G.19Guides · Decision brief
How to write a consulting RFP that works
The standard consulting RFP is a self-defeating document: it prescribes deliverables before diagnosis, asks vendors to price a scope the buyer invented, and scores the responses on compliance and polish. The result selects the best proposal-writing operation in the field. A working RFP inverts this: it states the problem and the stakes, and makes the respondents reveal how they think.
The distinction
What is actually being compared?
Write the problem, not the solution. An RFP that says deliver a market study with twelve sections has already decided what the answer looks like, and it forces every respondent to sell you your own guess back. State instead: the decision we face, what is at stake, what we believe and are unsure of, what data exists, and when the decision must be made. Strong advisors read that and respond with an approach; weak ones cannot, and that difference is exactly the signal you are paying the process to produce.
Then ask the questions that expose thinking. What is your initial read of our situation, and what would change it? Where do buyers like us usually get this wrong? What would you refuse to promise on this engagement, and why? What does your approach need from our side? These cannot be answered from a proposal library, which is the point: the answers show you reasoning, candor, and fit before any contract exists.
Structure of an RFP that selects for judgment
Keep it short enough to answer well: 2 or 3 pages of context and questions beat 40 pages of compliance matrices. Include the decision and its deadline, the stakes in rough magnitude, the known constraints, the data available, the evaluation criteria with their weights, and the budget range if you can defend one. Explicitly invite respondents to challenge the framing: the vendor who improves your question in the response is showing you what the engagement would feel like.
Scoring without fooling yourself
Score reasoning quality above credentials, and both above polish. Concretely: did the response engage our actual situation or a generic one? Did it name risks and boundaries unprompted? Is the staffing named, with senior hours quantified? Does the fee decompose against the scope? Weight those, and let brand and formatting weigh what they deserve, which is almost nothing. And interview before final scoring: an hour of live questioning reorders most shortlists, because proposals are rehearsed and conversations are not.
One honest caveat about process itself: heavyweight RFPs structurally exclude the independents and small firms that are often the best value in advisory work, because responding costs them selling time they price into fees. If your organization can responsibly buy through a lighter conversation-first process, the RFP may be the wrong tool entirely, and this guide's principles apply to that conversation instead.
Side by side
The standard RFP vs one that works.
| Standard RFP | Working RFP | |
|---|---|---|
| Core content | Prescribed deliverables and compliance items | The decision, the stakes, and honest context |
| What vendors do | Price your guess and polish the response | Reveal their reasoning about your situation |
| Scoring weight | Completeness, brand, and presentation | Reasoning quality, candor, named staffing |
| Best respondent | The strongest proposal factory | The strongest thinker who wants the problem |
| Failure mode | Selecting confident mediocrity | Requires a buyer willing to be challenged |
The call
Three rules when drafting
- 01
State the decision in one sentence.
If the RFP cannot name the decision it exists to support, no respondent can scope honestly against it, and every proposal you receive will be a guess wearing a cover page.
- 02
Ask questions with no library answer.
At least half the response should be answerable only by thinking about your situation. That is the filter; everything else in the document is logistics.
- 03
Publish the budget logic.
A stated range, anchored to the decision's stakes, gets you comparable proposals and honest scope conversations. Hiding the budget gets you a pricing lottery you then have to adjudicate.
A note on interest. Praxis sells consulting, so treat this page as an informed party’s brief, not a referee’s ruling. The discipline we hold ourselves to is written down: category-level comparisons only, no named competitors, and a public page on when we are not the right fit.
Questions
Asked before scoping.
- Should we run an RFP at all for advisory work?
- If procurement rules require one, write it as above. If they do not, a structured conversation with two or three candidates, using the same questions and scoring, usually selects better and faster, and it keeps the independents in your candidate pool rather than pricing them out of it.
- Does Praxis respond to RFPs?
- Selectively: ones that state a real decision and invite reasoning get real responses. Compliance-matrix documents generally do not, because a practice of one prices its selling time honestly, and that is exactly the exclusion effect this guide warns buyers about.
Where this leads on the site
Other decision guides
- G.01Strategy vs management
- G.02Consultant vs contractor vs fractional
- G.03Boutique vs Big Four
- G.04Consultant vs in-house
- G.05Change vs transformation
- G.06Fractional vs retainer
- G.07AI consultant vs implementation partner
- G.08Data strategy vs engineering
- G.09Consulting vs coaching
- G.10Interim vs consultant
- G.11SEO consultant vs agency
- G.12Transformation vs modernization
- G.13What drives cost
- G.14Fee structures
- G.15Fixed vs T&M
- G.16First-engagement budget
- G.17Questions to ask
- G.18Red flags
- G.20Evaluating proposals
- G.21Do you need one?
- G.22Getting the value
- G.23When to hire strategy
- G.24SEO for construction
- G.25Board vs advisory board
- G.26Marketing consultant vs agency
- G.27Piloting an advisor
- G.28AI implementation cost
- G.29Strategy vs ESG reporting
Decided what kind of help you need?
Then the next conversation is about fit and scope. Tell us what you are deciding, and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right resource for it.
No obligation · a scoping conversation first