Promokitchen Podcast

Join Mark Graham, co-founder of commonsku and fellow PK chef and long time collaborator, Danny Rosin, co-President of Brand Fuel. In today’s episode, we take a hard look at one of the most prominent yet controversial tools used to source promotional products today: the RFP (commonly known as the Request for Proposal). Like them or hate them, RFPs now define how many end clients source promotional products. At their best, RFPs create a level playing field where the best distributor wins the business. At their worst, they serve as a way for end clients to slice distributor margins to the bone. In my nearly 20 years in the industry, I have not run into a distributor that doesn’t have a strong opinion about the RFP, one way or the other. As RFPs create so much confusion for distributors, we wanted to dedicate this episode to uncovering why RFPs exist and how to manage them effectively. To help us with this, we wanted to talk to someone who has written countless RFPs and counseled end clients on how to negotiat