Let's get straight to it. I don't know any PreSales / Sales Consultants / SEs who actually enjoy completing RFPs (Request for Proposals), its siblings, RFIs, RFQs RF(x) or any kind of ITT (Invitation to Tender). If you do, please comment below, you'll be in great demand!

I'm going to argue here that RFPs are (with some exceptions) a complete waste of PreSales time; they don't reflect the pace of modern change and innovation, and decision makers have already made up their mind before the RFP was issued (as we'll see).

Even in the world of everything 'As a Service', completing RFPs can still be a major part of our PreSales job; you'll see it in most PreSales job specifications. I look at it as the drudgery that earns you the right to do the fun part, working directly with clients.

RFPs are typically issued for larger, costlier, higher risk and more complex B2B buying processes. Completing an RFP can take 10, 20, 30 plus hours of work, sometimes for a whole PreSales team working on their specialist sections, adding in required references, company financials (which better look good) and needs a major piece of project management and copy-writing to compile a quality response that no-one knows for sure will ever be read. [I have a colleague in an ERP services company who, for years, randomly put the word 'sausages' in RFP responses to see if anyone ever spotted it]. Having to complete an RFP is a very costly and time-consuming effort that can dramatically increase the cost of sale of an opportunity.

For sure, in the public sector and defence industries there are strict procurement rules for buyers where skipping procurement steps, including not issuing RFPs, could allow losing vendors to make legal challenges to the selection process; at great cost and elongating, usually already lengthy, procurement processes. Overall, however, the big winners and primary guardians of continuing the anachronistic RFP process, are the advising consulting firms.

RFPs can be seen as a very visible result of a dysfunctional buying process, the urge to consider everything (even disruptive technologies) a commodity and a lack of trust between buyers and sellers (see later). RFPs and the vendor responses cannot possibly describe the avalanche of change and business model innovation happening in enterprises and don't reflect the situation where a technology vendor (us) has better insights into the client's industry than the client.

It used to be said in the ERP industry that 'every customer deserves the system they get'. If you want to treat buying a business innovation platform like a commodity then that's what you'll get.

​Henry Ford allegedly said "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. If Henry Ford had had to complete RFPs to sell the Model T car, just imagine the buyer's RFP questions:

• does the propulsion system have a minimum of four hooves?
• can it do 30 miles to the bag of hay?
• emissions (no, let's no go there; but it'd be interesting to see how VW would get around that emissions policy!)

Many smaller, rapidly growing Tech companies I work with have a simple rule; if they weren't engaged with the prospect before the RFP was issued and aren't already providing differentiation, promoting their USP (Unique Selling Points) and taking control of the buying process with insights and challenges, then they qualify out and move onto another opportunity where they can influence the buyers.

This fits in with the 'qualify out often and qualify out early' mantra built into many sales methodologies. Forrester Research backs this up; the first vendor to bring insights and value to a buyer are going to be much more successful than those who first join the buying process at the point an RFI / RFP or ITT is published.

RFPs seem even more anachronistic when we consider...

• “57% of the purchase decision is complete before a customer even calls a supplier.” (CEB). This will increase to over 70% soon.
• “67% of the buyer's journey is now done digitally.” ( SiriusDecisions)

​Already B2B decision makers are researching solutions and offerings, being influenced by insights and getting questions answered online, and increasingly through video. The RFP is far too late in the decision makers thought process.

​So despite everything we've talked about let's say your sales team say you're still going to have to complete the RFP. Completing RFPs, in the end, are a 'necessary evil'. How do you reduce the cost and effort?

Most large tech vendors will have a qualification gate before they commit to completing an RFP. Ideally, the qualification criteria are inbuilt into the CRM system (minimum opportunity stage, forecast level, level of decision maker contacts, solution fit etc.) and oversight is expected by at least first-line Sales and PreSales management. In the real world of sales targets and quotas, this oversight can sometimes get shortcut if its getting near end of quarter, the salesperson is well below target, or if there is a dysfunctional relationship between Sales and PreSales where Sales always get what they want. [That's a whole different conversation about building the PreSales 'brand'].

Also, if you're an SAP or an Oracle, you'll have the problem that you'll get invited to respond to almost every relevant RFP being produced. Buyers and advisory consultants always want to show rigour (and have negotiation options) in the procurement process and typically want at least one tier 1 vendor shortlisted even if the decision has already been made to select an alternative supplier,

Large tech vendors go to great lengths to reduce the cost of RFP completion; building off-shore, shared-service PreSales support teams to do the bulk of the responses, using online response catalogues, tools like RFPIO,  RFPMonkey.com and even building AI / Machine Learning response predictions.

Much 'ink has been spilt' over the years about the frustrations of competing in an RFP process. One view could be that you, as the vendor, are providing advice, insights, some IP, maybe, in your response and that should have some value. Here's an article arguing that buyers should be paying for RFPs in the same way that some PoCs (Proof of Concepts) should be paid for.

​So what did I mean before when I said RFPs represent a dysfunctional buying process? Here's a brilliant quote from Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig's book 'Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play: Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship'.

"Dysfunctional buying practices have arisen to combat dysfunctional selling practices. For instance, buyers may send out Requests for Proposals (RFPs) that, under threat of pain and death, refuse to allow any human being to talk to any other human being. When buyers do not trust sellers, they hide and protect vital information and restrict personal contact. Sellers have to guess what would actually work for the client, and often guess wrong. This reinforces the perception that sellers can’t be trusted, and dissatisfied buyers then create even higher hurdles. Sellers acquiesce and either go along with things that do not make sense, try more outlandish gambits, or choose to withdraw".

