So, tell me a little about yourself...
Welcome back to our series on how to construct a well written and thorough landscape Request for Proposals document. If you missed last week’s post when we kicked off our discussion of commercial landscape service RFPs, don’t worry. You can catch up here.
The Introduction. It's not just the first section of your RFP, it may very well be the most important section of your RFP.
Simply put, a poorly written (or non-existent) Introduction can determine the quality of landscape firms that respond to your RFP.
The introductory sections are where you, the client, need to outline two important pieces of information for your bidders: your Objectives and your Submission Requirements.
You can label these introductory subsections whatever you’d like, as long as your Introduction accomplishes these two things:
- Tell the proposing landscape contractors a little about your property’s story, letting them know why you’re accepting proposals in the first place.
- Give them the ground rules for how your RFP process is going to play out, and let them know you’re not going to put up with any nonsense.
Your RFP’s Objective
This is your chance to tell all of the proposing landscape companies what you really care about.
If you manage a community, tell us how important the landscaping is to your residents.
If you manage a commercial property, tell us that the quality of your landscaping is an integral part of your marketing strategy to draw in new tenants and their businesses.
You’d be surprised how many RFPs start out by diving right into their requirements and detailing their scope of services. They never bother to tell the proposers why they’re looking to obtain proposals for their landscape service needs in the first place.
Landscape contractors can always guess why a Property Manager might be looking for a new vendor. But, if you’re serious about finding the right commercial landscaping partner for your property, why not take the time to put together a couple of paragraphs about your objective for the RFP?
And it’s important to be honest about your objective. If you’ve been burned by taking the lowest price in the past, there’s nothing wrong with letting the proposing firms know that you intend to select the most qualified and competent vendor, and are not just looking for the lowest price. (This is one of the ways you can start to weed out “Low Buck Chuck”.)
Conversely, if you really are just looking for the cheapest price, your RFP's scoring system should make that apparent to the potential bidders. (Much more on RFP scoring systems and bid tabulations in a future post.)
The more information you provide about why you’re accepting proposals, the higher the quality of firms that will submit proposals for your landscape service needs.
Your Property Description
Including a brief one to two paragraph section in your Introduction about your property is a great way to help potential contractors understand exactly what they may be getting themselves into as your landscape service partner.
If you describe your property using words like “award-winning”, “world-class”, and “luxurious”, all of the proposing landscape companies should understand that you expect a level of service and professionalism that will exceed what many contractors may be accustomed to providing.
You should also mention any previous issues or recent changes in your landscape that would be of relevance for a new landscape vendor to know. For example:
- Replaced sod on the great lawn last fall due to significant chinch bug infestation
- Recently updated irrigation system to a reclaimed water source connection
- Annual flower rotation designs must be approved by the Board of Directors prior to installation
Stating your RFP’s Objective and offering a succinct Property Description may seem like fluff to some, but for the discerning landscape contractor - the one who actually cares about creating a proposal that addresses your needs - the Introduction is so much more than the pages they flip past to get to your pricing sheets.
In our next post we’ll tell you how your Submission Requirements, the second part of a great Introduction, can help you avoid being buried by an avalanche follow up questions.
