Tag Archives: proposals

Fontana, California Fast Business Facts

City data from the U.S. Census Bureau, summarized in the post.
Source: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/fontanacitycalifornia/PST045221

The U.S. Census provides “quick facts” about U.S. jurisdictions, including business facts. While the business facts are ten years old, they still provide an indication of business health.

For Fontana, the U.S. Census Bureau has documented almost 14,000 firms, over $1 billion in manufacturers shipments, and over $2 billion in retail sales. These figures have presumably increased in the last ten years.

If you own or manage one of these thousands of businesses, and you need to let other businesses know about your offerings, perhaps you should turn to the Fontana, California content marketing expert. Bredemarket can assist your firm with the following:

If I can help your business, or if you have further questions about Bredemarket’s B2B content creation services, please contact me.

When you’re interested in everything, you’re interested in nothing

Some people know what they will do, and what they will not do.

Other people say they will do anything.

Don’t trust the second group of people.

Checking all the boxes in a Bredemarket contact submission form

As you may know, Bredemarket has an online contact page that allows people to request information from me. The form on this page includes several checkboxes (recently edited) that allow the submitter to specify if they are interested in one of Bredemarket’s standard packages.

From https://bredemarket.com/contact/

Occasionally I’ll get a submission from someone who checked ALL of the check boxes. In 100% of those cases, it turns out that the person is NOT interested in ANY of Bredemarket’s standard packages, but in something else. (In the most recent example, someone wanted to write a guest post on the Bredemarket blog that had NOTHING to do with marketing or writing services. No thanks.)

Checking all the boxes in a proposal

It reminds me about the time, many years ago, when I wrote an RFP. This was years before I actually began responding to RFPs, by the way. The consultant that our company brought in suggested that we create a Request for Proposal for a particular service that our company wanted. The main part of the created RFP was a check list to see if the respondent provided a particular feature that we wanted. The responses that we received fell into two categories:

  • Some respondents checked every check box with no further comment. We concluded that they hadn’t actually read the RFP, so we ignored these proposals.
  • Other respondents checked most of the check boxes, but provided text for certain responses explaining that they had a different approach. Since these people read the RFP, we paid more attention to those responses.

Now I’ll grant that this filtering method doesn’t work for all proposals. Some RFPs truly demand mandatory compliance with every requirement. But in those cases, the RFPs usually require to say how they will perform each requirement. A simple “we do it” response is not sufficient.

Checking all the boxes in a business offering

The “check everything” rule also applies in one other instance: company offerings.

When a company states the products and services it will offer, the statement usually sets a boundary between what the company will do and what the company will not do.

Usually.

For example, this post from Reddit’s HireaWriter gives a clear picture of the writer’s strengths:

…I have a bachelor’s degree in screenwriting (writing for film, TV and radio), and I’m currently studying English Literature to further my skills. I’m about to be on summer holidays for a few months and I’m looking to collaborate on some writing projects.

I have freelance experience, writing YouTube scripts and some podcast work, I’m very capable of both fiction and non- fiction…

From https://www.reddit.com/r/HireaWriter/comments/u2ydhh/writer_looking_for_new_projects/

So if I need a YouTube script, I’ll consider this person. If I need an article for Foreign Affairs, maybe not.

But other company offerings are…less focused. You’ve probably seen the posts (I won’t link to them) from people who say that they write. When you ask what they write, they say that they write anything.

Now I guess that theoretically, I can write anything. (Heck, I wrote the Eastport Enquirer, which you can probably guess wasn’t high-minded business prose.) But I’m not going to make a living by writing 19th century fiction or French political positions. I’ll stick closer to content marketing and proposals if you don’t mind.

Oh, and I don’t offer editing packages any more.

Ontario, California Fast Business Facts

City data from the U.S. Census Bureau, summarized in the text of the post.
Source: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/ontariocitycalifornia/PST045221

The U.S. Census provides “quick facts” about U.S. jurisdictions, including business facts. While the business facts are ten years old, they still provide an indication of business health.

For Ontario, the U.S. Census Bureau has documented over 14,000 firms, over $4 billion in manufacturers shipments, and over $4 billion in retail sales. These figures have presumably increased in the last ten years.

If you own or manage one of these thousands of businesses, and you need to let other businesses know about your offerings, perhaps you should turn to the Ontario, California content marketing expert. Bredemarket can assist your firm with the following:

If I can help your business, or if you have further questions about Bredemarket’s B2B content creation services, please contact me.

