RFP Clarity Series

Your RFP is complete and you’ve selected a partner – but the relationships you maintain beyond that choice can be just as valuable. Once the RFP process concludes, many brands go quiet. A contract is awarded and the rest of the agencies – which have invested serious time and thinking – are left with a…

Not every project needs a formal proposal. Sometimes, a clear brief and a conversation are the better path. RFPs have their place. When thoughtfully constructed, they bring structure, consistency, and fairness to complex decisions. They help compare options side by side, especially when the stakes are high or the partners are unfamiliar. But not every…

When the Proposal Looks Polished, But Something Feels Off Even a well-written RFP won’t guarantee perfect proposals, although it should make off-base ones less likely. When the responses start coming in, it’s worth reading with two lenses: What does this proposal reveal about the agency? And what might red flags in agency proposals be telling…

When organizations issue an RFP, they often focus most of their energy on the questions. What should we ask? What information do we need? How can we ensure the proposals we receive are apples-to-apples? What gets less attention, but deserves far more, are the RFP evaluation criteria. The scoring model, if you will. Evaluation criteria…

Resource Expectations Shape The Team You’ll Actually Get. When you’re hiring an agency, you’re not just hiring a brand name; you’re hiring the people behind it. And yet, many RFPs focus heavily on services, timelines, and budgets while leaving critical questions about the team itself frustratingly vague. If you want the right team on your…

Respect the Work You’re Asking For There’s a subtle but powerful way to improve the quality of proposals you receive: build a timeline that respects the effort required to deliver great work. Too often, RFPs are issued with aggressive deadlines based on internal pressures that have nothing to do with the agencies you’re soliciting. Your…

Questions Are Already Part of the Process. Are You Using Them Strategically? Most RFPs include a formal opportunity for vendors to ask questions, typically with a deadline for submissions and a promise of shared answers. But how that window is structured – and how those questions are handled – can dramatically influence the quality of…

“Tell us about your team.” It’s one of the most common requests in an RFP, and one of the least revealing. On the surface it seems reasonable: you want to know who you’re going to be working with. You want to understand their experience, their capabilities, their bandwidth. But more often than not, this question…

The Flip Side of Strategic Ambiguity In our last RFP Clarity post, we made the case for purposeful restraint in RFPs, explaining how leaving some space can prompt more revealing, strategic responses. But not all ambiguity is helpful. In fact, when key details are missing or unclear, it can lead to confusion, misalignment, and responses…

The Assumption of Clarity It’s common to think that the more information you include in an RFP, the better the outcome will be. After all, clarity is kind, right? And a comprehensive brief should, in theory, yield more accurate and aligned responses. But there’s a nuance worth exploring: not everything needs to be defined up…

Even the most thoughtfully constructed RFP will generate questions. That’s not because you left something out; it’s because your bidders bring a different perspective. What seems obvious inside your organization may feel ambiguous, incomplete, or open to interpretation to someone on the outside. That’s not a flaw in the process, It’s an opportunity. Smart Agencies…

Whether you manage RFPs regularly or only occasionally, this series is designed to help you approach the RFP optimization process with more clarity and more confidence. The Silence Is Familiar You issued an RFP and eagerly awaited the responses. But when they arrived, something felt off. Maybe the submissions were vague. Or misaligned. Or too…