In our last Tip we talked about using different members of our team (IT, legal, marketing, HR, senior executives...) to help us build our network and push back against the limitations that our customer's Procurement organizations are routinely placing on us. Additional assistance can come from another unlikely source - our own Procurement people. These teammates can be an invaluable resource as we get their take on RFPs before we respond and get their input to our strategy.

Another unique way we could leverage them is to have them reach out, either formally or informally, to the customer's Procurement people. As an example, this is an excerpt from an email from one of our clients' Procurement leader to a customer's Procurement person, in reaction to an unfavorably written RFP:

"After reading your RFP I was surprised at the specifications as written. The expressed specifics differ from the specifications of the products we have provided to you for nearly a decade. Additionally, the specifications provided in the RFP appear to exclude us from consideration and directly align to another vendor's product. I am unaware of any expressed dissatisfaction for our products and am concerned by the expressed change in product specifications."

They went on to share some specific examples of specs that were unfairly written, and then said, "In addition - we have a sustainable solution that was shown to (the Decision Maker) recently that does not meet any of these specifications. Are we to read from this RFP that sustainable options should not be presented if they do not adhere to the specifications?" Then they ended with, "Based on my understanding of the RFP, it would appear that we cannot meet specifications and should not respond. Is that an accurate assessment?"

In one short email, she referenced the long term relationship between the two companies, the current relationship with the decision maker and the unfairly written RFP. This may seem a little direct or confrontational, but it is just one of many strategies we have at our disposal as we continue to fight other people's efforts to commoditize us.