Nine types of risks to list in your proposal

When you are writing in response to a Request for Proposal (RFP), you are often asked to address the risk of the program and/or of your solution.

Example of risk assessment: A NASA model showing areas at high risk from impact for the International Space Station. By National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA):NASA Johnson Space CenterOrbital Debris Program Office – Orbital Debris Education Package, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2760870

And even if you’re NOT asked to address risk, it’s a good idea to do so. Claiming that your solution implementation has NO risk shows that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

But what types of risks do you find in a project?

In this case, the government IS here to help.

In a presentation to the APMP Chesapeake Chapter today, Dwayne Baptist of Lohfeld Consulting Group pointed the attendees to a particular portion of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) that discusses risk.

FAR 39.102 addresses “Management of risk” for federal projects, and helpfully includes a list of nine types of risk:

 (b) Types of risk may include schedule risk, risk of technical obsolescence, cost risk, risk implicit in a particular contract type, technical feasibility, dependencies between a new project and other projects or systems, the number of simultaneous high risk projects to be monitored, funding availability, and program management risk.

From 39.102 Management of risk. | Acquisition.GOV

If it’s easier to read this way, here is a numbered list of the nine types of risk cataloged in FAR 39.102(b).

  1. schedule risk
  2. risk of technical obsolescence
  3. cost risk
  4. risk implicit in a particular contract type
  5. technical feasibility
  6. dependencies between a new project and other projects or systems
  7. the number of simultaneous high risk projects to be monitored
  8. funding availability
  9. program management risk

So if you’re uncertain of the types of risks that your project may encounter, you can use the list in FAR 39.102(b) as a starting point.

You can use this list even if you’re not responding to a federal procurement…or even if you’re not responding to any procurement at all and just want to identify the types of risks in your project.

Of course, identifying the risks is only the beginning. You have to mitigate the risks, and you have to communicate how you are mitigating the risks. Baptist addressed those topics also.

You should have been there.

But even if you weren’t there, Baptist has written an article entitled “How to Win with Risk” that you may find helpful.

(And if you attended the meeting, you will see that Baptist repurposed parts of his article in today’s presentation. Repurposing is good.)

How “Omni” is your Omnichannel?

One of Bredemarket’s clients is a consulting firm that advises other companies on the use of a particular enterprise content management system. Among other things, this consulting firm can help its client companies configure the outbound information the companies’ systems provide.

Which leads us to our word for today, omnichannel.

By Daniel Iversen – https://www.flickr.com/photos/daniel_iversen/9302746260/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59252733

In marketing, “omnichannel” refers to “the process of driving customer engagement across all channels with seamless, targeted messaging.”

Across ALL marketing channels. That’s what omnichannel talks about.

Here’s what Erin O’Connor says:

Omnichannel marketing lets marketers create seamless, integrated customer experiences spanning both online and offline channels to connect with customers as they move through the buying cycle. Omnichannel marketing focuses on the life cycle of the customer. For example, when a customer is in the acquisition phase, the marketer will send a different type of message compared to a loyal customer

Omnichannel marketing is …a holistic approach in the sense that it’s looking at all of the potential touchpoints customers can use to communicate with brands, both online and offline.

From https://business.adobe.com/glossary/omnichannel-marketing.html

An omnichannel marketing strategy may encompass a number of marketing tools, including email, white paper downloads, videos, mobile SMS responses, automated call centers, and anything else that marketers use to communicate with clients.

One of the key benefits of an omnichannel marketing strategy is, or should be, consistency. If your emails say that your product is supported on Windows 11, your data sheets had better not say that your product is only supported up to Windows 10. This is a definite problem; see my checklist item 2 in this post.

(Incidentally, I recently ran across a company that is still talking about NIST FRVT results from several years ago. Since the NIST FRVT tests are ongoing, any reference to old results is outdated because of all the new algorithms that have been submitted and that have better performance.)

So factual consistency is important. Omnichannel marketing also allows for visual consistency (well, not in the automated call center) in which all of the company’s content looks like it came from the same company.

Obviously there are a number of benefits from omnichannel marketing, including easier management and consistency of marketing messages. But all of this raises a question:

Is omnichannel marketing truly OMNIchannel? Or does omnichannel marketing leave some things out?

Before you point me to the definition of “omni” and say that omnichannel marketing by definition can’t exclude anything, read on.

