Over the last year, Small Box has been asked to respond to dozens of RFPs for all kinds of businesses, corporations, and non-profits. Here’s some advice for groups that are looking to solicit work from a company like Small Box via an RFP process… Don’t. Just kidding, sorta.
I suggest instead of sending out RFPs to every company you come across examine the capabilities of the companies you are considering and start conversations with them.
If you like how the conversation is going and the work they have done for others then engage with them on a limited or trial basis. This might mean research and site architecture or just general consulting to help organize the project. If they are the right fit you will know after that limited engagement. If not then walk away with the work they did and keep looking.
This gives you a real chance to find out how they work, and in the long run saves you the time and money associated with an extended RFP process and subsequent “marriage” to the chosen vendor. What if that vendor is really only great at 2 of the 5 things you need? Now you have a vendor that is stretching to do work that it shouldn’t be doing.
Instead find one team to lead and manage the project and work with them to bring in secondary vendors as needed. Rely on the lead team’s knowledge and experience to help pick these secondary vendors.
An RFP can be a useful document and a good starting point for a conversation but most of the time the scope of a Web project will change, often dramatically, once the planning and design phase begins. The Web is both a wonderful and frustrating thing. It is ridiculously flexible as a platform which creates endless possibilities.
A smart company will engage with an agency that is willing to explore the possibilities, make informed choices, put together the right team to get it done and then circle back around to evaluate those choices after they have been implemented. Too often companies, and agencies, get pulled by the “idea of the day” creating endless scope creep and headaches for all involved. The resulting site is usually a messy melting pot of half baked ideas. Explore, make decisions and stay focused. You will have a much more successful project in the end.
- PJ with contributions from Jeb
RFP’s are an accepted part of life for most web companies. I’ve found that the only way to make it worth my while is to convert the experience to a sales or consulting engagement.
I don’t mind doing some work up front if I know 2 things. 1)That I am 100% qualified to fill the specifications of the project. and 2)That I can demonstrate these qualifications to the prospective client and get the business.
To determine these two things often requires asking some tough questions up front. An RFP is never enough to get real answers.
We find much of the same frustrations with RFP’s that you mentioned. The opportunity for the potential client to see the true value that the firm can provide is never realized in an RFP process and the creativity and innovation of the firm is stifled.
We actually wrote a very similar blog post not too long ago that addresses the same issue. Seems we’re not the only ones who encounter frustration with the RFP process.
Good post!
I work for a state/federal grant where we must get three quotes on anything we want to purchase over $500. That being said, if we want to go into a contract agreement with an internet marketing company, we must send out an RFP so we can get three different companies to quote us on what we are looking for.
Could you think of any alternative to that RFP process for our situation? It’s unfortunate because I agree with what you said in that projects will change dramatically from the beginning, and then anything we want to do extra, we have to get quotes AGAIN.
Sara- I think you should send out an RFI (Request For Information), meet with the companies, talk with their references, review their work, communicate the end product you want and then discuss budget ranges. Then they can come back with an agreement that has ranges as well as a hard cap- meaning the project must be finished for no more than X amount.
This lets you partner with the vendor to determine when to add or remove items from the scope to meet the budget without having to do constant re-quoting which only lengthens the project and almost always weakens the work. Shutting down production to haggle over prices is no good for either party.
Almost every agreement we have now has ranges for each phase as well as each task. We send weekly updates on the project, and daily as needed, and then monthly statements, or as needed, tallying the hours for each task. This way there are no surprises. We then get paid monthly based on an average of the ranges spread out over 4-6 or 12 months depending on the scope of the project. If we are running over or under we let the client know and we can make scope adjustments to meet the hard cap while finishing the projects. Usually that means dividing items into “wants” and “needs”.
In another post I complained about writing proposals. What we focus on now is communicating our estimate verbally or via email then sending the client an agreement (with ranges, etc) they can either sign, amend or decline.
Best wishes on the RFP process with your organization. Hopefully they can move to something more like I’m describing above. We have found the results to be really good for both parties.