Does your vendor bidding process get the results you want? Or, do you struggle to find the right vendor at the right price?
Sending service contracts out for competitive bidding is necessary for tasks like cleaning, landscaping, and snow removal. Whether you need to replace a vendor that’s no longer a good fit or you have new vendor needs, the vendor bidding process can help you find and compare vendors to select the best one for your property.
But, the competitive bid process can be complicated. Between writing the RFP, searching for vendors, communicating with vendors, comparing the bids and more, the process can hardly seem worth it.
To make matters worse, after putting in all that work, you’re not guaranteed to find a high-quality vendor at the price that works for your property.
How can you make your vendor bidding process more successful?
One way is to use RFP templates to make writing requests easy. You should also look at a variety of vendors to ensure you’re sending your request to the best ones. Plus, you can simplify your communication to make vendor discussions a breeze. And, you should be able to compare vendors quickly and easily.
Wondering how you can improve your vendor selection process? Read on to learn 4 tips for successful vendor bidding.
1. Use RFP Templates
The first tip for successful vendor selection is to use RFP templates instead of writing every request from scratch.
Before you get bids from vendors, you need to send out a request for those bids. Your request has to contain the right questions to get pertinent info from any vendors who respond. Otherwise, you’ll be unable to make an informed vendor choice, potentially causing you to select the wrong vendor.
But, writing the RFP can take hours or days. You start with a blank page and have to think up questions from scratch each time. And, you struggle to know if you included every question you need. Because of this, you spend so much time trying to write the RFP – instead of doing everything else you need to do.
To simplify this aspect of vendor bidding, you should use an RFP template. This template should have all the questions you need for writing any request. So, instead of spending hours on the request, you can write it in minutes. That way, you have more time to focus on maximizing building profit.
But, creating a template with every possible question you need can be time-consuming. And, you have to regularly update it – which takes up even more time. An easier way is to use RFP automation software that has pre-made templates. So, all you need to do is select pre-written questions. Then, you have an RFP ready to send out in minutes.
2. Expand Your Vendor Search
Another tip for a successful vendor bidding process is to get bids from a variety of qualified vendors.
After writing your request, you then need to choose vendors to send it to. You might just request bids from vendors you’ve already used. Or, you might rely on recommendations from other property managers.
While this method can help you find vendors, it’s not guaranteed to help you find high-quality vendors at low prices. Vendors you’ve already used might give you high quotes because they’ve already worked with you. And, recommended vendors might also quote high – or do low quality work.
To solve this problem, you need to expand your vendor search. Along with previously used vendors and recommendations, you should search for vendors across your area. But, combing through reviews, checking recommendations, and choosing trustworthy vendors can be time-consuming.
A better way to expand your vendor search is to use RFP automation software with a trusted vendor database. This database has all the information you need on vendors – like reviews and service history. So, you don’t have to search multiple sources to find a variety of vendors. Instead, you can browse the verified vendor database to find the right vendors in no time. With an expanded search, you can find vendors who do great work at lower prices than the vendors you’ve always used. That way, you can reduce operating expenses – and increase profit.
3. Simplify Vendor Communication
Along with using templates and expanding your vendor search, simplifying vendor communication is another way to have a successful vendor bidding process.
After choosing the right vendors to send your request to, you need to communicate with the vendors to get bids. While this should be a simple process, it’s often not. You’ll likely have some vendors who don’t respond, others who are slow to respond, and even vendors you have to constantly remind to respond.
All of this vendor communication can take up hours or weeks of your time. And, at the end of it, you might not get as many bids as you need. So, you’re stuck with whatever vendor actually responds – regardless of their quality or price.
For better vendor communication and a successful competitive bid process, you need a simple system that allows you to communicate with vendors in less time. And, that helps you get the right number of bids. While you could hire someone to deal with vendor communication, this can be costly – cutting into your revenue.
An alternative is using RFP automation software that automates vendor communication. This software can take care of all the menial vendor communication tasks – like follow up. And, ensure you get as many bids as needed from trusted vendors. So, you don’t have to spend much time on vendor communication – leaving you time to get everything else accomplished.
4. Quickly Compare Vendors
Quickly comparing vendors is another way you can have a successful vendor bidding process.
Once you get vendor bids, it’s time to choose a vendor. But, it can be difficult to choose which vendor is best when they include different information in their proposals. Or, when they have info in different places – which makes it easy to miss.
If you can’t compare vendor bids, then you can’t determine which vendor will do the best work at the right price. So, you could choose a vendor who does shoddy work that has to be redone. And, that can cause a negative tenant experience – potentially hurting your revenue if tenants decide to leave. Or, you could choose a vendor that’s overpriced – resulting in high operating costs and low revenue.
To avoid this, you need a way to compare vendors effectively. While you could spend days crafting the perfect comparison spreadsheet, this is time-consuming and tedious. A better way is to use RFP automation software that automatically creates comparison tables for you.
That way, you can compare vendors side-by-side – making it easy to see important details like service history, scope of work, and price. This means you can easily consider all vendor factors to make the right choice for your property. All in less time.
Wrapping It Up
High-quality vendors can help you run your property well and create a great tenant experience. But, it can be hard to find the right vendor at the right price. So, you devote days and weeks to finding a vendor – without any guarantee your choice is the best one for your property.
One way to improve your vendor bidding process is to use pre-built RFP templates that save time. You can also broaden your vendor search to find great vendors at even better prices. Simplifying vendor communication is another way you can improve your vendor bidding process. And, comparing vendors apples-to-apples can help you choose the right one for your property.
RFP automation software can help you create RFP templates, provide more trusted vendors, automate vendor communication, and make comparison effortless.
Looking for bid management software to improve your vendor selection process? Consider using Prism. With Prism Bid Management, you can create RFPs in minutes, browse a nationwide verified vendor network, automate vendor communication and comparison, and more.
Want to learn more about how you can transform your bid management process from burdensome to beneficial? Read our Transforming Vendor Management eBook.
