This post was originally posted by Manish Bafna at RFPIO.
Sales enablement tools have become a household name. It’s no longer a question of whether or not your team needs these tools. It’s a question of how to use these tools effectively throughout every aspect of the sales cycle.
20% of lost deals are caused by internal complexity within sales organizations, according to Gartner. One of the biggest obstacles for sales teams to overcome involves their longtime manual process of responding to RFPs.
Searching for ways to protect the time of your sales team? Look no further than RFP software. This sales enablement solution offers intelligent RFP search so you can optimize your responses and your resources.
The High Cost of Searching Manually for RFP Responses
Finding response content is a top challenge for busy teams. Every day salespeople spend valuable time hunting around spreadsheets, docs, folders, and emails for response content. This manual RFP response process is costing organizations from both a time and resource perspective.
Let’s say your team responds to 50 RFPs annually. By bringing in a sales enablement tool like RFP software, you can automate many of the tasks your team completes manually today. Annual savings would amount to nearly $57,600 or 480 hours. Much of that effort is being spent searching for previous RFP response content.
If you put your own numbers into our ROI calculator, in seconds you will see how much your sales organization would save through RFP automation.
RFP software is a dedicated sales enablement tool for responders. The solution addresses the common challenge of content accessibility by delivering intelligent RFP search functionality. When you quickly find the content you need, your most valuable resources will save time and be able to focus on other priorities.
RFPIO Search Commands That Save Valuable Time
An easy way to understand search capabilities within a solution like RFPIO is to think about the way you use Google to find information. The majority of Google searches involve a simple phrase or question. But, did you know there are handy search commands you can use to find specific information even faster?
Called search operators (aka search commands or advanced operators), these special characters and commands extend the capabilities of ordinary text searches. Typically, search operators are used by more advanced Google users—like SEO experts.
With RFP software, search commands are very often underutilized. Because we know just how valuable your time is, here are several RFPIO search commands that will help you better optimize your searches during the RFP response process.
1. Combination Search
Combination search is the most commonly used search command by RFPIO users. This search allows you to find response content using a combination of terms—you can have either/or, both, or exclusions.
Let’s say you search for multiple keywords, such as “technical” and “architecture.” Use these all-caps search commands and RFPIO will serve up the most relevant responses from your RFP answer library:
- OR – technical OR architecture
- AND – technical AND architecture
- NOT – technical NOT architecture
2. Phrase Search
The second most commonly used search command is phrase search. This command is simply where you add quotations around a specific phrase you want to find in your answer library response content.
The search command would look like this:
- “technical architecture”
“Technical” might be the first word and “architecture” might be the twentieth word. Phrase search automatically pulls these words together to find entire RFP response sections with these two words.
3. Proximity Search
Now we get into search commands that are rarely used—with the exception of advanced RFPIO users. Proximity search is similar to phrase search, except that you get even more specific about the proximity or distance between words.
The search command would look like this:
- “technical architecture”~5
In this search command example, the ~5 means that “technical” and “architecture” are no more than 5 words away from each other. If there are too many words in between the searched keywords, the response would not show up.
4. Stemming
Perhaps one of the most frustrating things in a Word or Google doc is not automatically finding different variations after searching for a root word. In RFPIO, stemming is a default search functionality that shows documents with variations on a root word.
If you search for “correspond,” you will find documents that also include word variations, such as “correspondence” and “corresponding.” Stemming search technology makes finding related words much easier.
The search command would look like this:
- “correspond”
…and, that’s all you have to do. Since this is a default search setting, RFPIO will show documents that contain the root word and any word variations.
5. Faceted/Filter Search
Faceted/filter search is something you already use when you’re shopping on Amazon. For filtering, you might use the sidebar to filter by ratings of 4 stars and above. Faceting is similar to filtering. On Amazon, it asks you if you want to see products by brand (Apple, Sony, etc.)
The search command involves:
- Check boxes to filter.
In RFPIO, a faceted/filter search will help you get the best RFP response based on your selected filters. As long as you properly organize your answer library responses by collections, tags, project names, owners, admins, and other customizable categories, simply drill down to find hyper-specific content.
6. Star Ratings
Your star content is your team’s favorite RFP response content—these responses are rated manually by your team and/or chosen by the common usage of the content (i.e. responses used more than 5 times).
The search command involves:
- Sort by star rating.
Sorting by star rating, such as 3 stars and above, means you can find the cream of the crop through a quick selection.
Internal complexity within your sales organization will only keep you from reaching annual objectives. Sales enablement tools like RFPIO support you and your team throughout the sales cycle. Modernize, automate, and simplify…then, nothing will stand in your way when a big opportunity comes along.
About the Author
Manish Bafna, VP of Technology at RFPIO
As the VP of Technology of RFPIO, Manish Bafna set out to change the manual RFP response process by creating an intelligent SaaS solution that would help businesses overcome inefficiencies. An experienced technical architect of products implemented at Fortune 500 companies, Manish excels at building complete software, and has worked extensively on Machine Learning and full text search engines. When he was a technical Product Manager, he received countless repetitive RFP questions related to technology from his sales engineers. This hands-on experience with an outdated approach to RFPs inspired him to help find a more innovative way for businesses to operate. Connect with Manish on LinkedIn.
More Resources:
RFPIO Secures $25 Million from K1 Investment Management to Revolutionize Proposal Management Industry
Elevate the RFP Process in Your Asset Management Organization
RFPIO Continues Strong Revenue Growth, Hires New Leaders to Power Worldwide Expansion
