Researching the opportunity before writing the proposal.

An RFP tells you what a client is asking for. It doesn’t always tell you why, what’s really driving the project, or who else is likely to be in the room.

When the clock starts on a deadline, teams tend to go straight to the response. The strategy gets worked out while writing, if it gets worked out at all, and the proposal ends up answering the questions without ever addressing the problem.

This is the same instinct that runs through all of my work: start with the customer, not with what you want to say about yourself. The workflow simply makes that step deliberate and repeatable.

Before deciding how to pursue an opportunity, it answers three questions.

I developed this workflow independently. I then used it on live pursuits at Ruhnau Clarke Architects in two ways: to inform proposal positioning, and to build client intelligence in HubSpot that informed business development and nurturing content.

That second use matters. Research done for one proposal doesn’t disappear when the deadline passes. It becomes part of what the firm knows about the client for the next conversation.

AI is useful here for what it does well: gathering and summarizing a lot of information quickly. Deciding what the research means, and what to do about it, is still the strategic work.

The research approach, the workflow, and the format of the positioning overview, along with putting it to use on live pursuits and in HubSpot client intelligence.