This is why we don’t bid on RFPs (Requests For Proposals)
This is not another article about how bad it is to work for free. In fact, we don’t think that’s the worst thing about it. There are other reasons we don’t bid on RFPs (Requests For Proposals). And the main one is that we find it totally inefficient — for both parties.
What happens when a company bids on an RFP? I can think of two main scenarios:
The first is that the agencies/studios participating overestimate the work ($). They’re taking a huge risk; they are bidding. They don’t know if they will win and get paid. And yes, risks in business have to get paid for, one way or the other. At the end of the day, it’s an investment and you have to make a profit from it.
The second option is that some other agencies/studios try to win by being the cheapest option. And being low-cost involves spending as few resources — like time or talent — as possible. Then they win the project and feel entitled because they participated and won… so they focus on “solving the problem” in the easiest way, so they can move on as soon as possible. What happens to the company they’re working for afterward is not of any interest to them.
Apart from that, in order to win, many agencies/studios commit to unreasonable releases or deadlines. Clients want to believe them, and their “promises” make them feel great. It looks like: “Hey! these guys are better because they have a secret sauce and they can deliver more!” And it’s in their proposal, so they have to deliver. But then reality usually shows up, Santa doesn’t come, and clients realize that they just chose the biggest liar. Then everything becomes a huge super-stressful mess with bad results.
For us, none of this makes any sense. As a design studio, we don’t work with companies just to create their logo or build their new website: we work with them to help them grow. And making a company grow requires, at least, a deep understanding of the company we’re working with.
How do we want a design studio-company relationship to be? Sustained. The only way we can deliver truly relevant solutions is to know our client’s reality. And gaining that level of knowledge will never come from working on a project from an RFP (Request For Proposal).
Long-term relationships themselves build a kind of economy of scale. The difference between a contractor and a partner is that when you are in a partnership things are way easier — and more cost-effective. Every time a new project comes up, the company can be sure to get a quick response. They don’t have to explain what’s important to them all over again. They can ask for extra effort when needed. They know who to speak to, depending on the issue. The studio knows their background well and already has the information they need to get to work quickly. The studio can become specialists in achieving the best solutions for the client’s specific problems, because it’ll be profitable for them. Fees and deadlines can be agreed, discussed, readjusted, or compensated flexibly — in a nutshell, it saves time, and it definitely saves money.
It changes the philosophy: if thanks to our work a client does great — then they’ll hire us more and the relationship will be mutually beneficial in the long term. People call us for a lot of reasons: because they’ve heard about us, because we were proactive about making a great proposal that made sense, because we specialize in a specific area, or because they’ve worked with us in the past. But no, our model is not about bidding. We spend all our efforts and time on our clients’ success, not on winning contests.
