The RFP Was Written for Someone Else. Should You Bid Anyway?

A water-tech founder forwarded me an RFP last year with a one-line note: “This is perfect for us, right?” The scope actually read like a description of his product and the evaluation criteria rewarded exactly the things his company did better than anyone. He had three weeks to respond, and he wanted help making the submission flawless.

I read it twice and asked him one question: had he talked to anyone at the utility before the document landed in his inbox? He had not. He found it on a bid board.

That answer told me almost everything I needed to know about his odds. The RFP that looked like it was written for him was almost certainly written for someone else, by someone who had been in the room months earlier while the scope was taking shape. He was being invited to make the procurement look competitive.

This is the quiet reality of public-sector water procurement, and learning to read it is the difference between a sales process that builds a business and one that burns a team out chasing documents it was never positioned to win.

Why the RFP is the end of the story, not the beginning

Most of the consequential decisions for a project have already been made by the time a request for proposals is published. The problem was defined, the scope was shaped, and the funding source was chosen - which often constrains what can be bought and how. Frequently a preferred solution was identified, sometimes informally, sometimes through a vendor who helped the utility understand the problem in the first place.

I’ve written before about how utility buying decisions actually get made and who sits on the buying committee. The short version is that a six-figure technology choice is usually settled in internal conversations that no outside vendor attends. The RFP is the paperwork that documents and legitimizes that choice. Public agencies are required to run a competitive process, so they do, even when the outcome is close to decided.

This may feel like anything but competitive… which is kind of right. But it’s also not. A utility that has spent months understanding a problem with one vendor’s help has a rational reason to prefer that vendor’s approach. The procurement rules exist to keep the process honest and open, and they mostly work. But they do not erase the head start that comes from being present during the shaping phase.

So the first thing to understand about any RFP you did not influence is that you are probably behind. Not always. But often enough that you should treat an unsolicited RFP as a signal to investigate, not a reason to celebrate.

The bid / no-bid decision is the real skill

The instinct, especially for a small company hungry for revenue, is to bid on everything that looks relevant. This is a mistake. A serious RFP response costs real time from your most senior people, and that time is the scarcest resource you have. Spending it on bids you cannot win is the most expensive habit in technical sales.

A disciplined bid / no-bid decision asks a few honest questions before any writing starts.

Did you shape the spec, or did someone else? If you were in the conversations that defined the scope your odds are real. If the requirements read like they were lifted from a competitor’s datasheet, with specific performance thresholds, certifications, or architectural choices that happen to match one product and exclude yours, the spec is wired. Read the mandatory requirements section closely. A single oddly specific clause (“must support protocol X over interface Y at sampling rate Z”) is often a fingerprint left by the vendor who helped write it.

Is there an incumbent? Replacing a system the utility already owns is a different fight than filling a greenfield need. Incumbents have switching costs, internal relationships, and the benefit of the doubt on their side. You can win against an incumbent, but only when the utility is actively unhappy with what it owns. A better mousetrap by itself will not move them.

Can you meet the requirements as written, or are you hoping to re-educate the buyer in your response? An RFP response is not the venue to argue that the utility asked for the wrong thing. If the requirements exclude you, the document is not going to change its mind because your proposal is well written.

Does a path to funding exist? A live RFP with a named budget and a funding source is a real opportunity. An RFP issued to test the market, with funding “anticipated” in a future cycle, often is not. The procurement rules attached to the funding source also shape what is actually buyable.

If most of those answers point the wrong way, the disciplined move is to decline and route your energy toward opportunities where a path exists.

When you do bid, answer the question that was asked

When the decision is to bid, the soul-preserving discipline is to respond to the RFP in front of you rather than the one you wish had been written.

Evaluators score against stated criteria, often with a compliance matrix and a points system. The proposal that wins is the one that makes the evaluator’s job easy (e.g. every requirement addressed in the order it was asked, every mandatory item clearly met, every claim substantiated). A reviewer working through twenty submissions on a deadline is looking for reasons to advance you or screen you out, and an unanswered requirement is the easiest screen-out there is.

Differentiation still matters, but it belongs inside the structure the RFP gave you, not in a preamble that ignores the format. Make the compliance crystal clear first. Then, where the criteria allow, show why your approach is stronger. Trying to win on personality while leaving requirements ambiguous is how strong products lose to mediocre ones with better-organized paperwork.

Keeping your soul: influence earlier, not dirtier

The way to stop feeling like RFPs are rigged against you is to be on the right side of the shaping process, ethically.

There is no ‘gaming’ procurement. You have to do upstream what the eventual winner usually did: build relationships with utilities before they have an active project, help them understand a problem in good faith, and be a useful presence during the period when scopes are forming. Some of that comes from the same education-first motion that earns pilots and credibility with the technical staff. When you have done that work, the RFP that eventually publishes reflects a problem you helped frame, and you are responding from in front rather than behind.

To be clear - there is a line, and you shouldn’t cross it. Helping a utility understand a category and articulate its needs is legitimate and valued. Ghost-writing a spec so narrowly that it illegally excludes qualified competitors is not, and in publicly funded procurement it can get the whole award challenged and thrown out. The healthy version of spec influence makes the procurement better and more informed. The corrosive version makes it a formality and it tends to catch up with the vendors who rely on it.

Walking away is a strategy, not a failure

Some RFPs are unwinnable, and recognizing them quickly is a competitive advantage. The companies that grow steadily in this market are not the ones that respond to the most RFPs but the ones that pick their battles, invest in the upstream relationships that make future RFPs winnable, and decline the ones that were decided before they arrived.

Your soul, in this context, is your judgment and your team’s time. Protect both. Respond to the RFPs you have earned a real shot at, answer them with discipline, and put the energy you save into being in the room the next time a scope is taking shape.

---

HydroKnowledge helps water technology companies build go-to-market strategies and qualify the opportunities worth pursuing. Get in touch if you want a second pair of eyes on your bid pipeline.