I’ve witnessed plenty of instances in which agencies (and other types of vendors, for that matter) have answered the call of RFPs (Request for Proposals) that are open-ended to practically everyone and anyone.

It’s like the company in charge of the RFP is saying, “Hey there, agency, you want in the pool with the rest of these 100 agencies? Come on in! The water’s great and you get to tell everyone you’re pitching for this account!”

The open-ended, free-for-all RFP is the business world’s answer to the lottery. Except the lottery is a game of chance where anybody can actually win.

By now, anybody who has consistently answered these ultra-thick documents knows that the competition isn’t as “open” as it seems. We don’t often operate in an ideal world where the best ideas or strategies always win. What also matters a great deal to decision-makers is chemistry – namely, if the prospective client likes you and can foresee a future of working with you on a regular basis. You really can’t blame them for valuing this as highly as they do because rumor has it that the advertising world has plenty of fabulously creative people who are also world-class prima donnas to deal with. Heaven forbid a company would want to avoid dealing with one.

Sadly, however, you can’t test much for chemistry on written RFP answers. The agency can put some personality into those answers, but it’s face-to-face contact that’s really the most meaningful.

Unless it lasts years instead of months, an RFP process that’s open to all can’t give the opportunity to everyone to ascertain if there’s chemistry between agency and prospect. And obviously if there was an opportunity for face time with the prospect for each agency, that process wouldn’t be very efficient for both parties anyway. By the way, the initial kickoff session that everybody is encouraged to attend doesn’t count.

So what can both parties do?

1)    If you’re an agency and you’re sure that your name is on a list with 100 other agencies or if you’re part of a selective group of agencies but the pitch suddenly gets significantly expanded to include many more agencies, pull out of the RFP process right now. Don’t waste another minute of your agency’s time. They invited the newcomers to the table for a reason – because they like them. Again, this goes back to chemistry.

This is exactly where an agency person will say, “Sure. In times like these, I’m going to pass up the potential of winning X dollars in new business? Who can afford to do that?” I argue that now more than ever, because it’s such a lousy economy, your time is better spent identifying and qualifying someone who may be a closer fit as a client than chasing everyone who invites you (and all the competitors you know) to dance with them. When the latter occurs, you need to be honest with yourself – is this really the “new business opportunity” you think it is or is just another longshot scenario that is likely to result in burned time, burned money and increasingly burned-out staff?

2)    If you’re a client, how do you keep the process efficient yet give yourself the opportunity to see what it’s like to work with an agency you have interest in? Give them a project. The kind of project where you get to not only witness their strategic and creative firepower, but also interact frequently with the person who would be your day-to-day contact. How did the project go? Good? Then maybe that’s a relationship worth continuing. Now give them a very different type of project challenge that’s still in their realm of capability and see how they stand up to that. Chief Marketing Officers, who rarely get that long of a tenure to work with to prove themselves, can appreciate this sort of “dating-to-a-relationship” approach.

This will take some effort on both sides. But it’s definitely not impossible.

Clients will have to put more homework into identifying better matches for them beyond writing up an RFP for the masses or leaving it to an agency search consultant who starts his or her search at mega-giant $100-million-billing agencies (which doesn’t give you a complete picture of the most nimble folks on the block). Instead, go on www.agencycompile.com to do a search based on a range of criteria. Check out the agency’s website. Learn about their philosophy. Take a look at their portfolio. Starting to get a good feeling about some? Now pick up a phone and start talking to some various agency heads – you can gauge their level of respect and responsiveness to you by how quickly you get through to talk to one.

Agency heads are going to have to stop complaining about the state of their situation while all the while resigning themselves to play the no-win game of the “everybody into the pool” RFP. If you choose to compete in what is already such a wide-open format and lose, you have only yourself to blame for what you perceive as politics, lack of attention to your agency’s proposal and more.

I’m optimistic because deep down, both sides of the table know there are alternatives, such as the project path to a relationship, providing a smarter way to go. Let’s explore those together and see if we can make our lives mutually easier in these difficult times.

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