An RFP I Can Get Behind

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December 10, 2009 at 12:59am

Being once of the former client-work world, I’m something of an authority figure on RFPs. A whole years worth of work in the field, I believe, moves me up the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition to Level 10 Paladin in RFP-land.

Occasionally, having relinquished my client shield to peruse works of the badass product variant, I still get RFPs across my desk that are like bad jokes. Granted, having moved up the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition to level 30 with a mount in bad jokes, I should be more than able to understand the bat-vomit that appears before my eyes. Alas, I’m not laughing… even though someone just farted.

I’m here to help you, client, because I care.

I will teach you how to write an RFP, client

RFP, in case you don’t know, is called a request-for-proposal. It’s what a potential client sends out to firms to entice competition and find the best bid for their project. It’s the same request as the one made between the Devil and God with Job.

You are God.

The devil and God make their requirements known and as you know Job must suffer through the entire process. Job is just a farmer, it’s not even that hard. Your cousin can do it.

The one difference between the allegory and you is that God chose one, but you’re efficient (re: more efficient than GOD!): there are at least 10-15 other Jobs who all must respect you. They’re just farmers. Your nephew built a Tumblr that was pretty sweet.

First rule of writing an RFP

The first rule of writing an RFP is that you are not dealing with a business. No. You are dealing with a world filled with ingrates and dotcom excess who don’t understand the technology you’re using or a business model. So if you’re interacting with them, make sure you treat them like children or idiots… or idiotic children. Idiotic children idiots who do stuff that’s not even that hard.

One of the basic rules is simple:

• Don’t proofread

Time is money. Not webworker time, that’s not real time. Your time. Business time. Transaction time. Viral Marketing Strategy Time.^*

If these people have time to write on Twitter, they don’t need to understand basic grammar and spelling. Besides, why should you spend your precious time proofreading your 30 page masterpiece RFP for picturesofguysonhorses.com. You’ve got to start talking to VCs anyway.

When you’ve accomplished this basic procedure, you move up the daisy-chain of nitwit web-firm estimation to “seriously being considered and thank you so much.”

Second.

Try not to give too much contact information. The more vague your contact info is, the more mysterious it will appear to this overgrown group of 10 year-olds. No one has yet to take it to the level of setting up a fake Hotmail account, but you did rfp4ever@hotmail.com. You hear that Gmail is traceable.

If that’s impossible, try adding multiple personnel emails to your proposal so no one is sure who to reply to. Mystery is sexy and sex sells. Besides, these nerds like playing games.

When this task is complete you’ve reached level 2 of immature, my-uncle-Red-can-do-this-so-why-is-my-boss-making-me-ask firm’s estimation procedure: “We need this project”.

Third.

Don’t even describe what your company does or give a website to them. If you work at a larger company, just assume that they’ll know who are you and don’t bother giving them any background. Remember: Your reputation is sacred and you are a great client, so let them figure it out.

If you need a redesign, just say “I need a redesign.” Don’t tell them why. They’re supposed to be good at this stuff.

Congratulations, RFPer, you’re now in the running for this web firm’s dedicated adoration of your project.

Fourth.

Make sure you tell them what technology you want to use to build the site. Twitter, Facebook Connnect, Dreamweaver, Macromedia Flash, Microsoft Products, or GoDaddy Hosting. The implementation is what is important, not the end result. Silverlight.

If you’ve got the best website idea in the world I’ve created this handy guide:

“It’s the Facebook of ________________”
“It’s the Twitter of ________________”
“It combines Facebook and Twitter to make the Amazon of _____________”

Great artist’s steal, right Pablo? After all, this is the sort of idea that will blow minds. Wait. Why should you pay for this? Why wouldn’t they want to invest in it? Here’s a new way to say it:

“I’m looking for a long-term strategic partner to ____________”

There you go! These people are most-likely bored anyway, and thank heavens you came to their rescue with your great and original idea that isn’t built yet.

Make sure you let it be known where your Google Rank should stand. SEO is important. SEO! SEO!

“I want to be the number one search result for porn”

That’s an actionable goal!

Make sure you mention Facebook Connect! Make sure it leverages something!

If you’ve successfully described the technology, and established that you’d like a partnership with this successful firm, your RFP is almost there. You’re now at one of the highest levels: “Our future, as a company, as citizens of the Earth, depend on giving this man an estimate”.

Budget.

I think it’s important to know that you should never give away your numbers. Giving away how much money something costs means that the people dealing with it won’t have any limitations. $1000 is a lot of money, and it’s important that you hold onto that card. After all, you’re a privileged person with a great idea that you’ve used all types of adjectives to describe its nameless functionality. It has a blog that leverages Facebook Connect to become the Zappos of horses after all.

Giving away your budget is like throwing a loaf of bread at birds.

Not saying how much you have budgeted will let the firm know that you have a large amount of money budgeted.

Important: Ask for work upfront.

So it comes down to the respected beloved web company and wordpresstemplates4free.ru. Sure, respected beloved web company responded promptly and asked you lots of questions that you didn’t think of, however, Wordpresstemplates4free.ru gave you a one page comp up front!

It’s extremely important that you proceed with caution and notify respected beloved web company that “another company” offered a one page comp with the estimate and if they “in turn would do so.” They’d be an idiot to turn away from sadwhaleblog.com, and I think it’s reasonable to ask them to open up Photoshop for like an hour and in turn deliver a comp with their estimate. It’s not that hard.

This sort of competition is what America is all about right? I’m sure they can do it between their games of Nintendo Wii on their fancy Apple Computers.

Most likely they’ll view this as an opportunity to prove to you, yes you, that they’re worth your valuable time. After all, you’ve got a new startup to run and synergy to orchestrate. Twitter! You’re building the next Twitter blog that leverages Amazon’s review system mixed with Netflix’s rating system to entice users to share and connect through your new ad platform based on Google’s AdWords but better!

Finally, when you’ve reached this stage, you’ll get the serious offers and be on your way to internet glory.

Now that’s an RFP I can get behind… you fucking idiot.

 

^* I used to not believe this, like it was a myth made up by bitter workers. Imagine my horror when I found people who talked like this.