Most companies struggle with responding to a Request for Proposal (RFP). First comes, “Should we respond to this?” and then, “OMG, what did we get ourselves into?” Whether your company is a cleantech business or not, you’re likely to find yourself in the position of determining your response strategy. We’ll talk about how and why a cleantech company may have an advantage, but first, let’s talk about fundamentals for responding to an RFP.

When should you respond to a RFP? Always? Never? It can be an agonizing decision. A company with limited resources must decide whether to devote the time and effort to answer a detailed RFP, and estimate what the chances are of it paying off. The probability of winning an RFP that you haven’t helped to create is often slim–some would say as low as 10%. That percentage improves dramatically if your product has been evaluated, and if you’ve been involved in the decision cycle, prior to the issuing of the request. It also rises if your product has a unique advantage that can’t be matched by others who will propose their products or services.

Here’s are some of the checkpoints to use in making that determination. Answering these questions will help you to decide if the opportunity to respond is likely to result in a deal.

• Does our solution address the customer problem in a unique way?
• Are there specific areas of value that competitors cannot achieve?
• Are we known to the customer?
• Have we been involved in the specification process, and are we on the customer’s short list?
• Do we understand the competitive landscape and who the other bidders are?
• Does our executive summary succinctly call out our competitive advantages?
• Is the executive summary written to be read by business leaders vs technical staff?
• Can we show valid return on investment scenarios?
• Does the proposal define metrics for completion and customer acceptance?

Now let’s take a look at RFP opportunities in the clean tech world. More and more I hear about companies who are requiring their vendors and service providers to articulate their environmental and social responsibility policies as part of the proposal process. If you are a clean tech company, you have a potential edge here. That your product addresses an environmental problem may already afford you an advantage in the process. If in addition to your product’ s environmental impact, you have implemented sustainable, environmentally friendly processes, even better. Of course you must first have a competitive offering that solves the specific problem.

As part of the selling and proposal process, find out what your potential customer has at stake:

• Is there a company mandate to do business with sustainable organizations, such as WalMart and others have instituted?
• Is there pressure from their clients to demonstrate some attention to issues of environmental impact?
• Is there any internal discussion about reducing carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions, or conserving energy?

It’s worth spending some time to think through the impact that you can have on your customer and on their customers, and then articulate it in a way that can be easily understood and translated into business benefits. As a clean or green technology company, some of these factors may create an advantage for you in winning the business.

• Are you enhancing their reputation?
• Will your solution create new revenue opportunities?
• Are you demonstrably lowering their energy usage, or some other cost?
• Does your product or service create efficiencies that can ultimately lower costs, increase profitability, help a company compete?

Strong proposals will win business for any company, cleantech or not. Do your homework and make sure that when you are spending time to propose a solution, or respond to an RFP, it’s your proposal that will make both you and the customer win.

Tags: clean technology, Sustainable Business

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