When product marketers don’t market

If you’re a marketer, I hope you’re sitting down.

The world does not revolve around marketing.

(My college roommates who were physics majors made sure to remind me of this.)

Thus, anything that isn’t marketing is automatically excluded from omnichannel marketing. And there are a number of things that companies do that aren’t marketing per se.

I recently held a discussion with a product marketer which got me thinking. We were talking about the things product marketers do, which include content creation (case studies/testimonials, white papers, social media content, and the like) and other product-related tasks such as competitive analysis of other products.

But then the product marketer mentioned something else.

What about having the product marketer author product technical documentation, such as user guides?

(By the way, I’ve written technical documentation in the past; see the “Benefiting from my experience and expertise” section of the Bredemarket “Who I Am” page.)

Now technical documentation is (usually) not the place for overt marketing messaging, but at the same time technical documentation authorship benefits the product marketer and the company by immersing the product marketer into the details of the product, thus increasing the marketer’s product understanding.

I’ll grant you need a different writing style when writing technical documentation; after all, there are no earthshaking benefits from clicking on the “Save As” button.

By Later version were uploaded by Bruce89 at en.Wikipedia. – Transfered from en.Wikipedia; en:File:Dialog1.pngtransfered to Commons by User:IngerAlHaosului using CommonsHelper., GPL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8988455

But you need different writing styles for the different types of marketing output anyway. The mechanics of writing a tweet differ from the mechanics of filming a video. So a marketer who isn’t experienced in technical documentation can adjust to the new style.

However, finding marketers slash technical documentation writers in the wild is unusual. Every company that I’ve worked with since 1991 has built some type of wall between the marketing function and the technical documentation function. But oddly enough, one of my former employers (MorphoTrak) moved managers around between the different functions. One manager in particular headed up the technical documentation group, then headed up the proposals group (where I worked for her), then headed up a multi-functional marketing team (where I worked for her again), then specialized in product marketing.

And now the product marketer (not the one from MorphoTrak, but the one I had been talking to) got the hamster in my brain to start generating ideas.

By Doenertier82, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=642841

If omnichannel marketing is limited, and your omnichannel efforts should include activities outside of marketing such as technical documentation, what else should be included in your omnichannel efforts?

Including proposal writing in omnichannel efforts

OK, the subtitle gave it away. (But I refused to write the subtitle “This marketer wrote a user guide. You won’t believe what he did next!”)

If anything, proposal writing is closer to marketing than technical documentation is to marketing. While proposal writing is often considered a sales function (though some would disagree), there are obvious overlaps between the benefits that you espouse in a proposal and the benefits that you espouse in a case study.

Including standard proposal text/template creation as part of your omnichannel efforts also helps to ensure consistency in your product messaging. Again, if your data sheet says one thing, and your user guide says the same thing, then your proposal had better say the same thing also. (Unless you’re proposing something that won’t be implemented for another one or two years, in which case the proposal will discuss things that won’t appear in the present data sheets and user guides, but in future versions.)

Now those of you who are familiar with what Bredemarket does can appreciate why I love this idea.

By Loudon dodd – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7404342

I’ve positioned Bredemarket as a two-headed (but not two-faced) marketing and writing service provider: for example, with separate descriptions of my status as a biometric content marketing expert and a biometric proposal writing expert. And that pretty much mirrors how I work. With one exception, most of my clients only use me for either my proposal services or my content marketing services.

What if companies entrusted Bredemarket with their total solution, both inside and outside of traditional marketing?

Of course there are complications in implementing this.

But when can you implement true omnichannel efforts?

Now most companies are ill-fitted to have one person, or even one department, handle all the omnichannel marketing (case studies, white papers, data sheets, tweets, LinkedIn posts, competitive intelligence, etc.) AND all the omnichannel non-marketing (technical documentation, proposals, and all the other stuff that my hamster brain didn’t realize yet).

So how do you get multiple departments to communicate the same messaging? It’s a difficult task, especially since most department members are so focused on their own work that they don’t have the bandwidth to worry about what another department is doing. (“I don’t care about the data sheet error. I just write the manuals.”)

There are several ways to achieve this: central ownership of the messaging for all departments, outside quality audits, and peer-to-peer interdepartmental review come to mind.

But you’re not going to solve the problem of inconsistent messaging between your departments unless you realize that the problem exists…and that “omnichannel marketing” won’t solve it.

Post-proposal automation: AI evaluators?

