Ep. 151 – RFPs: Love Them or Hate Them?

Rob (00:00) they were asking for this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, I don't remember if it was the timeline or the budget or what it was, our response and our lead was, hey, we can't give you what you're asking for. And if any other agency tells you they can, they're full of shit. Don (00:04) Yeah, it's a lot of this. Yeah. Alright Rob, back. Episode 151. Rob (00:43) 151. Don (00:45) Yes, that's exciting times. ⁓ Rob (00:47) How about it? Hahaha! Don (00:52) You can tell we're super jazz. It's like, oh my God, we made it to 150. Oh, it's fall off the map. Okay, I'm putting you on the spot, since we always do. Is the TikTok still going strong? Is the neck thing still happening? You should have pulled that up prior to. Okay. All right, because I mean, it's been several weeks now, right? I mean, it's a borderline of months, I think, since we discussed this. Rob (00:56) Yeah. ⁓ good call. I don't I mean, last I checked. Last I checked. Yes, it was. But let's see what let's see what the numbers are. Yeah Don (01:19) right at the beginning. I don't remember what you said last time you I think you said it was like five ish or something. I don't know seven, the seven mil 8.4 million. Okay, so it blew both of our numbers out of the water. Yeah. Okay, because you were you were like, it's done it too. I said it's gonna be four, right? Because four is my lucky number. And now we are double that we're over eight. Okay, here's a question. I don't know if you know the answer to Rob (01:19) All do you want to guess? I want to see you guess. Something like that. We're at 8.4 million. blew both of our numbers out of the water. And I think it's, I mean, it's still going. Don (01:48) Did the follower base improve? Did the subscriber base improve to her account? Okay, okay, all right. Rob (01:55) absolutely. Yeah, I mean, she I can tell you, let's see. ⁓ She, I think she started it like, when she only had like 100 followers or something like that. And now she's got 1500. Don (02:01) hilarious. She's like our little surprise. ⁓ Yeah, yeah. OK, well that I'm going to call that. Yeah, that's significantly more. That's exciting. Rob (02:12) Yeah. And all of her videos now have thousands of thousands of views where before they didn't. Yeah. Yeah. It's the trickle down effect. Don (02:18) Yeah, because everybody hits the profile and then just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and goes through it. Yeah. Okay. All right. I think do we just keep this train rolling until until the numbers fall out? mean, is this in every podcast? We got to check in on the numbers or how do we, long, know, okay. All right. Awesome. Hilarious. All right. Well, 151 we're back. All right. A funny thing happened to us the other day when we were both on a call, we both got an email. Okay. And that email was for an RFP. Rob (02:30) I think so. think until until we don't, you know. Mm-hmm. Don (02:47) And I thought it might be interesting to talk about, I know we've mentioned in the past, I probably years ago on the pod in terms of like, know, are RFPs good for agencies? Are they not our approach or something like that, right? ⁓ But that was years ago, you know? And so I thought, hey, let's just have an open conversation about RFPs, love them, hate them, do we respond? You know, not all RFPs are the same, you know, how you can kind of sniff out, these people know what they're talking about? Or are these people, you know, I mean, there's a lot, you know, Rob (03:13) Yeah. Don (03:15) We've been doing this, we got a little bit of gray in our beards, we've been through the wringer a few times, right? And it is on our list, I think we are gonna respond to this one, right? ⁓ So yeah, mean, thoughts, what's your initial thoughts when I sort of spring the topic on you? Rob (03:26) I think so. I think so. I I would say over the course of my career, I've responded to RFPs in many, different ways. I think when you're first starting to respond, you have a tendency to go, what do they want to hear? Right? mean, you sort of craft your response based on what you think they want to hear. And then I think you... Don (03:41) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a way putting it, yeah. Rob (03:59) you know, as you develop in your career and sort of figure out your personality within the industry and your agency sort of brand and personality, you go, or at least for us, we go, we're gonna respond the way that we wanna respond and it's either a good fit or it's not a good fit. Don (04:17) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's thanks for asking all these questions. ⁓ We may or may not respond to all of those questions. ⁓ This is the way that we respond to these types of things. know, so now the only caveat there is potentially GSA working with states working with, you know, government, know, that type of thing, right? ⁓ Anything federal and whatever, because there's very specific, like if it's not Helvetica 12 point, I mean, you'll get rejected immediately. It's fascinating, you know. Rob (04:24) Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. Sure. Don (04:47) But general business scenario, I agree with you. It's really more about our personality and our approach and how we would address whatever they're RFPing, guess, ⁓ versus