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RFP Responses

5 Reasons To Keep Responding To Government RFPs

Pursue government contracts even when your private pipeline is full.

As the economy begins to bounce back, many companies divert their attention from the steady work of the public sector and begin to look again towards the private sector.  Don’t stop submitting your RFPs! Although the private sector can offer a lot of great opportunities to win interesting new projects, one shouldn’t completely abandon their public sector RFP response efforts.

5 Reasons to Keep Responding To Government RFPs

  1. They’ll remember you bailed on them.  That’s right, if you give up on pursuing government work, your city, state, and county procurement specialists remember that you bailed.  Remember, the city, state, and county procurement offices want to establish long-term relationships with multiple vendors to ensure project work gets spread around.  If your company begins not submitting RFPs or not even responding with the appropriate “no-bid” form, the procurement office for that specific government entity will begin to think you’re no longer interested in maintaining a vendor relationship.
  2. Rebuilding a damaged relationship could take you a lot of time and will cost you money.  If you stop pursuing government projects when the economy improves, winning back a relationship may take more RFP responses before your company secures a win.
  3. Pursuing government work helps you solidify your sales process and messaging. Public sector RFPs are often very detailed and time intensive to appropriately respond.  This is a great opportunity for you to create better marketing assets for your company that speak directly to some of the questions your potential customers in the private sector may have.
  4. You’ll get great competitive intelligence.  Going to a pre-bid meeting gives you great insight as to who your competitors are as well as who your new competitors may be.  If you’re in the technology space, you know how quickly the competitive landscape can change.  The ability to access information about your competitors by what type of projects they’re pursuing is critical to you staying ahead of your competition.
  5. You’ll win work.  If you are diligent in your efforts in pursuing government work, you’ll win projects. It’s a process to become a partner with the government so make sure you continue to debrief each time you respond to an RFP so you learn how to improve on the next submittal.  Each RFP you respond to, makes it easier the next time around to submit.

Although it’s exciting to see the private sector begin to bounce back after the long recession, make sure you don’t abandon public work.  Diversifying your client base with public and private clients is a great way to create a consistent pipeline despite economic fluctuations.