On occasion I like to get futuristic, and I began wondering about the following: since we’re already capable of automating (with human review) much of the work that occurs BEFORE submitting a proposal, how long will it take to automate the work AFTER submitting a proposal?

Specifically, what would happen if the proposal evaluation process were automated? And what would that mean for proposal writing?

See my LinkedIn article on the topic, “What happens when proposal evaluators are no longer human?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-happens-when-proposal-evaluators-longer-human-bredemarket/

By Humanrobo – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18947366

Bredemarket and proposals, part four: other services

So I’ve been going through my list of red bullets from this graphic.

Excerpt from https://bredemarket.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/bmtprop-20220221a.pdf

I decided to write posts on some of the red bullets to explain the types of services that Bredemarket offers.

  • The first post described Bredemarket’s RFx response services.
  • The second described Bredemarket’s sole source response services.
  • The third described Bredemarket’s proposal template services.

Which brought me to the fourth bullet, which was a fairly interesting project.

The technical leave behind project

This particular project was an unusual one, for two reasons.

First, there were four companies involved:

  1. Bredemarket.
  2. The company that contracted Bredemarket.
  3. The company that contracted the company that contracted Bredemarket.
  4. The final customer.

Despite all of the layers on this particular project, the people from all four companies worked well together and got the job done.

The second unusual thing about this particular project was that although it was not a proposal project per se, it required proposal expertise.

While I can’t go into details, I can briefly say that the goal of the project was to provide “technical leave behinds” for the final customer. The customer was a consulting firm with significant technical expertise in a particular vendor’s product family. When the customer visited one of its clients, it wanted to leave its client with one or more of these technical leave behinds, each of which was devoted to one of the many products in the product family.

So while these technical leave behinds were not proposals themselves, and on first glance appear to be more along the lines of Bredemarket’s content marketing work, they fulfilled a proposal-like purpose by providing information that the client could subsequently use to request information or a proposal from the consulting firm.

Because of this, the technical leave behinds had to be customer centric and respond to specific needs that customers may have. Maybe not to the specific level of detail that would satisfy 100% of any one customer’s specific needs, but the leave behinds at least had to address some major needs in template form.

So what?

Those of you who have read my writing on benefits knew that this question was coming.

“So Bredemarket can author technical leave behinds. So what?”

The benefit to you is that Bredemarket can work with you to create text to meet any of your needs, even if it doesn’t fit into some nice neat category such as a sole source proposal or an RFP response or a case study or a white paper or a blog post. For example, over the years I’ve not only created technical leave behinds, but I’ve also created and/or maintained trade show demonstration scripts, brief company analyses, customer and competitor installation lists, internal information services, external information services (including dedicated LinkedIn and Facebook pages devoted to particular topics), website and social media analyses, and a myriad of other pieces of written content.

If you need any type of written content that can help your company connect with other companies, let me know and I’ll work with you to create that content.

OK, now I’m done with expanding on the red bullets. There’s no point in expanding on the fifth bullet, “Additional proposal work for Bredemarket itself,” because that service is of no benefit to you. It only benefits me. Similarly, my MorphoTrak and Printrak proposal work won’t benefit you, unless you work for IDEMIA and are making money off of my prior work.

Again, if you missed any posts in the series, be sure to visit parts one, two, and three. And let me know if I can help you.

Bredemarket and proposals, part three: proposal templates

This is the third installment in my post series about the proposal services that Bredemarket provides to its clients. If you missed them, be sure to read part one about Bredemarket’s RFx response services, and part two about Bredemarket’s sole source response services.

We’re moving through the red bullets in my projects list. Let’s continue.

Excerpt from https://bredemarket.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/bmtprop-20220221a.pdf

The need for proposal template services

Often when a company first writes a proposal, the entire thing is written from scratch by a bunch of proposal writers, subject matter experts (SMEs), and executives, and after some extraordinary effort, the proposal goes out the door.

Then the time comes to write a second proposal. “Let’s start with the text from the first one,” everybody says, and the second proposal goes out the door (hopefully with less effort).

This borrowing from other proposals continues, except when it doesn’t. At some point, someone is going to say, “All of these previous proposals are terrible, so I’m going to write my own.”

