If you’ve ever been through an audition, you understand there are many steps taken before you are even maybe chosen for a role.

For an artistic project such as a play or short film, you may have to apply to audition by sending in your resume and headshot. After this initial approval, you are invited to audition with a cold read, or a prepared song or monologue, depending on what the script requires. After the audition, you may get a callback and be asked to come in and read again for specific roles. Only after these steps will a casting director contact performers and let them know who has been chosen.

A request for proposal is similar to an audition process. It’s a business’ way of putting itself out there for consideration to carry out a project or task, or deliver on a product. If you’ve kept up with our detailed RFP walkthrough, you know the RFP process would make an audition look like a cakewalk. There’s a detailed proposal development process, followed by potential product demonstrations, coupled with narrowing RPF candidates among the competition.

Getting chosen to complete a company’s project is an honor in and of itself, as it means your organization was able to win out this work over multiple other options. But what if we told you the audition was the easy part?

What advice does an experienced professional have for RFP rookies?

I sat down with the director of content strategy at a top brand agency to talk through their experience dealing with RFPs. After the winning vendor has been chosen, it’s time for the real work to begin, and there are a lot of elements to this vendor/company relationship you may not have expected.

If you’re an organization that has just signed with its winning bidder, or if you’re a winning bidder wondering what challenges you should expect throughout the project, read on.

There may be some miscommunication around scope.

According to this director’s copious experience on both sides of the proposal, the scope outlined in the RFP rarely matches the reality of the project. The plans a company has for its project don’t always match the reality of what’s needed for completion. This doesn’t always mean underestimation. Sometimes an organization overestimates what they need and has to scale back a little bit.

Both situations can be troublesome or inconvenient, as they mean either scaling back the original amount of work expected, or adding to the original amount of work expected.

There are a few ways to be proactive around this situation. Obviously, the best-case scenario is that an organization just understands its needs correctly in the first place. But if this project or task is new to the company, then the RFP and proposal process will be a learning experience for all.

One way for the vendor to be proactive around the situation is to prepare for this potential misunderstanding. Vendors have the responsibility to be agile and adjust depending on what their organization needs, within reason. Vendors can prepare to have a few extra employees on call for assistance, or leave wiggle room in their schedules in case certain aspects take longer than expected.

You may have to discover mutually beneficial ways to resolve conflict.

In the vendor-company relationship, both sides depend on the other for a finished product and the promised payment. When things go wrong, neither side has the ability to drop everything and walk away in anger. You have to learn how to talk through the issues and find solutions that are good for both sides.

Both sides of the equation have to be flexible. You’re developing a new relationship that you hope will last on the chance that you can work together in the future.

Vendors have to be flexible around the work they’re doing and the specific requests coming from the company. Again, within reason. Have a good understanding of how far you’re willing to go for this project, and speak up if you feel you’re being taken advantage of.

Organizations have to be flexible with timelines and the incentives they’re willing to offer vendors to keep this relationship professional and positive. For example, if the organization grossly misunderstood the amount of hours a design project would take, they should be willing to extend deadlines for the sake of quality. If they’ve decided on a payment for the vendor based on a projected number of hours worked, they should also be willing to increase that rate.

Where there were RFP negotiations in the proposal process, there are a few continued opportunities for negotiations during the project’s duration. Both sides should be willing to hear the other out and make decisions based on these unexpected factors.

People may be unpleasant.

This is a truth of any industry. Retail, service, hospitality, public transportation: people can be difficult to deal with, and even more so in times of extreme stress. You should be prepared for tensions to run high and people to say things they probably shouldn’t, or normally wouldn’t, say.

In retail and service industries, the mindset is typically, “The customer is always right.” This doesn’t have to be true in the RFP project completion process. As the vendor, you’re allowed to say when things are outside of the realm of possibilities, unreasonable, or not worth the amount of time and effort that would need to go into it.

But you have to communicate these thoughts in a professional manner. At the end of the day, your team makes money because people want to hire you. You have to find that happy-medium of being pleasant and agreeable, but also standing up for your team when they are being unfairly treated or spoken down to.

If you’re part of the vendor’s team, you likely have little-to-no input in whether you can call the project off. Being so, you may just have to deal with the frustrations of working with a disagreeable organization or partner team. If this is the case, you may have to grin and bear it for the sake of getting paid and maintaining a positive professional reputation. Record grievances as they happen and use this record to help steer your organization away from these clients in the future. While the current project can’t slow down while in full swing, you can have an impact on whether you work with this company again.

The RFP process may develop into a long-term relationship or opportunity.

When you’re dating someone, there’s never a guarantee that the relationship will be long term. Some go on for five years, some for fifty, and others fizzle out after a few weeks or months time. That’s why you’re dating that person: to determine if their qualities and preferences are compatible with the things you also find important or preferable.

RFPs are a similar process. You get the initial application and interview stage to figure out if vendors give you an overall positive feel, or if they seem qualified to take on your ask. The project phase is a full-on relationship style test to see whether you work well together. One thing to keep in mind is that if you work well together once, there may be opportunities to work together again.

This is an important consideration for both parties. With the prospect of a long-term relationship, vendors are encouraged to constantly put forth their best effort and work to impress. Kind of like how some couples continue to “woo” each other even after they’ve been together for a while.

Companies that desire a long-term relationship with the vendor are also reminded to keep their promises, facilitate professional and respectful communication and customer service, and, again, work to impress the vendor with what they have to offer.

People who know a situation or relationship is only temporary are less likely to invest in the work, or put their best foot forward. If you know you want to continue to work with a certain partner, take special care of the relationship to ensure future contracts.

Even if you as a vendor feel this particular partner isn’t right for you in the future, keeping a positive relationship is beneficial for your company’s reputation. Having a good relationship with previous clients may help you network your way into other contracted opportunities.

Thoughtfulness will make the entire RFP project go more smoothly for everyone.

It should not be a new concept that being considerate of others’ needs and feelings will go a long way. This begins with the RFP and with companies that honestly verbalize what they are going to need throughout the project.

A focused RFP with detailed descriptions of labor, designs, time needed, or whatever else this project may consist of will set a great tone for the rest of your work together. Clarify expectations, and make sure those vendors submitting proposals have everything they need from you to possibly succeed.

Now it's time to put this RFP advice to the the test.

Relationships are difficult. Remember in kindergarten when we said hello to someone and were instantly in love? Or fourth grade summer camp when best friends took all of one week to make?

Adults are a little more complicated. Differences in personality, temperament, perspective, communication styles, and more drive wedges between us and impede our abilities to work in peace.

At the end of the day, relationships and the people around us are what make working worthwhile. When working with RFPs and contracted vendors or parent companies, it’s important to consider the other side of the relationship and ensure both parties are remembering the human element.

For those preparing to go through their first RFP process, be sure to check out the best proposal software from real-user reviews.