Jerry Swerling Strategic PR Center Director Annenberg School for Communication USC

Patrick Ford President and CEO USA Burson-Marsteller

Compounding the problem is the fact that low-quality RFPs don't just hurt agencies—they also hurt clients who don't end up with the right agency for their needs. The problem is so pervasive that Swerling helped create the Council's "Fit to Win" new business evaluation guide to help counter it.

Why are problematic RFPs often the norm? One reason is that prospects aren't always sophisticated about the communications function. Other times, requests are written by staff who don't know what their company wants or needs. Either way, you can't write a suitable RFP if you don't fully grasp the scope of the work of PR or how it can benefit your business. In such cases, the process is flawed and the losers are agencies who expend considerable resources jumping through hoops in an extended RFP vetting that goes multiple rounds and lasts months.

How can you avoid the RFP cattle call—and tap only the best opportunities? What red flags should you watch for when an RFP crosses the transom? How can you maximize your chances to win the business for those RFP's you deem worthy? For the answers, we checked with several Council members and new business procurement consultants. Here's the best of their advice:

1. Beat increased RFP competition in the months ahead—become an educator. "RFPs are not going to dry up in the current economy," says Patrick Ford, president and CEO USA, Burson-Marsteller. "There is a lot of pressure on companies in a tight market to make sure they're getting more than one POV when they're looking at ways to make their operations as efficient as possible and to make sure they're getting the most value for their communications. That won't go away over the next few months. It will increase."

In addition: "Since we'll likely see even more RFPs putting huge demands on us in short time frames in this economy, part of the PR job now is going to increasingly be about educating prospects and clients on what good PR is and what kinds of expectations they should have of us. Clients and prospects aren't in the business of driving agencies crazy—so be patient, step back and educate them. Communicate with them that they can get the best relationship out of agencies without putting unreasonable burdens on the firms they're asking to pitch."

Swerling adds this: "Recognize that an unsophisticated RFP is a sign of an unknowledgeable client. Use this as an opportunity to educate the prospect and to sell your service. Reframe everything in their terms and tie answers to their business objectives—show them how you can help them achieve their goals."

2. Avoid the herd-and-trough mentality—get in early. "Don't become dependent on RFPs," continues Ford. "Instead, get in early before they feel the need to send out a request. Do that by using research to pinpoint their emerging needs and opportunities early. For example, we do qualitative and quantitative opinion research on clients beyond current campaigns. We bring that to the table with areas for improvement across their brands."

He further advises "cross pollination" of information and resources across agency research, practice and new business departments: "Drive more regular dialog and sharing of market intelligence among senior people to help you connect the dots and spot opportunities with clients before they even get to the point of issuing an RFP," Ford says.

Similarly, "We go to prospects and present case studies of how we're providing services in the digital, integrated, global or strategic practice areas for existing clients, some of whom might be in their markets," says Ford. "Those meetings include a presentation of opportunities and areas of improvement. If you do this, you've already prompted their thinking and helped them formulate a new direction. When they draft an RFP, you're the one who helped them pinpoint opportunities. You were there from the beginning. Who do you think they're going to work with?"

Linda Clarke Executive Vice President Eastwick Communications

Dan Orsborn Senior Partner, PR Practice Leader SelectResources International

"These requests suggest they're asking you to be a cheerleader, not strategic partner," Clarke cautions. "They're not seeking a consultative, long-term relationship or inviting you in."

Swerling agrees: "Know what makes for a bad RFP—and avoid it. For example, is it: vaguely worded and templated? Conversely, does it describe unfulfillable expectations? Is it exhaustive and too detailed?" In addition, "If your first contact from a prospect is an RFP that asks, ‘How would you solve our problem?'—that's horrible. What happens if the company takes the strategic work and ideas you put into the response and then you don't get hired? A sign of a bad situation is someone asking outright for a solution to a problem."

"Red flags to watch for include cattle calls," adds Dan Orsborn, senior partner and PR practice leader at SelectResources International, which issues RFPs for clients. "If an RFP went out to 50 or 100 agencies, you'll hear about it word of mouth," assures Orsborn, who was a former head of Porter Novell (Los Angeles office) and Edelman (San Francisco office). In addition, he cautions against RFPs that:

• Don't clarify the budget. (This means somebody is shopping for the lowest dollar work.)
• Don't clarify "scope of work."
• Don't offer information or opportunities to connect with the client.
• Don't exhibit realistic timing.