After a few years, the company has a collection of proposals…and quite possibly a host of problems. Here are a few things that could happen:

  • The proposals include inconsistent information. Some say that the company’s solution is supported on Windows 11, others say it’s supported on Windows 10 and 11, and there’s an old proposal that says the company’s solution is supported on Windows 7. Unfortuately, that latter proposal may be the one that someone borrows to write a new proposal, with disastrous results.
  • The proposals include even more inconsistent information. Maybe some proposals say the product name is GreenWidget. Others say it’s Green Widget. Others say it’s WidgetCo’s GreenWidget. Others say it’s GreenWidget by WidgetCo, Inc. And heaven help you if WidgetCo was acquired by BigMegaCorp.
  • The proposals include downright incorrect information. Maybe half of the proposals that you’ve issued over the years talk about how GreenWidget operates on both 110 volts and 220 volts. An engineer, reading the proposal that you submitted to the customer yesterday, says to you, “Oh, we discontinued 220 volt support last year.” Oops.

So how do you not only prevent these inconsistencies and mistakes from happening, but ensure that everyone is conveying the same message?

First, you create a proposal template, proposal library, proposal boilerplate, or whatever you want to call it that includes a standard set of text to use in every future proposal (RFx response or sole source letter). This text is reviewed by subject matter experts, executives, and others to ensure that it is correct.

Second, you review this text on a regular basis to make sure that it is up to date, and references to old operating systems and sunsetted features are removed so that they don’t slip into future proposals.

My experience with proposal templates

My personal experience with templates dates back over twenty years, from multiple perspectives.

After several years of working for Printrak, we decided that we needed to establish a standard set of proposal text for both RFP responses and sole source letters. So a coworker (Dorothy) and I flew to San Francisco for some training in the use of a particular package.

However, before I could actively participate in implementing the package, I changed jobs and became a product manager.

In other words, I was now one of the subject matter experts that not only needed to ensure the proposal text was accurate, but in some cases actually provide the proposal text that described the new features of my product.

So Dorothy and her coworker Peter had to contact me to provide my inputs to them.

Sometimes more than once.

In fact, one time they were so surprised that I finally DID provide input that Dorothy created an origami of a flying pig. I have a picture of that flying pig somewhere, but rather than hunt it up I’ll display this picture instead. You get the idea.

By Torreteo at Italian Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37823185

Dorothy and Peter had the last laugh, however, because I eventually rejoined Proposals when Dorothy moved to Marketing, and therefore I was responsible for bugging the SMEs about reviewing and updating proposal text.

Dorothy and Peter left the company before I did. After one final switcheroo in which I went to Marketing and Dorothy to Proposals, Dorothy ended up leaving the company. Peter eventually left himself to get married, and move to…

(Major intrusion of reality follows.)

…Kyiv, Ukraine, in his new wife’s home country. Obviously with everyone that’s been going on over the past few days, I’ve been monitoring Peter’s social media posts closely. At the time I am writing this post (noon Pacific Time on Monday February 28), I believe Peter and his wife are still safe.

Let’s move on.

Bredemarket’s solution for proposal template services

I’ve helped clients with various types of proposal templates.

In some cases, I’ve helped clients who have purchased prepackaged proposal template solutions. As of today, I offer specific experience in Upland Qvidian and Privia products, and I’ve been told that other solutions such as RFPIO and RocketDocs are similar.

In some cases, I’ve helped clients who didn’t want to spend money to acquire those prepackaged solutions. In those cases, I’ve created Microsoft Word files, either letters which can be customized to meet the needs of a particular customer, or files from which people can extract vetted responses and incorporate them into letters or RFx responses.

In either case, my clients benefit from responses that have been reviewed by subject matter experts for accuracy, are easy to use, and can generate business for my clients very quickly.

One of my clients was extremely happy with my solution.

“I just wanted to truly say thank you for putting these templates together. I worked on this…last week and it was extremely simple to use and I thought really provided a professional advantage and tool to give the customer….TRULY THANK YOU!”

Do you need Bredemarket’s proposal template services?

Whether you need a library of responses, or one or more template letters, I can help you.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this series on the proposal services that Bredemarket can provide, and I hope that you’ve seen how all of these services can work together.

Oh, but there’s one more thing…

Bredemarket and proposals, part two: sole source responses

This is the second post in a series that discusses the proposal services that Bredemarket can provide. A previous post described Bredemarket’s RFx response services. This post describes Bredemarket’s sole source response services.

Excerpt from https://bredemarket.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/bmtprop-20220221a.pdf

The need for sole source response services

The nice thing about sole source responses is that you’re (usually) not competing against anyone else, and therefore have the customer’s full attention. In some cases, the customer has specifically asked you to prepare a proposal. In other cases, you provide an unsolicited proposal to the customer.

