What if RFPs were treated as a request for a relationship?

RFP should be a request for relationship!

It's a wedding day surrounded by family and friends. The couple can't wait to start their new life together. Vows are exchanged and the celebration goes well into the night.

When the two are finally able to catch a moment alone together, the groom looks at his bride and says, "Hi, my name's Steve. It's so nice to have a chance to talk, because I could just tell by your application that this is really going to work out between us."

This scene brings to mind a familiar occurrence in the advertising industry, only the anticipated "wedding day" is the launch of a new campaign, "family and friends" are anxious consumers and the "event" is one between an agency and a potential client: The request for proposals.

Filled with information easily gleaned from any agency's Web site, the RFP disastrously skips over qualities that are crucial to the success of any relationship, business or otherwise like true compatibility or chemistry -- traits that can only be gauged after meeting someone face to face.

One of the most intimate relationships a company will ever have is the one with its agency -- a partner who uses the very way a client thinks, operates, creates and succeeds to determine how best to meet needs, and whose sole purpose is to keep the client's interests at heart.

Put this theory to the test, and it's realized that Nike's "swoosh" wasn't inspired by an account executive no one got along with, and "You deserve a break today," wasn't the brain child of a marketing executive who never returned a phone call.

So why does the industry reduce the agency/client relationship to numbers on a spreadsheet, arguably the most negotiable aspect of the entire process?

While pricing is flexible, what will never change is an agency's ability to turn a tight deadline, its willingness to pour its soul into a branding campaign or its aptitude for producing creative in unexpected ways. Place more importance on the RFP response than this, and get ready to walk down the aisle with the equivalent of a blind date gone awry.

Yet, companies are relying on this impersonal form of matchmaking to help them find the agency, marketing firm or strategic communications company that's right for them: a call for compatibility that by its cookie-cutter nature dictates an equally cookie-cutter response.

It leaves little room for the real reasons an agency should be chosen in the first place, such as its ability to inspire, its level of dedication or the amount of attention it can give to a client's needs.

What if RFPs were treated as a request for a relationship? Then companies would get to know three agencies instead of 15. Agencies would deliver honest responses instead of canned answers to canned questions.

In the end, it's the request for a relationship that delivers more than any new logo or under-budget bid can. It delivers the opportunity to get to know the agency and produces a partner whose compatibility cannot be measured in numbers, found in a word document, or garnered from a presentation. And finds the right agency with which to build a future.

Kristy Sexton is founder and president of The Adcetera Group, a Houston-based communications firm.