thinkhard.SI

Prompt repository Sales

Decide whether to bid on an RFP

A request for proposal has arrived and you need to decide quickly whether it is worth the effort to respond, using a scorecard rather than gut feel.

Registry no.
SAL-049
Collection
Sales
Laid out for
GPT
Score
10 out of 10
Blanks to fill
7
Added

SalesGPT

The prompt

Score 10 of 10, Excellent

Use it when A request for proposal has arrived and you need to decide quickly whether it is worth the effort to respond, using a scorecard rather than gut feel.

  • {{decision_maker}}
  • {{our_offer}}
  • {{relationship}}
  • {{competition}}
  • {{capacity}}
  • {{criteria}}
  • {{rfp}}
Full prompt and why it works
Prompt
# Role
You help a sales team decide whether to respond to a request for proposal (RFP), weighing the chance of winning against the cost of responding.

# Goal
Score the RFP below and recommend bid, no bid, or bid only if certain conditions are met, for {{decision_maker}} to decide, so that we spend proposal time only where we have a real chance and walk away early from the rest.

# Inputs
- What we sell and where we are strong: {{our_offer}}
- Our history with this buyer (relationship, past work, whether we knew about this before it was published): {{relationship}}
- What we know about competitors or an incumbent: {{competition}}
- People and hours we could put on the response: {{capacity}}
- Our scoring criteria and weights, if we have them: {{criteria}}

# Output
1. Recommendation: two sentences with the reason.
2. Scorecard: a table with the columns Criterion, Weight, Score (1 to 5), Evidence. Evidence is a short quote from the RFP with its section number, or a fact from our inputs. Cover at least fit with our offer, our relationship with the buyer, competition, must-have requirements, effort to respond, contract value and margin, and the deadline. Show the weighted total.
3. Must-have requirements we cannot meet today, with section numbers.
4. Effort estimate: hours by role, from our capacity input.
5. Questions to submit to the buyer before their question deadline: five to eight.
6. If we bid: two to four win themes, each tied to an evaluation criterion in the RFP.
Keep everything outside the tables under 500 words.

# Constraints
- Score only on the RFP text and our inputs. Do not assume requirements are negotiable, and do not invent competitors, incumbents or win rates.
- If we did not know about this RFP before it was published and have no relationship with the buyer, say plainly that this lowers our odds, without putting a number on it.
- A good recommendation is one a sales leader could defend to the team that would write the response.
- For example, an Evidence cell reads: "Section 4.2: 'Vendor must hold [certification]'. We do not." That example shows the form only.

# Stop rules
If the RFP excerpt lacks the evaluation criteria, the deadline or the scope, list what is missing above the scorecard and score those rows "unknown". If no weights are given, use equal weights and say so.

# RFP
"""
{{rfp}}
"""

Variables

{{decision_maker}}
Who makes the bid decision, for example "our head of sales".
{{our_offer}}
What you sell and where you are strongest, in a few lines.
{{relationship}}
Your history with this buyer, and whether you knew about the RFP before it was published.
{{competition}}
What you know about competitors or the current supplier, or "nothing".
{{capacity}}
Who could work on the response and how many hours each has before the deadline.
{{criteria}}
Your own bid criteria and weights, or "none".
{{rfp}}
The RFP text or its main sections: scope, requirements, evaluation criteria, deadlines, contract terms.

Why it works

  • What good looks like. Every score carries evidence from the RFP or your own inputs, and the recommendation must be one a sales leader could defend to the proposal team.
  • What to avoid. Requirements are never assumed to be negotiable, and no competitors or win rates are invented.
  • If unsure. Missing evaluation criteria or deadlines are listed above the scorecard and scored unknown, and missing weights default to equal, said out loud.

How to use it

  1. Press Fill in blanks and type your details into each blank. What you type stays in this browser.
  2. Copy the filled prompt into the AI tool you already use, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, or open it in the Grader or the Prompt Tester here.
  3. Before you rely on it, try it on three or four real examples. The Prompt Tester runs them all at once and shows which ones go wrong.
Use it from code

Get this prompt as JSON from the free REST API, with your own text in the blanks, or let an AI assistant fetch it through the MCP server. No key.

curl -s https://thinkhard.si/api/v1/prompts/rfp-bid-no-bid

With the MCP server added to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code, call get_prompt with {"prompt": "rfp-bid-no-bid"}, or just ask for it by name.