Of course, a sole source proposal needs to respond to the customer’s requirements. Obviously the customer hasn’t provided you with a written Request for Proposal, but perhaps the customer has provided some written or verbal list of what is required. And if the customer hasn’t provided you with this information, ask. There’s no point in proposing a 1,000 record fingerprint system when the customer really wants a 10,000 record face system.

In addition, a sole source proposal has to be customer centric, just like a formal RFP response. Far too many sole source proposals spend an inordinate amount of time talking about how great the proposer is, and little or no time talking about what the customer needs.

Bredemarket’s solution for sole source response services

Once I understand what the end customer needs, and what my client can offer to meet the end customer’s needs, I can help the client come up with a story that resonates with the end customer. In some cases, the client already has a proposal library that describes its standard products and services that can be used as a starting point. Remember, however, that standard text often has to be massaged to meet the needs of a specific client. Even when I’ve created a proposal template for a client (foreshadowing a future post in this series!), I’ve often found that the template text needs to be modified a bit when it’s placed in a final letter to a client.

In all cases, my sole source proposal services are similar to my content marketing services in one respect; they are collaborative. Both my input and my client’s input is essential to ensure that the final product makes the case to the customer.

Do you need Bredemarket’s sole source response services?

If I can help you with sole source responses:

And now those who paid attention to my foreshadowing know what I’m going to talk about next…

Bredemarket and proposals, part one: RFx responses

If you saw my “two truths and no lies” post, you probably saw that I recently updated my Bredemarket and Proposal Services page and the accompanying collateral.

Excerpt from https://bredemarket.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/bmtprop-20220221a.pdf

It occurred to me that some of the acronyms in the red bullets above may be gobbledygook to some people, so I thought I’d delve into some of the bullets, beginning with the first one.

(Warning: post series ahead.)

The need for RFx response services

“RFx” is shorthand for a number of “request for” items, including requests for proposals, requests for information, and requests for comment. These RFx documents ask entities to submit a formal response in the format dictated by the RFx document. The response may be one page long, five pages long, or one thousand pages long. The response may include a simple narrative, or the entity may need to submit specific forms with specially formatted answers to dozens or hundreds or thousands of questions.

  • In the ideal world, the entity knows that the RFx document is coming, and has been working for years on its response. (How can you know how to respond when the RFX hasn’t even been issued? Know your customer.)
  • In the non-ideal world, an account manager goes to the proposal team and says, “Hey, our customer issued an RFP last week. I had no idea it was coming. But the customer really likes us, as long as we get our price down.”

In any case, an entity that wants to respond to an RFx needs to read the document and develop a response that puts the customer first (see Truth Number One here), complies with all requirements, scores high on the RFx’s evaluation criteria, is easy for an evaluator to evaluate (see Truth Number Two here), and wins the business.

Bredemarket’s solution for RFx response services

As you can see from my collateral, Bredemarket has assisted its clients with nine (so far) RFx responses, all of which were either responses to Requests for Information (RFIs), or responses to Requests for Proposal (RFPs).

There are differences between the two.

In the Request for Information stage, you still have an opportunity to shape the final procurement (if a final procurement takes place). For example, if you offer a green widget and your competitors do not, your RFI response will make an important point about how the customer will benefit from a green widget, and a solution without a green widget is substandard.

(One important point here. I didn’t say that the RFI response should say that XYZ Company offers a green widget that is a technological marvel. I said that the RFI response should say that the customer will benefit from a green widget.)

In the Request for Proposal stage, the time to shape the final procurement has already passed. (This is why you engage with a customer years before the customer issues an RFP.) At this stage you have to go all out and win the business, telling the customer how they will benefit from your solution.

The mechanics of writing an RFx response have varied between my clients. In some cases, I have worked with one or two people to come up with the response, and the client then sent it out. In other cases, I have worked as part of a team of dozens of people in multiple companies to come up with the response, and followed multiple processes to ensure that the proposal is not only sound, but is approved at the corporate level of the client. Some processes are dictated by the client, but some clients have no processes which means that I need to implement a simple one to get the job done.

Do you need Bredemarket’s RFx response services?

If you need help responding to an RFP, RFI, or related document:

Oh, and by the way, Bredemarket offers more than RFx response services. Stay tuned for the next installment on sole source responses.