trying to respond back the way that they ask, I guess. You know what I mean? Rob (05:06) Yeah, I mean, think it's, and we've had the most success when we stick to our guns and when we do that. ⁓ And yeah, you're right. I mean, if it's a government thing, you have to fill out the forms and the things and the stuff. ⁓ know, some of them, what drives me bonkers and a lot of people might disagree with me on this, but like when they ask for the bios of the team members that are going to be working on the business, Don (05:12) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's going to be good. god. Yeah. Rob (05:34) For whatever reason, that drives me, don't know, that drives me crazy. I don't know, think in an RFP, I can understand, I wanna understand the principles that are working on my business. ⁓ But I trust those principles to bring me and deliver me a team that's qualified and get like. Don (05:37) Why? Why does that drive you crazy? Yeah. Yeah. The team. Yeah. Yeah. Rob (06:00) I don't need to give you the bio on the writer necessarily that's working on your project. I don't. And I think part of that is just the way that we work. We work kind of differently than a lot of agencies. So I think, ⁓ I don't know, that one I just find kind of annoying. don't, it's it's kind like, and I think about it like this, like, okay, if I'm going to go higher. Don (06:03) Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. Well, I think... Rob (06:25) Maybe this analogy works, maybe it doesn't. Let me work through it. But if I'm gonna go hire somebody to build my house, right? I am not going to ask him or her for the credentials of the skill, know, of the trades that they're bringing to the table. I know, like, I trust your painter. I believe your painter can paint. you know what I mean? Like, I don't. ⁓ Don (06:30) Okay. credentials of from the client side is predicated on the fact that there has been an industry here, our industry, where there is a little bit of smoke and mirrors and or bait and switch, right? The A team came in, gave the dog and pony, we fell in love with the A team. They gave us the pitch, they gave us the sell, they gave us the here's how it's gonna work. then we gave them the business, then they left. And now the C team has arrived and is working on all their business, right? And so I think that potentially, Rob (07:25) Sure. Don (07:29) That's been the sticking question that clients keep asking, which is a roundabout way of who's gonna be working on my business? Who's gonna be working on my, yeah, who's, yeah. Because I think people have been burned in the past, you know? But to your point, it's very antithetical to how we work, because we don't work that way, you know, so. Rob (07:43) Yeah, well, it's also, think, and it may also be because you know, I've got another project that I'm working on and it's, ⁓ wait a minute. There are 10 people on this conference call and I know you're charging me for all 10 people that are sitting on this conference call and I only need one person or maybe two people on the conference call. So I get it. And it's, and again, it's. Don (07:58) Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rob (08:10) You know, because to your point, larger agencies have so many different creative teams that yes, you don't want to buy this hamburger and all of sudden you're eating this hamburger. ⁓ so I get it. It's just not. Don (08:16) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a strange. Yeah, well, plus, you know, we're a creative shop. I mean, we are driven by creativity. We're driven by, you know, doers, right? We are not an account heavy shop that is driven by billable hours from account people. You know, I mean, that's not advantageous to our clients, you know, and our clients, I think really love that. So yeah, I mean, it's a weird to me that it's a weird one. I get it, you know, but like, it seems rather silly, you know what mean? ⁓ Also, I mean, right up there for me is like, how many awards have you won? know, like, that's the thing that bothers, it's like, none, what? That doesn't matter. What are you talking about? You know, it's, hey, can I understand your business and can I speak to your target audience appropriately, right? ⁓ But, you know, can we help you, move the needle as cheesy as that sounds, right? ⁓ It's not about, here's these really funny ads I did for somebody else 15 years ago that didn't correspond to any Rob (08:59) Yeah. Don (09:18) noticeable business improvement whatsoever. Right. But like, hey, here's this list of all these awesome things we won. Who cares? You know, so funny enough, I say that even after I know last podcast, I was talking about my favorite logo and how one like every word imaginable, you know, so yeah, I'm kind of, yes, I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth. I mean, that does happen, you know, but, ⁓ but yeah, I mean, you know, we don't respond to every RFP. I think that ⁓ Rob (09:25) And me. Yeah. ⁓ Don (09:41) It is interesting when they come out of the blue out of nowhere. I think like this one is, I don't think there's any link. I mean, I think this is truly ⁓ us having established presence online and just longevity of our business and things like that. Somebody found us and said, hey, I would be curious to see what these guys would do with the