RFPs are a bigger challenge for SMBs than for larger companies says Tom Searcy, founder of Hunt Big Sales, a sales consultancy and thought leadership organization. He is also author of "RFPs Suck! How to Master the RFP System Once and for All to Win Big Business." It is challenging for small businesses to have an RFP strategy because of the resources it takes, he says.

The real issue for smaller companies is getting a strategy. The key is in knowing which RFPs are in your sweet spot. A big mistake many people make is, they cut-and-paste all their answers to RFPs from a standard set of documents. I’ve read hundreds of RFP responses, and guess what? You can tell the ones that have been cut-and-pasted. If you’re a small company, you should answer a small number of RFPs. But if you really invest in the ones you answer, your success rate will be much higher.

"RFPs Suck!” is a follow-up to Searcy’s e-book “Landing Big Sales with an RFP." In "RFPs Suck!" Searcy establishes a tested and meticulously detailed process for knowing what to do, questions to ask and what to look for when faced with an RFP. This process starts in the RFP qualification stage (“Does this even make sense for us or are they just conducting market research at our expense?”) and continues by introducing readers to a number of potential hurdles (or opportunities) they might encounter along the way to RFP success.

An excerpt in IT Business Edge's Knowledge Network contains the book’s entire second chapter entitled, “Seven Signs of Readiness.”