Sounds familiar?

What do you think? If we all start refusing to complete RFPs can we change the world's B2B buying process for the better? Will RFPs be a thing of the past or are they here to stay, in the public sector, say? 

​Don is the Founder of Winning Skills Ltd. Talk to Don about building Presales organisations, best-practice PreSales skills and processes and how to build the perfect 'Wow' demo. Let's connect on LinkedIn or talk at don@winningskills.co.uk

What does an 'I', 'T', 'Pi' and 'Broad line' have to do with PreSales Solution Consultants and how does it help Tech companies solve the problem of needing customer-facing expertise across an increasingly broad range of products and solutions? Read on...

Within Human Resources (HR) and Learning & Development (L&D), the idea of the modern employee needing 'T' shaped skills isn't new; it was first discussed back in 1991. The vertical bar of the 'T' represents the idea of having deep skills and expertise in a single area; the horizontal bar represents 'boundary crossing competencies' (like teamwork, communication, perspective, understanding of different cultures) and the ability to collaborate with others across those competencies. There's lots of discussion on the web; articles and even a 2016 T-Summit.

For PreSales Sales Consultants in the new technology sales model (social, educate, engage) the concept of being 'T'- shaped takes us further by describing a very particular challenge we have.
For most Tech companies, they started life selling a single product or service. Everyone responsible for demonstrating  (starting from the Founder, the first sales people then eventually the PreSales team) was expected to have deep knowledge and passion of the product its benefits, value and use-cases.
As time goes by, Tech companies tend to expand their offering:

• Organically: Think of SAP developing their own software over many years from Finance & Controlling (FICO) into Manufacturing, Supply Chain, CRM and onwards.
• By Acquisition: Think of Oracle buying Seibel to get into CRM, Salesforce buying ExactTarget to create the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Sage acquiring Adonix to create Sage X3 and back to SAP buying SuccessFactors to get into Cloud based Human Capital Management (HCM) market.

​For PreSales this presents a huge issue.

Unfortunately, there's no single right answer. It depends on, amongst other factors:

• the breadth of your solutions,
• the capability and capacity of the PreSales team to build new skills,
• how the team are recruited, developed, trained, enabled, incentivised and how performance is measured,
• your company's culture, organisational structure and where the P&L is held (Profit and Loss held at country, region, product range...) and
• the expectations of your prospects. 

If you're selling a complex product (technology or software) then the quality of your sales engineers / solution consultants / presales team is vital to gaining the trust of your clients, explaining your value add and winning competitive sales.

​We often get asked what's the perfect profile for a Presales Solution Consultant? What should you be looking for when you are interviewing?

To recruit someone who has had the time and experience to develop a perfectly balanced profile, that person would have to have already been doing the job for some time (so is already in your team). The pressure to reduce the 'time to value' (from recruitment and on-boarding to actively supporting close-able deals) leads to some of the large software authors recruiting direct from their partner / reseller network (partners who are selling and implementing the same product in smaller clients or into niche industries or marketplaces).

As it can take 3 to 6 months on-the-job training to get up-to-speed in some complex products, you can see the attraction. Unfortunately, too much recruiting directly from partners penalises the partners who won't want to invest in Presales skills training; eventually leading to a reduced ability to win deals which hurts both the partner and ultimately the larger author.

Of course the aim of all this recruitment, on-boarding, and constant soft skills and knowledge development is to build an 'A' player; someone who hits the 'sweet spot' with their mix of skills and competencies. They're the ones who've got trust, credibility and demonstrate empathy in front of potential clients. You already know who these people are because they're the ones your sales team constantly request and they've got 110% utilisation.

Thanks (and apologies) to the brilliant Russ Cram for the original idea which involved a 'wonky' Frisbee.

Bob Riefstahl (the author of 'Demonstrating to Win!') wrote a brilliant blog a few weeks ago called 'Renaissance to Post-Modern Discovery'. Bob talks about how even in large deals, enterprise sales teams are now being denied the chance to do any discovery. You have to turn up, do your presentation, show your highest impact features or services immediately and then, if you've hit the 'right buttons' with the prospect, earn the right to improvise some light discovery.

Bob also talks about how prospects and their consultants are much, much better informed than they used to be.
They have a voracious appetite for any digital content (reviews, videos, opinions) on your solution or service; some of that information your company has published (and therefore marketing has control of), some of it may come from employee advocates through social media, but some of it will be from, hopefully impartial, third-parties.
In many cases, your prospects already know what the value of your solution is (or think they do) even before your first sales contact.
​
As a colleague said last week, 'prospects are now qualifying you' on how much of your intellectual property and unique selling points your company is willing to digitally publicise and disseminate through the social networks.
Of course, this isn't happening in every deal or industry. For many deals you still get to do discovery, a structured presentation (sprinkling with some value and benefits) and then present a final value proposition. However, at least for Cloud / SaaS solutions, this has rapidly changed.

​So, as Sales Consultants / Presales, we need to learn some new techniques and take on some new responsibilities. As Bob says, we need improvisation and facilitator skills for the short, precious time we get face-to-face (virtually or in reality) with the prospect. We need to be absolutely confident we have the highest value, most memorable, best rehearsed, 'Wow', highlight of our solution and we need to have existing customers or industry experts / analysts backing us up.

We also need to take more ownership of the solution / service part of our company's marketing output that's being consumed, perhaps anonymously, at the beginning of the sales cycle. As Sales Consultants / Presales we have some unique communication skills that are absolutely critical in this new 'reversed' sales process. But that's the topic of a future blog post.
​
What do you think? I'd really value your opinion below.