You’ve done the RFP. You’ve narrowed the field. You’ve sat through the presentations. And somehow, you still aren’t sure who to choose.
That’s not a process failure. That’s a signal that the process stopped too soon.
In Episode 022 of Highly Adaptive, Jeff Pelliccio and Erin MacKenzie reimagine what vendor evaluation looks like when you go beyond capability and price to organizational alignment. The conversation starts with a real experience: Erin flew to Louisville for a final-two vendor evaluation, and after back-to-back presentations, the client sat both vendors at the same dinner table. No decks. No agenda. Just people telling their stories. What got revealed that night is the whole point of this episode.
With conference season here, the timing couldn’t be better. You’re about to meet more potential partners in a compressed window than at any other point in the year. Jeff and Erin break down how to use that in-person time intentionally with an invisible scorecard that most executives are already running, just not formally. Walk in with it. Use it on purpose.
The RFP gets you to the right finalists. This episode helps you figure out who actually belongs in your organization for the long run.
Key Takeaways
- Go beyond the RFP — Capability and price get you to the right finalists. Organizational alignment determines who belongs in your organization for the long run.
- Build your invisible scorecard — Trustworthiness, emotional intelligence, conflict style, and cultural alignment are already being evaluated. Make those criteria explicit before your next selection process.
- Use the conference environment actively — Informal settings strip away controlled conditions. Cocktail hours, dinners, and hallway conversations reveal the version of a vendor you’ll actually work with.
- Skip the booth demo for serious finalists — Request a side conversation outside the vendor hall. Change the setting, change the dynamic.
- Watch who can get off the product — If a vendor can’t hold a conversation that isn’t about their solution, that tells you something important about the partnership you’d be entering.
- Bring a buddy — An unbiased second perspective catches what you’ll miss and removes bias from your evaluation.
- Use a simple rubric — Three criteria, a one-to-five scale, and a note taken right after the conversation. Drop it into AI when you’re home. Let the data do the work your gut can’t do alone.
Sponsors
Allied Insight: When your vendor evaluation is done, your marketing still needs a partner you can trust. Allied Insight works alongside staffing and consulting firms to build the kind of brand presence that earns long-term relationships. The Preferred Marketing Partner of Staffing and Consulting businesses.
All Things Staffing: The resources your team needs to navigate vendor decisions, industry trends, and everything in between. Expert Resources for the Staffing Community.
