Government RFIs and Sources Sought notices aren't competitions — they're opportunities to shape the requirements in your favor. Here's how to respond strategically.
A Sources Sought notice appears on SAM.gov. Your technology is a perfect match. You spend two days writing a detailed response: company overview, technical capabilities, past performance, pricing estimates. You submit it feeling confident.
Three months later, the RFP drops. It looks nothing like what you described. The requirements favor a competitor's architecture. The evaluation criteria emphasize capabilities you didn't highlight. You lose.
What happened? You treated the RFI like a test. The company that won treated it like a conversation.
An RFI (Request for Information) or Sources Sought notice is not a competition. There is no winner. There is no contract awarded. The government is conducting market research — trying to understand what's available before they write the solicitation.
This distinction changes everything about how you should respond.
In a competition (RFP), you answer the questions asked, follow the format prescribed, and try to score higher than your competitors. In an RFI, you're influencing the questions that will be asked in the eventual competition. You're not answering a test — you're helping write it.
Responding to an RFI is like being invited to help design the basketball court before the game. You can suggest where to put the three-point line. The company that skips the RFI shows up to play on a court designed by someone else.
The three most common mistakes:
1. Treating it like a proposal. Companies dump their standard capability brief, complete with corporate boilerplate, org charts, and revenue figures. None of this is what the government is looking for. They want to understand the market landscape, not evaluate your company for award.
2. Being too cautious. Some companies submit a minimal response — "Yes, we can do this. Please see our website for more information." This tells the government nothing useful and wastes the opportunity to shape requirements. If you're going to respond, be substantive.
3. Not responding at all. This is the biggest mistake. Many companies skip RFIs because there's no immediate revenue at stake. But the intelligence gathered from RFI responses directly shapes the RFP. If the government doesn't hear from you during market research, they'll write requirements based on what they heard from your competitors.
Read the RFI carefully. Most include specific questions. Answer them directly. But beyond the explicit questions, the government is trying to determine:
1. Answer every question directly.
Start with the explicit questions in the RFI. Answer each one clearly and specifically. If they ask "Can your company provide X capability?" don't just say "Yes." Explain how, with what level of effort, and based on what experience.
2. Frame your capabilities in terms of the government's problem.
Don't describe your product. Describe how your product solves the problem they've identified. Use their language — mirror the terminology in the RFI. If they describe the need as "automated threat detection for network traffic," use those exact words when describing your capability. This isn't marketing — it's ensuring your capability maps clearly to their requirement in the eventual RFP.
3. Suggest evaluation criteria that favor your strengths.
This is the part most companies miss. If your competitive advantage is speed of deployment, suggest that the RFP include a demonstration or pilot phase where vendors show how quickly they can deploy. If your advantage is AI accuracy, suggest that the evaluation include a benchmark test against a standard dataset.
You're not gaming the system. You're providing the government with useful information about how to evaluate solutions in your market. The government wants this input — it's why they issued the RFI.
4. Flag potential issues with the proposed approach.
If the RFI describes a technical approach that's outdated, impractical, or unnecessarily restrictive, say so — respectfully and with evidence. Government program managers are experts in their mission, but they're not always current on the latest commercial technology. If you can show them a better approach, you're adding value and positioning your company as a trusted advisor.
5. Identify what information is missing.
If the RFI doesn't address something important — data ownership, security requirements, integration with existing systems — raise it. This shows the government that you understand the full scope of the problem, not just the piece they asked about.
An RFI response is the beginning of a conversation, not the end. After submitting:
Companies that consistently win government contracts share a common trait: they engage early. They respond to RFIs. They attend industry days. They build relationships with program managers before the competition starts. By the time the RFP drops, they've already influenced the requirements, understood the evaluation criteria, and established credibility with the decision-makers.
The RFI is your earliest and best opportunity to start that process. Don't waste it by treating it like a checkbox.
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