When an RFP lands on your desk and the requirements seem oddly specific – “Must have 50+ native integrations” or “Requires 10+ years in market” – there’s usually a reason.
Your competitor helped write it.
Kimberly Bauer, Director of Competitive Intelligence at SentinelOne, sees this pattern constantly: “Nine times out of ten, RFPs have actually been created by your competitor. In fact we can sometimes identify exactly which competitors are in a deal just based on the way in which the questions are framed.”
This puts you in a difficult position. You’re trying to demonstrate your value through someone else’s framework, explaining why their requirements don’t capture what really matters.
But there’s a better approach. Instead of reacting to criteria that favors your competition, you can help shape what buyers measure in the first place. This blog will show you how.
📌 Competitive intel stuck in the past? We wrote about why deal-first CI is the future – and how to get ahead
What Is Buyer Decision/Evaluation Criteria?
Decision criteria are the specific factors, metrics, and requirements buyers use to evaluate and compare vendors during their purchasing process. Think of them as the scorecard – what gets measured, how it’s weighted, and what ultimately tips the scales.
Common decision criteria include:
- Technical capabilities and features
- Pricing models and total cost of ownership
- Implementation timelines
- Support levels and SLAs
- Security and compliance standards
- Company stability and market presence
- Integration capabilities
But here’s the critical insight: these criteria aren’t set in stone. They’re influenced by whoever educates the buyer first. When a competitor helps “guide” the evaluation process early, they’re essentially writing the rules everyone else has to follow.
What Is an RFP?
An RFP (Request for Proposal) is the formal document organizations use to collect vendor information based on their decision criteria. It translates those evaluation factors into specific questions and requirements vendors must address.
RFPs typically include:
- Company background questions
- Technical requirements checklists
- Pricing breakdowns
- Implementation methodology
- Reference requests
- Proof of compliance or certifications
While RFPs appear neutral and objective, they’re often anything but. The questions asked – and just as importantly, the questions not asked – reveal whose narrative is driving the evaluation.
RFPs are really just reverse-engineered positioning documents.
Kim Bauer
Director of Competitive Intelligence
Why Buyer Decision Criteria Determines Deal Outcomes
Think about the last deal you lost despite having the better product.
Chances are, the buyer wasn’t measuring what actually mattered. They were checking boxes on a list that someone else helped them write. Maybe they counted features instead of measuring outcomes. Or they valued breadth over depth, complexity over usability.
When competitors set the evaluation criteria, three things happen:
- Your differentiators become reactions – You’re constantly explaining why their requirements don’t matter instead of showing what does
- Your sales team plays catch-up – Every conversation becomes about reframing instead of advancing
- Your value gets lost in translation – Buyers can’t see your strengths because they’re looking through someone else’s lens
As Kim notes in her presentation: “We’re no longer just selling, we’re surviving.”
The fix isn’t better battlecards or slicker slides. It’s getting upstream – way upstream – to shape how buyers think about value before those RFP requirements ever get written.
The Foundation: Finding Your True Competitive Differentiation
Before you can shape criteria, you need crystal clarity on what makes you different in ways that matter.
Kim shares a brilliant example: Play-Doh started as a wall-cleaning product for homes with coal-heated soot. When natural gas made that obsolete, a teacher discovered kids loved playing with it. Same product, completely different value proposition.
Your win-loss data holds similar surprises. Features you think are table stakes might be your secret weapons. Capabilities you barely mention could be deal-makers.
At one of Kim’s previous organizations, they discovered a technical capability they considered basic was actually helping them win against core competitors. “So what did we do? We used that capability to build a complete story, sales play, and help our sales team leverage that differentiation earlier in the sales cycle to make it a critical criteria in RFPs.”
The lesson: Don’t assume you know what matters. Let your wins and losses tell you.
Your RFP Strategy: The Value Wedge Matrix
Once you know your true differentiators, map them on two dimensions:
- Y-axis: How much buyers currently care about it
- X-axis: How differentiated you are in that area
This creates four quadrants:
Top Right (Your Focus): High buyer priority + high differentiation. This is your sweet spot. Lead with these.
Bottom Right (Your Opportunity): High differentiation but buyers don’t value it yet. This is where education and storytelling come in.
Top Left (Table Stakes): Buyers care but everyone has it. Don’t waste time here.
Bottom Left (Ignore): Low priority, low differentiation. Skip it.
