I like my team and my leaders. I value the strong support network, the learning and growth opportunities, the exposure to leadership, the investment of time in mentoring me, etc. What I struggle with is comp. Market value is double, and I know the firm won’t match that and it’ll take me years to even get to those numbers. Is it time to go?
Some orgs literally have it as part of their policies that contracts have to be openly bid, so in my experience you can't guarantee a sole source deal.
Subject Expert
Having a great relationship is the only way, assuming that procurement policies don’t get in the way like MD1 pointed out.
Ask. Give them the cost of responding to the rfp as a discount on your project
Generate the need for the work within the company before they realize they need it. Then be the one that explains the challenge the work will solve to the CEO / CFO / Board. That work is 95% of the time yours without an RFP.
That is all built on a foundation of knowing your customer, crazy good relationships, thought leadership and insightful storytelling
Mentor
You cannot avoid all RFP and force clients to sole source . It’s not binary - there may be policy reasons , or there could be multiple vendors who all have great relationships or it could be undifferentiated work where an RFP helps get the best price .
You have to understand what’s causing the RFP and see if you have a response that convinces the client that there are other better options from you . Relationships help you know whether there is an RFP in the future . Once they go down the path - it’s often too late to change minds .