Welcome to the world of RFP's

Welcome to the world of RFP’s

So the RFP hits the streets and you begin to read all of these specs that a company has and wonder how interesting some of the specifics are.

Need a firm with offices in 12 states.
Board Certified ERISA counsel
AM Law Top 50 firm
Recognized diversity program
Specific technology requirements
Reporting requirements

You begin to say, that kinda sounds like “that” firm. Well you got it.

If you are an attorney or law firm and are just now engaging in the process your choices are few.

1) Try and schedule a meeting with a contact and secure meetings with key decision makers to rework the specs into your favor.

2) Choose not to respond

3) Dedicate enormous and expensive resources to respond to a document that was written for someone else to win.

Client development is sales. Congratulations. When you were pulling all-nighters in law school and working through holidays, weekends, special occasions to meet deadlines only to come up for air at brief intervals. You think back on your decision to be an attorney and say, “You know what, I really wish I was in sales!”

You are in luck. You are. So is everyone in your firm if you want to survive in this economic environment.

In sales, there are two winners. The one who gets the business and the one who got out first without commiting a lot of resources toward a losing endeavor.

The RFP process is just that. Unless you read the RFP and the specs are written with you in mind your chances of winning are slim. The relationships that you have developed all come down to a purchasing agent who does not care who you are or what awards your firm has won. They are there to get the lowest price.

Questions to ask after the RFP has hit the street:

1) Is my/ our firms work a commodity?

2) Is there a way to leverage relationships with this company to rewrite the specs and ultimately win the business? Ask stakeholders what the business drivers are for the RFP. Without a business reason for an RFP it is usually just price. Refer to point #1.

3) With the internal cost of responding to RFP’s, is the cost vs. benefit worth it? How many losses in responses can you absorb for the one that you win?

4) Is there a way to effectively subcontract with the winning firm?

How to write the specs:

1) Get beyond the GC and identify other stakeholders from a company.
a. If a GC leaves you now do not have to start over fresh with the company
b. You do one area of practice but a VP in another area may have other issues, latent needs. (maybe heading off products liability issues, employee comp) why have a piece when you can get the whole.

2) Value based questioning. Asking business level questions that focus the conversation on the specific business line. Talk legal issues with legal people, finance, marketing, operations issues with those stakeholders.
a. How are they doing it today? How many people is that taking? How much is that costing? Who else is affected?
b. Find discrete areas of value and tie numbers to it. What would it save in reduced time on reporting, compliance, reduced fines, etc.

At some point you will have to deal with purchasing. However, if you have every key decision maker from various business units saying that you are the one that they want, and more specifically, you can show them a cost vs. benefit of using your services rather than your competitors you can avoid becoming a commodity.

Written by Andrew Wilcox, Andrew@Wilcox-legal.com, 850-893-8984