The magic happens in that bottom right quadrant. As Kim explains: “These are your strong differentiators that the buyer doesn’t really value yet. That’s where education and storytelling can come in.”
For many companies – especially in emerging tech – this is the entire game. You’re not just highlighting features. You’re shifting the narrative by calling out challenges customers haven’t realized yet.
If you’re waiting until the buyer already cares about what you’re best at, you’re late. Your job is to show them the value of where your differentiation lies.
Kim Bauer
Director of Competitive Intelligence
The Four-Step Process to Shape Buyer Decision Criteria
Step 1: Mine Your Wins for Real Evaluation Criteria
Start with actual buyer feedback, not internal assumptions. What made people choose you? More importantly, what made them stick around?
Look for patterns in:
- Win-loss interviews where you beat specific competitors
- Deals where you came in second but flipped the outcome
- Renewals where customers explicitly called out value
- RFPs where your differentiators became requirements
If you’re using Klue Win-Loss, this gets easier. The dashboard aggregates every buyer interview and CRM outcome, surfacing the real decision criteria themes automatically.
Step 2: Craft Your Point of View on RFP Requirements
Your POV isn’t a feature list. It’s a perspective on what evaluation criteria actually drive success.
If competitors win on breadth but their users drown in complexity, your story is simplicity. If they emphasize years in market while shipping outdated tech, your story is innovation.
Frame it conversationally: “A lot of teams pick tools based on feature count. But what we’ve seen is the real difference comes from how quickly people can actually use the solution.”
That’s not a feature comparison. It’s a fundamental reframe of what RFP requirements should prioritize.
Step 3: Build Your Competitive Sales Strategy Into Plays
Kim emphasizes this crucial step: “Part of our job is operationalizing those narratives and differentiation into sales plays that sellers can actually use.”
A good sales play that shapes criteria includes:
- The specific scenario where this differentiation matters
- Talk tracks that introduce your criteria naturally
- Proof points that validate why this approach works
- Questions that get buyers rethinking their RFP strategy
Test your sales plays with this bar: Can you explain the differentiator to your nine-year-old? Kim tried this with her daughter – “Let me tell you, it’s a humbling experience.”
Step 4: Enable Your Reps to Reframe Vendor Evaluation Criteria
Your sales team needs more than talking points. They need the confidence and tools to reshape buyer evaluation processes, especially when they’re not first in.
Arm them with reframes like:
- “I’ve noticed a lot of RFPs focus on X, but what we’ve learned from customers is Y actually drives better outcomes…”
- “Before we dive into these requirements, can we step back and talk about what success looks like for your team?”
- “We’ve helped similar companies discover that measuring Z instead of X led to 3x faster adoption…”
The goal isn’t to trash the existing criteria. It’s to expand the buyer’s thinking about what’s possible.
The goal is to shape the deal before it’s formalized in an evaluation.
Kim Bauer
Director of Competitive Intelligence
From Reactive to Proactive: Scaling Your RFP Strategy
The beauty of criteria shaping is that it compounds. Every conversation that reframes value makes the next one easier. Every deal where you set the rules makes competitors play catch-up.
But it requires a shift in how PMM and CI teams approach competitive positioning:
Old way: Wait for RFP → Scramble to respond → Create comparison matrix → Hope for the best
New way: Identify differentiation → Create sales plays → Shape early conversations → Influence the RFP requirements before they’re written
As Kim puts it: “Your best deals happen when buyers value what makes you different. Don’t let that happen by accident.”
Start Tomorrow: Your First Criteria-Shaping Conversation
Pick one deal in your pipeline where you suspect a competitor has influenced the purchase decision criteria. Work with that rep to:
- Identify which RFP requirements favor the competitor
- Map those to your value wedge matrix
- Develop one reframe that shifts focus to your strength
- Test it in the next buyer conversation
Document what happens. Did the buyer engage differently? Did new questions emerge? Did the evaluation criteria shift?
Then do it again. And again.
Because here’s the truth: Someone is going to shape how buyers think about value and what RFP requirements matter most. It might as well be you.
Want to Learn More About Competitive Deal Support? Check out our blogs below:
- From Competitor-First to Deal-First: Why PMMs Must Rethink Competitive Deal Support
- Sales Confidence Surveys, Threat Analysis, Win-Loss: The Starting Point for Impactful Competitive Deal Support
- Finding Your Value Wedge: How to Help Your Sellers Stand Out In the First Demo
- The Post-Demo Playbook: How PMMs Can Help Sellers Win With Better Follow-Up
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