A Follow-Up to My Epiphany on Winning Digital RFPs
This post is a follow-up to Epiphany 35 on Winning Digital RFPs, focusing on the dynamics of the RFP process and why there is more to the RFP than the submission process.
The RFP you’re responding to is not the RFP you’re being evaluated on.
This realization is liberating once you see it — and devastating if you don’t.
Most agencies and vendors treat an RFP like a checklist submission. They answer the questions, attach the case studies, insert the pricing grid, and upload it before the deadline.
But RFPs are political documents. They’re shaped by committees, scar tissue, and internal agendas long before they ever reach you. They reflect symptoms, not the underlying causes.
And that’s where so many digital service providers lose the plot. They answer the document instead of addressing the decision.
Let me break down the difference.
The Written RFP = The Stated Request
This is what most vendors fixate on.
It includes:
- Scope
- Requirements
- Deliverables
- Timelines
- Budget ranges
- Mandatory compliance items
It’s tidy, structured, logical.
But it’s not the real competition.
Because…
The Real RFP = The Unstated Drivers of the Decision
This is what actually determines who gets hired.
It includes all the forces that never make it onto page 7 of the PDF:
1. The internal pain that triggered the RFP
- A previous vendor relationship that went south.
- An executive demanding greater visibility or performance.
- A new CMO wants to bring in their preferred agency, but needs to conduct a formal review that includes input from others.
- A company that wants broader skill set from their current agency.
This pain drives the scoring more than the written scope.
2. The committee’s risk tolerance
A team that got burned by the last “innovative” vendor will now hire the safest, most procedural partner.
Another team might do the opposite and seek a disruptor.
You won’t see this written anywhere — but you’ll feel it in the questions they ask.
3. The political constraints
- Who owns what?
- Who has veto power?
- Which team has a budget but no authority?
- Who is threatened by this project?
- Which executive is quietly blocking progress?
Your proposal needs to navigate these landmines to win.
4. The contributors who influenced the RFP behind the scenes
Someone always wrote the first draft.
Someone always whispered:
“Don’t let an agency touch X.”
“We need a partner who can handle our mess without making us look bad.”
These ghosts shape the scoring rubric far more than the bullet points you’re reading.
5. The KPIs and incentives that define success internally
No RFP explicitly says:
- “Our boss only cares about reducing paid search spend.”
- “We need to show a win before Q4.”
- “We don’t have the capacity to do 80% of what we’re asking you for.”
- “Legal will block anything not fool-proof.”
Yet these forces will determine who gets selected.
And this is where the Contribution Value framework becomes the secret weapon.
Where Contribution Value Changes the Game
Most proposals talk about deliverables. Winning proposals talk about how your work contributes to:
- Their revenue model
- Their operational reality
- Their political constraints
- Their cross-team dysfunctions
- Their incentives
- Their internal KPIs
- Their risk profile
- Their executive pressures
In other words:
You win an RFP by connecting your solution to the value they are actually trying to create — not the value they wrote on the page.
Contribution Value is the Rosetta Stone that translates the RFP from “what they say they want” to “what they really need.”
5 Questions That Reveal the Real RFP
These are the questions I ask whenever a client sends us a proposal to respond to:
1. What problem were they trying to solve when the RFP was initiated?
Projects don’t start with scopes.
They start with frustration.
2. Who stands to win or lose politically based on the success of this engagement?
This determines collaboration — or sabotage.
3. What internal constraints does the RFP writer assume we don’t need to know?
If they’re hiding complexity, it will surface in execution.
4. What KPIs will actually be used to judge the project’s success?
Not the KPIs listed.
The ones whose careers depend on.
5. How does our solution reduce their internal friction?
This is where the win happens.
Why Most Agencies Lose — Even When They’re the Most Qualified
Because they do the one thing you can never do:
They treat the RFP literally.
- They answer every question.
- They present solid methodology.
- They include nice portfolio pieces.
But they don’t address:
- Internal politics
- Cross-team dysfunction
- Fear of embarrassment
- Unspoken constraints
- Executive pressure
- Previous failures
- KPI misalignment
- The emotional weight of the decision
And that’s what loses them the deal. I am not suggesting creating these specific sections for a response, but through your case studies, processes, and workflows, you can address them and how you mitigated them. Not every project will have these issues but during yoru discovery and experience you will understand the most likely ones.
RFP responses are not scored like exams. They’re scored like bets.
The Epiphany
The key is to understand that selection decisions are often driven by emotions, politics, and economics. Once you understand this, you stop writing proposals.
You start writing reassurance.
You start writing credibility.
You start writing alignment.
You start writing Contribution Value.
And that’s how you win.
