbatore receives an email of each review. This ensures that the whole team is in the loop with both feedback to improve the tool—and customer success stories we can all celebrate together.

“The customer of 2020 will be more informed and in charge of the experience they receive. They will expect companies to know their individual needs and personalize the experience.” – Walker

After you read the review, it’s time to react. Internally, define your customer review strategy to keep responses consistent. Are you going to respond to all reviews, good or bad? Are you only going to address the negative reviews to let your customers know you’re taking their suggestions seriously?

Whichever response strategy you decide, once a review is posted, respond to your customer within 24 hours. Remember, they took time out of their busy schedules to leave a review for you. They deserve a prompt reply that expresses your gratitude and/or concern for their happiness.

Learn from your customers to improve your product

The same rule with reviews applies to product feedback. Listen to what your customer has to say, then take action as a team. Actively engaging with your customers and promoting a sense of community involvement will only make your product stronger.

Your customers are in the solution more than you are—well, with the exception of the development team. The big difference is that they are working in the tool, so there are real situations and deadlines at play.

We can learn a lot from our customers to improve our product. And, we certainly do here at RFPIO—over 90% of customer feedback has been implemented or is in development.

While the 24 hours review response rule is likely too challenging for product changes, timeliness is what can truly wow the customer. Establish ground rules for customer feedback implementation, along with a goal each month for how much feedback you want to implement. This is the action piece of your customer engagement strategy, and how you execute will demonstrate your organization’s commitment.

What happens to your organization when you listen well?

Good things. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but when you’re a SaaS company…reviews are priceless. Your customer’s first-hand experience helps prospects understand what it’s like to use your tool. Even the best demo by your top salesperson can’t compete with a glowing user testimonial.

Traction will inevitably start to happen over time. Your product will start to gain recognition in your industry, recognition that’s powered by the people—your community of users.

When you take your customer’s feedback seriously, you’re fully engaging your customer through the lifecycle, well past the closing of the sale. You’re not treating any relationship as a transaction, because you know it’s a partnership.

This approach will support customer retention by creating advocates for your organization. By maximizing the opportunities your customers can bring—product development, long-term value, referrals, other partnerships—your listening will certainly pay off.

Many may assume that once the deal is done, it’s time to move on to the next one — but that couldn’t be further from the case. On the contrary, a closed deal is when the real work begins.

The opportunity to engage and listen is right there for your organization. If you take the time to show this level of commitment, your product will be better for it. Most importantly, your customers will reciprocate that commitment and help champion your brand.

See how it feels to respond with confidence

Why do 250,000+ users streamline their response process with RFPIO? Schedule a demo to find out.