1deepthoughtsI’m rounding up a few sets of recent tweets about business development that might be the most insightful things going or could sound like that “deep thoughts” guy, Jack Handey. You decide, but I can assure you that there are indeed deeper thoughts to the tweets.

The first round of tweets represents principles and process considerations when presented with — or confronted by — a request for proposal (RFP) from a prospective client. These are written in Twitter shorthand to retain their authentic patina:

  • By the time RFP is issued the dialogue has begun. ALWAYS submit RFP questions to prospects when they offer the option.
  • RFP asks for innovation but budget says bare bones. Redefine innovation and show how it can mean efficiency, integration.
  • When RFP asks for armchair strategy w/ no context, define context & answer in those parameters. Then recommend research as phase 1. [This tweet got the most response from followers and is a bedrock principle of mine.]
  • When responding to new biz RFP, is there value in knowing the competitive set? How often do your prospects share?

These tweets prompted a welcome communique via Twitter from David Kutcher (@confluentforms), who is founder of the company Confluent Forms and the highly touted RFP Database. He referred me to a post on his blog, “We seek RFPs for Innovation, not Inspiration.”

That post was perfectly aligned with my Twitter-based musings, and is a must-read for anyone responsible for parsing the intent of an RFP and guiding his or her company through the process. And that includes the process of deciding whether responding is in your best interests.