 "We have done more than 400 reviews for companies that really put agencies through their paces," Orsborn explains. "It's a three month process for the company and can be a two month process for agencies, if you're dealing with Fortune 500 companies. So if an RFP says they need a response next week—that's a huge red flag. Walk away."

4. Limit senior staff involvement in the tactical details of RFP responses. "We have an RFP center on our Intranet where we've collected the questions that typically get asked, like ‘How many facilities do you have?' and ‘How many employees?' Don't reinvent the answers for those—pull from a repository," Ford suggests. "Answer boilerplate questions with boilerplate answers from your library, and have junior level staff pull those. Bring in senior level leadership at higher level questions such as, ‘How can your agency drive our company's business goals?'"

Swerling breaks it down like this: "You can see significant time and cost savings when it comes to RFP responses by booking six to ten hours of an entry level person's time to do the framing research about the prospect that your senior people can later build answers around," he says. "A really sharp account coordinator or even sharp intern can do this. Set up the framework, he suggests, and have them research and pull the following related to the prospect's business from online and offline sources alike:

• Five key financial points
• Five key product points
• Five key competitive points
• Revenues if public
• Key communications strategy

"For this last item, just ask them to tell you what they think the prospect's key communications strategy appears to be based on their releases and things you can pull from online newsrooms," Swerling suggests. The next step: "Hand all this information up the chain of command to the person in charge of new business," Swerling advises. "They then take the headlines and the bullets and wrap the agency's capabilities around those specifics."

5. Stand out, stand apart—or stand down and lose the business. "You have to stand out," Ford says. "I've seen RFP responses from other firms. Clients have shown these to me, and they all look the same. Most of them, for example, will adapt the client's own colors—so they all have the same color scheme. They'll have the same standard charts and even similar affiliate or office location maps. We have 50 offices and 70 affiliates worldwide and I saw an agency I know only has three offices submit a map that looked just like ours, because they called, for example, somebody in Kuala Lumpur and made a one-shot affiliate deal."

His point: "Recognize the reality that all the books look similar. Come up with something compelling, and don't fall into the trap of answering RFPs by rote. Sure, you can pull boiler plate answers from a template if they're for the more tactical sections or questions—but your packaging and more strategic content needs to be fresh. For example, breathlessly talking about your news bureau won't stand out. Everybody does that. Instead, highlight something like your innovative social media efforts and successes."

6. Connect, don't pitch—seek out prospects issuing RFCs. Instead of being railroaded into working with clients seeking free consultation and tips via RFPs, Swerling advises responding to those who put out RFCs: "A Request for Credentials typically includes 25 questions or so built around establishing a long-term relationship," he explains. These are questions any agency manager should be able to answer easily and include question like:

• Client rank: "Where would we rank as a client among all your clients if the budget were X$?"
• Team: "What would the team on our account look like? Given that we have $X to spend, what kind of staffing would you assign to this. How many people would that include and what would their expertise areas be? Who are they and what's their experience?"
• Longevity: "Who are your major clients and what have you won client-wise in the last year?"

"These types of questions aren't asking for a free strategy," Swerling says. "They're asking what you're like to work with, if there's a lot of churn and so on. That's a good sign."

7. Stop, look, listen—be more selective and you'll be more successful. "Agencies have tried to be more selective because these get sent out all over creation," Ford concludes. "But there are clients who have smart people who put together logical, clear and understandable RFPs. Those are the ones you want. Respond to only those. There were times we all used to chase everything that came in over transom, but you dilute your resources doing that. So be more selective. Stop. Think. And be willing to walk away."

Swerling agrees: "Be ruthlessly honest with the types of checklists provided in the Council's "Fit to Win" new business evaluation guide," he says. "Only go after new business that's appropriate. The more ruthless you are, the higher your win percentage will be."

Note: The Council is currently developing a first-of-its-kind online instrument to help clients design an agency search, which will include guidelines to creating an RFP. It will be launched in early 2009.

Brian Pittman