RFPs suck

I've never been a big fan of RFPs (Requests for Proposals), especially from government agencies or departments. But I've never been able to pinpoint why other than the whole process seemed convoluted.

A quick story

Last year sometime I received an RFP from a local university. The project involved redesigning their entire website to fit their new branding, as well as a few print materials. If memory serves me, the budget was near a million dollars. Now, quite honestly, what designer or small design studio wouldn't drool over that kind of money? But... I never turned in a proposal.

I didn't turn one in because the requirements for the RFP were a bit asinine, not to mention the timeframe to put a multi-project proposal together was beyond short given our workload. They may as well have asked me to put on a chicken suit and start clucking.

I asked a colleague and friend about maybe taking it on together. We briefly considered it until he mentioned one thing that has ever since stuck out in my mind:

RFPs like these are typically sent out because they have to be "fair" and they already have a design agency in mind to do the work.

That seemed kind of ridiculous to me but it turned out, he was right on the money. We didn't have time to put together a halfway decent proposal so we just left it alone. The agency (a good one by the way) that created their logo also created everything that the RFP outlined.

Fast-forward to August 2009

I hadn't really given much thought to RFPs until August of this year when Andy Rutledge wrote a very compelling article on why RFPs suck. Andy explains that while not all RFPs are bad (to which I concur, having responded to some decent ones), most of them are best suited for dealing with commodities. But as Andy continues, he notes a catch in RFPs for professional design services:

Professional design service is not a commodity. Oh, design does exist as a commodity, at the proverbial bottom of the barrel. It is not my purpose here to disparage any agency, but the commodity design agencies are pretty much the only ones in the habit of answering RFPs. You’ll often find their campy ads in magazines, touting “business solutions.” These agencies are a dime a dozen ...true commodities.

As he goes on, he explains that most RFPs serve to attract as many "suitors" as possible -- which includes bottom dwellers that only see the dollar figure rather than the project as a whole. In my experience, this is very true. Or, like in the case of the million-dollar RFP, the RFP served to waste people's time to meet some arbitrary institutional rule.

What it all means

Short of reading Andy's article (which I encourage designers and business owners alike to do), the point is that you're not going to find the best design studio for your project by announcing an RFP that was likely created in a vacuum. Instead, you'll end up with sub-par responses eager to provide you with sub-par results.

Andy's last paragraph best sums it all up:

Remember, in business—as in life—you attract what you project. There is no exception to this rule. If you’re after something other than brutish attention, act like it. There are agencies out there that are prepared to commit to your success and there are agencies out there that are committed only to winning your project fee. There’s a difference. Be conscious of that difference. Aspire to be better and to enjoy better results.