account. So I mean, it's always nice ⁓ to be recognized in that respect for sure. And a lot of stuff we pass on, but this one I think we're probably gonna respond to, which I think will be fun. Rob (09:45) Yeah. I think it's also too like, you know, it's easy for us to sit here and say that like, you know, we do RFPs our way because our business and we do business differently. Well, it's easy to forget that people don't know us. And sometimes people are saying they have no idea. We're so used to it. We're so, you know, we're so used to the way that we work and how we work. And it's also like, maybe because we're snarky old men or I'm a snarky old man anyway, it's like, hey, we'd like to see some of your work samples. Don (10:23) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rob (10:39) Okay, well, did you get our website? Because we have a lot of, there's a lot of work on our site. Don (10:42) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, is there something missing from the site that you didn't see? Yeah, that type of thing. So Rob (10:50) Yeah. But it also ends up like I think about, ⁓ you know, I remember when we did, we responded to, ⁓ aggregate, that was a good RFP. And I think that was a, that was a great case where it was, we responded the way that we wanted to respond. think we included 70 % of the information that they asked for or 80 % of the information that they asked for certainly. ⁓ but we did it kind of in our own, in our own way. And it always tends to work out that the people then, when you get the business, Don (11:00) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rob (11:20) they're the best people to work with because they got it. They understand your response. They're like, oh, okay, this is great. This is unique. I get it. So it kind of, it kind of works out that way. And then, and then a lot of times if we do, you know, if we do go through the, the, sometimes the painstaking response, long-winded response, and then you just get dismissed over an email immediately over an email and you're like, that was a lot of work. Don (11:21) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Immediately? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's I mean, the only universal truth, I think for us on our side of the business is that and we mentioned this in a previous pod years ago is is spec work and we're not going to do spec work for you as part of your RFP. We will answer your questions to the best of our ability. We will show you how we work. We will show you the team will you know, will give you ⁓ you know, rough go by. mean, it's kind of like the the information that comes out is as good as the questions and or information that comes in, right? So it's like, hey, we need a website. Okay, great. So is there any more like, like, what are we? Yeah, what are we building here? Like, I don't, is there any more information besides we need a website? Like, of course, we can go look at your current website. But is that clear that that's what you want to redo? Or are we doing something different? I mean, there is our 100 questions that I don't need to bore everybody with on terms of that, you know, Rob (12:22) I need a car. Yeah. Yeah. Don (12:39) So there sometimes there's a little bit of, we're giving you ranges, we're shooting in the dark where different things are happening, right? Because it's like, you didn't, didn't get enough information to accurately answer the question, you know, so. ⁓ Rob (12:49) Well, and that's when, you know, I probably am quick to jump at red flags or orange flags, but when somebody sends something that's, need a website, I'm like, no, pass, pass. ⁓ Don (12:58) Yeah. Yeah. We're out. Yeah. Yeah. Rob (13:05) Yeah, I have another thought after that. Don (13:07) Yeah, no, I mean, it's an interesting, know, I mean, we've been in our business for a long time. I'm curious as to how other businesses get their, you know, what an RFP looks like from like a technology vendor perspective and things like that, right? Because sometimes absolutely, you know, our industry is driven by budget. I mean, there are budgets, you know, you have to, ⁓ you know, spend for brand awareness and things like that. And then hopefully that correlates into sales. you know, I mean, like, you know, some clients spend tens of thousands of dollars a month, for example, on SEO and things like, know, stuff like that, or Google AdWords, for example. But it's predicated on, well, that's generating, you know, 10X or whatever, you know what mean? So it's almost like the numbers don't matter. It's just a ratio, right? So sometimes it's a numbers game. Sometimes it's not a numbers game on our side of the fence. Sometimes it's a, these guys get it. It's more of a strategic play. It's more of a creative play. It's an execution or it's a timeline thing. It's like, hey, Rob (14:03) Yeah. Don (14:04) No other agency said they could do this in this time. Can you guys do this in this? I mean, there are a lot of factors outside of just money. I'd be curious about other industries in terms of how there are, I mean, it sounds painful. I mean, we're used to what we're used to, but RFPs in other lanes, it's kind of interesting to think about. Rob (14:21) What was the, I'm trying to remember which RFP it was. And ⁓ I can't remember, maybe you can remember, but, and