There is almost nothing in sales more frustrating than replying to RFPs that we believe we are destined to lose. We've all been there before - the RFP comes in cold and for whatever reason we feel that we need to respond. Maybe our pipeline is weak or someone else in our company is requiring us to reply. Perhaps we don't want to send a message to the customer that we aren't interested in their business. Even when it's an RFP we have a shot at winning, we can be intimidated by the amount of work that has to be done to create an effective reply. We can find ourselves thinking about past sales that never even went out to bid - the good old days.

So what's a value-oriented rep to do? One idea to consider is the idea of "getting upstream", identifying and closing opportunities before they are turned into RFPs. Easy to say, harder to do.

Do you have customers with contracts coming up for renewal 3, 6 or 12 months from now? Do you know of upcoming opportunities that your prospects will be considering in the near future? In these cases, we can get ahead of the RFP by doing our homework, cultivating our network, and positioning such a compelling business and solution fit that the opportunities never go out to bid. Similarly, have you been able to do some proactive research with customers or prospects to uncover performance gaps where your solutions can make an impact? This proactive, demand generation-oriented activity is where we can really shine. This is selling! The kind of selling that lured many of us in to the profession of sales. This is where our relationship building skills, experience, and insight can combine to create demand rather than simply respond to it.