How to Respond to an RFP

Receive & Triage (Go/No-Go Decision)

The single most impactful step in your RFP process is the one most teams skip: deciding whether to respond at all. Every RFP response consumes 40 to 100+ hours of collective effort from your most skilled people. Pursuing an RFP you have a low probability of winning is one of the most expensive mistakes a sales engineering or proposal team can make.

Build a formal Go/No-Go scoring matrix that evaluates each opportunity against five key dimensions:

• Capability alignment — Can you deliver what the RFP requires with your current product or team? If more than 20% of mandatory requirements are outside your capabilities, the probability of winning drops dramatically.
• Timeline feasibility — Is the submission deadline realistic given your current workload and the complexity of the requirements?
• Budget range — Does the expected contract value justify the cost of responding? Is the client's budget in the range your pricing supports?
• Competitive landscape — Who else is likely to bid? Is this wired for an incumbent? Do you have an informational advantage or disadvantage?
• Relationship strength — Do you have an existing relationship with the issuing organization? Were you involved in shaping the RFP's requirements?

Score each dimension on a 1-5 scale and set a minimum threshold (typically 15-18 out of 25) below which you automatically decline. This simple discipline can double your win rate by ensuring you only invest in opportunities where you have a genuine competitive advantage.

Extract & Classify Requirements

Once you have decided to bid, the next step is to deconstruct the RFP into a structured requirements matrix. This is the foundation everything else is built on — your outline, your compliance tracking, your section assignments, and your review checklist all derive from this matrix.

Go through the RFP document page by page and extract every requirement into one of four categories:

• Mandatory requirements — Items explicitly marked as required, must-have, or mandatory. Failing to address any one of these is usually disqualifying.
• Optional / preferred requirements — Items described as "preferred," "desirable," or "nice-to-have." These are scoring opportunities, not requirements for qualification.
• Compliance items — Legal, regulatory, insurance, and certification requirements that must be documented with evidence.
• Submission format rules — Page limits, font requirements, section ordering, file format specifications, and portal upload instructions.

Pay close attention to implicit requirements — things the RFP assumes you will address without explicitly listing them. Experienced evaluators often test for this: they know the requirement is obvious to any qualified vendor and use it as a filter.

Build Response Team & Plan

An RFP response is a team effort. The quality of your final submission depends directly on having the right people responsible for the right sections with enough time to do their work well. Unclear ownership is the number one reason RFP responses miss deadlines or deliver inconsistent quality.

Start by mapping each section of the response to an owner. Typically, the team includes:

• Proposal lead / coordinator — Owns the timeline, compliance checklist, and final assembly. This person is the single point of accountability.
• Subject matter experts (SMEs) — Technical leads, product managers, or engineers who write the technical and solution sections.
• Pricing and commercial — Finance or deal desk to build the pricing model and handle commercial terms.
• Executive sponsor — Senior leader for the executive summary and to unblock resource issues.

Next, build a response timeline by working backward from the submission deadline. A reliable structure:

Create Response Outline

Your outline is the blueprint for the entire response. A well-structured outline ensures consistency across sections, prevents duplication, and makes it immediately clear to the evaluator that you have organized your response to address their priorities.

The golden rule: mirror the RFP's structure exactly. If the RFP specifies five sections with specific numbering, your response should have the same five sections with the same numbering. This is not about creativity — it is about making the evaluator's job easy. The easier it is for them to find your answer to each requirement, the higher you will score.

Within that structure, plan the content strategy for each section:

• Map each mandatory requirement to the section where it will be addressed — this becomes your compliance matrix.
• Identify which case studies and proof points are most relevant to each section.
• Note where your key differentiators should appear — ideally in the sections with the highest evaluation weight.
• Flag sections that require input from specific SMEs or external partners.

Write & Draft Sections

This is where the majority of time is spent — and where most teams struggle. The challenge is not just writing well; it is writing strategically. Every paragraph should either address a requirement, prove a capability, or differentiate you from the competition. Anything that does not serve one of those purposes is filler that dilutes your response.

Write section by section, following these principles:

• Lead with the evaluator's priorities — Open each section with a direct response to the most important requirement, not a preamble about your company.
• Use concrete examples — Replace "we have extensive experience" with "we completed a similar implementation for [Client] in 2024, reducing their processing time by 42%."
• Include metrics — Quantified results are the most persuasive element in any proposal. Numbers create credibility in a way that adjectives cannot.
• Avoid generic language — Phrases like "industry-leading," "best-in-class," and "world-class" are meaningless without evidence. Cut them.
• Write for skimming — Evaluators review many proposals. Use clear headings, bullet points, tables, and bold text to make key information scannable.

If you have a content library from previous proposals, this is where it pays dividends. Pull in approved language, update it for this context, and spend your time on the net-new content that is specific to this opportunity.

Competitive Differentiation

Compliance gets you considered. Differentiation gets you selected. Even a perfectly compliant response will lose to a competitor who does a better job explaining why their approach is uniquely suited to the client's needs.

Start with competitive intelligence. Research which companies are likely to bid on this opportunity and develop an understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and typical positioning. This does not mean disparaging competitors in your response — it means knowing what they will claim so you can preemptively differentiate.

Build three assets for this step:

• Win themes — 2-3 core messages that run through the entire proposal. These are the reasons the evaluator should choose you, stated in terms of their priorities. For example: "Fastest time to value through our pre-built integrations" or "Lowest risk through our proven track record with similar implementations."
• Competitive battlecards — Internal reference documents for each likely competitor covering their positioning, pricing model, known weaknesses, and how to counter their likely claims.
• Objection handlers — Pre-written responses to the most likely concerns an evaluator might have about your company, product, or approach — such as company size, geographic coverage, or technology maturity.

Weave your win themes into every major section of the response. Evaluators who read multiple proposals benefit from clear, consistent messaging about why you are the best fit.

Format, Export & Submit

The final step is often underestimated. Formatting, assembly, and submission logistics have derailed more proposals than most teams care to admit. Do not treat this as an afterthought — allocate a full day for this step.

Work through a final submission checklist:

• Format to specification — Apply all formatting requirements from the RFP: fonts, margins, page numbering, headers/footers, section breaks. If the RFP specifies Word format, submit Word. If it specifies PDF, submit PDF.
• Write the executive summary last — The executive summary should be a standalone document that conveys your win themes, key differentiators, and value proposition in 1-2 pages. Write it after the full response is complete so it accurately reflects the content.
• Assemble appendices — Gather all supporting documents: resumes, certifications, insurance certificates, case studies, reference letters, product architecture diagrams.
• Test everything — Open the final file on a different machine. Check that images render, links work, and the table of contents is accurate. If submitting through a portal, test the upload before the deadline.
• Submit early — Aim to submit at least 24 hours before the deadline. Portal crashes, file size limits, and last-minute formatting issues are surprisingly common.