it was, they were asking for this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, I don't remember if it was the timeline or the budget or what it was, but our response and our lead was, hey, we can't give you what you're asking for. And if any other agency tells you they can, they're full of shit. Don (14:35) Yeah, it's a lot of this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Rob (14:52) I mean, that was literally the opening of our response. And I don't remember if that was, I can't remember who that was. I'm not gonna guess, cause I'll get it wrong. And I remember, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember writing that and being like, it's a pretty ballsy response. Like we're coming in hot and we totally got the business. And I remember getting the business and just being like, that was kind of a, that was a needed. Don (14:56) Yeah. I don't want to see any names on the internet forever. Yeah, well, it's, know, yeah, I was about to say the truth, the truth actually still matters in some corners of the world for sure. Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely something to be said for being real, you know, the, you know, because what that does is it forms trust, right? And that's the best thing you can have between, you know, a client and agency is, hey, I trust that those guys are going to get it done on time. I trust that firm is going to do a great job to the best of their, but you know, like, you know, there's give and take there, right? In regards to, Rob (15:22) Yeah, honesty works, you know? It's like... Yeah, yeah. Don (15:52) Hey, I recognize I didn't give you all the proper information. You know what I mean? Like things like that, right? And not all clients are created the same, but not all needs are the same either, if that makes any sense, you know? So yeah, it's an interesting sandbox we play in for sure, but yeah, it's a... Rob (16:08) I think one of the thought too is that I think we like to tell people that we work across all different verticals. We don't have any kind of niche and we use that to our advantage, right? Meaning, oh my gosh, an idea that we had thinking about soda ash. Oh my gosh, look how that translates over here to off-road vehicles or whatever, I'm just making stuff up. But we use that to our advantage and I think a lot of times Don (16:19) Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, totally, totally. Rob (16:37) You know, when, when people come to us with RFPs, they want to see relevant industry experience, relevant industry experience. And that, know, and a lot of times they'll say, Hey, we want to see three case studies within this lane. And I think our response typically would be. Don (16:45) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rob (16:58) No, because why would you, you're gonna get the same thing that. Don (17:02) Yeah. Why would you want to be like everybody else? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rob (17:04) Why would you want to be like everybody else? So a lot of times, and there've been a couple cases where we've used that to our advantage too, ⁓ that I think has gone well, but I also get it sometimes, it's a lot of money and if you're doing pharmaceuticals and you don't, I remember that specifically, we did a pharmaceutical one and they were like, hey, we loved you guys. But the higher ups, they don't see all the pharmaceutical experience and so I get it. Don (17:24) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They want to. I mean, there are definitely instances and I get it where it's like we just need to stay in with everybody else. We just want to be safely nestled in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're in the we're in the high school hallway with everybody else and we're just kind of just going with the flow. You know what mean? We're not on the periphery. You know, don't give us purple hair. You know, so ⁓ yeah, it's an interesting, you know. So anyway, yeah, well, ⁓ Rob (17:35) We're not trying to upset the Apple card here. Cheers. Right. Right. Don (17:51) I think we'll respond. We'll have a little powwow tomorrow and talk about how we're going to respond and whatnot. And then, ⁓ you know, maybe we'll keep everybody posted as to if we end up getting this business or not, you know? ⁓ Funny enough, actually do have category experience for this specific thing. So ⁓ we are good in that respect. ⁓ All right. Well, you know, mean, RFPs love them, hate them. It's kind of an interesting aspect, you know, it's, ⁓ you know, Rob (17:59) Yeah, if we get the business, will absolutely let you know. If we don't, will not say a We do. We do, we do. We do, we do. Don (18:20) It's always it's always nice to be loved. It's always nice to be asked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I'm washing my hair is what I'm doing. Yeah. So. All right. Well, let's wrap it up for today. Where where can everybody find us Rob? Rob (18:21) It's always nice to be loved, to be invited to the party, whether you got plans or not, you know? There you go. There you go. All right. They can find me on TikTok along with 8.4 million of your friends. You can find us of course at mocktheagency.com. Don (18:36) Yeah. Yeah, seriously, seriously. All right, fun times. All right, we'll see you next time. Rob (18:48) See you next time.