In a letter to her board of directors, Addy M. Kujawa, CAE, CEO of the American Alliance of Orthopaedic Executives, told them she would not be doing something they had come to expect: sending out a request for proposal (RFP) for a vendor to handle all the expo logistics for AAOE’s annual meeting. Her reason was every association professional’s dream: The last RFP had turned up an “amazing” consultant who communicates regularly, provides timely responses, and comes up with both money-saving and money-making ideas.

“How do you quantify that? You can’t,” she says. “I just signed him again.”

While a good RFP may not have been the only factor at play here, Kujawa—like most association executives—knows how essential a well-handled RFP is to a great project outcome.

She also knows firsthand how a subpar RFP can lead to the opposite experience. Her first attempt at working with a consultant to procure new association management software, for example, was dismal—and she accepts her part in the failure.

“He thought he understood [AAOE’s needs] but didn’t, and there were things I didn’t understand, in all honesty,” she says. “I hadn’t written [the RFP] specifically enough. The other thing I didn’t do was check with my peers for a pulse on this particular company. If I had, I would have learned things … that would have steered me away.”

Associations looking to hire a consultant, whether for a complex project like developing a new strategic plan or a task-based assignment like revamping a website, have at their disposal a variety of tools and techniques for gathering written information from prospects. And as Kujawa and many other experts will testify, picking up the phone and talking to candidates has become as important to the process as producing well-crafted documents.

Get It in Writing

Today’s best-written RFPs have three things in common:

They’re tightly focused. Given the financial outlay involved, it’s understandable that associations might have a “more is more” approach when deciding what to include in their RFPs and what information to request from respondents. However, “responding to an RFP takes up a huge amount of bandwidth, especially if you’re small or solo,” says Kerry Stackpole, FASAE, CAE, CEO and executive director of Plumbing Manufacturers International and a longtime association consultant.

Stackpole has seen associations “throw in everything including the kitchen sink, and all that does is take away from the core messages.”

Those core points, he says, should answer the question, “What are you trying to accomplish?” Sounds simple enough, but “finding clarity about that can be very difficult,” he says, especially for project managers who see the challenge at hand as a problem that a consultant needs to “make go away.”

“The great dilemma is that [associations] tend to issue this generic, vanilla RFP that says, ‘Here’s what we want, tell us how much it’s going to cost, and how you’re going to do it.’ It doesn’t get to the nub” of the project—clearly stated goals and desired outcomes, says Stackpole. He advises project managers to concentrate most of their effort on this part.

Examples of helpful information that Stackpole says should be touched upon but not belabored in an RFP include:

• an overview of “who you are”—a few sentences of organizational background and a summary of the mission
• who will oversee the project, who will need to be met with, and who is ultimately responsible
• the expected number of meetings and updates
• whether a written report will be required at the end.

In other words, “enough information so that I have a pretty clear picture of what you want me to do,” he says. “Details like where to send the bill can be worked out downstream.”

They tap technology. In his work with Bloch & Reed, senior consultant Chris Brown, CAE, helps associations and other nonprofit organizations transition to or change association management companies. He works both sides of the equation, helping the hiring organization to craft an RFP and interested AMCs to write a response. For him, a winning RFP is comprehensive but manageable and easy to navigate.

“Make your RFP streamlined by using technology,” says Brown. “Use links and SharePoint where respondents can go straight to [your] site and pull up documents” rather than cramming every bit of relevant information into the RFP.

Video is another tool Brown recommends to enhance the RFP process. He helped one association conduct an executive search by asking respondents to submit videos of themselves to augment their written replies. “This allows you to get a different idea about a prospect,” says Brown. The RFP might ask respondents to talk about their consulting philosophy or how they led a similar challenge for another client, he says.

They avoid casting the net too widely. Many association executives and consultants agree that RFPs can generate better leads when the hiring association targets the kind of consultant it’s looking for. Cookie-cutter requests sent to dozens of prospects can make potential respondents “wonder why they got [the RFP] … or not be sure if they want the work,” Stackpole says.

Even worse, a generic RFP can be a signal to consultants that they might end up as what Stackpole calls “cannon fodder.” He recalls getting an out-of-the-blue email from a large association asking if he’d like to respond to its RFP for management consulting. “It arrived on a Tuesday and was due Thursday,” he says. “I read it and thought, ‘I’ll crank it out.’” He hand-delivered the response—and heard nothing.

Stackpole says his experience is not uncommon. One reason? A project manager may already have a consultant in mind, but the board or leadership requires that multiple RFPs be sent out.

Get on the Phone

Nothing beats an actual conversation, says Brown, for answering “an age-old question: How do you link up with the best [consultant] who can fit within the culture of your organization and deliver the outcomes you want?” That’s where RFPs are limited, he says. “There’s only so much you can see on the screen. Until somebody picks up the phone and says, ‘This is what my problem is,’ we don’t know if we’re a good fit or not.”

Fit—and personal connection—are non-negotiables for Kujawa, who talks with each of her final candidates. “Understanding a personality is important,” she says. Some consultants, for example, “pride themselves on being very blunt. There are people who are right for them, but it’s not me.” A phone conversation can provide a glimpse into intangibles that can’t be conveyed in a consultant’s written response to an RFP, she says.

Stackpole talks to each of his final candidates, too—but all at the same time. When he’s searching for a consultant, he sends an EOI—expression of interest—to about a dozen individuals or firms; those who say they want to hear more receive his RFP. The next step is a conference call in which the candidates can ask questions of him—and each other. “It’s a more open and engaging process,” he says.

It’s also important to make preliminary phone calls to candidates recommended by peers, Stackpole notes. A discovery phone call like this allowed him to bow out of a potentially lucrative consulting job for which he had been recommended and to suggest a more suitable firm.

Kujawa recommends direct conversations as part of due diligence, especially when there might still be doubts at the end of the RFP process.

“We all don’t trust our guts enough,” she says. “Make one more call and ask more questions. Do what you have to do to have a really firm, positive kickoff.”