‘In Conversation with Jill Hudson’ – The founder of the Creative RFPs website
My role is quite vast, on a weekly basis I work with agencies who are struggling to see results from their RFP efforts, delivering RFP training and RFP writing services, as well as driving forward product innovation to ensure our group of businesses are constantly developing.
Why you think the Creative RFPs website was an instant success.
Creative RFPs was our flagship product and I thought about this business whist working in agencies and often thinking ‘there has got to be an easier way to get this information’. I knew that if I had this trouble thousands of others would too, so I wrote a technical specification for a product which would make my job easier.
Because I knew the industry so well, having worked in it for over 15 years that the product instantly screamed success. On the day we launched the ‘coming soon’ campaigns the phone literally rang off the hook. We had 5 staff at the time and they were all on the phone taking calls. As all phone lines were busy other agencies were messaging us on Facebook and email saying they couldn’t get through and wanted to speak about the product as soon as possible. I knew then that this product would be a success.
Then when we launched, within minutes’ agencies were signing up.
What do you see changing in the world of procurement over the next 3 years?
Procurement is changing but slowly. With the growing use of technology and technical capabilities procurement portals will hopefully become more user friendly. Most portals, in my opinion need simplifying to make it easier for agencies to navigate. I think this is starting to get better for digital agencies with the use of Digital Market Place.
Brexit will play a huge role in procurement changes, even those who don’t realise it, a lot of money spent on creative RFP opportunities has come from Europe, either directly or indirectly so we won’t see any more opportunities which are funded by ERDF or ESF for example. I believe it will take a while to steady the ship once we leave the EU, so I am hoping and praying that the transition won’t affect SMEs too much.
Lastly, the government plan on spending £1 in every £3 with an SME by 2020, they currently spend £1 in over £5 either directly or through a supply chain. It will be interesting to see the impact Brexit has on this goal.
What’s your thoughts on the current procurement practices of our government?
It’s quite clear that it isn’t 100% right, nor do I believe that the government think it is. I know it’s very frustrating for our customers that they need to register on many different portals to access RFP documents, each system with a completely different interface and user requirements. I won’t be the first to say that this needs to be addressed to move forward procurement in general.
Having RFP for over 15 years, I see the frustrations of our customers and have personally seen some horror stories in regards to client selection processes but all we can do is unite and work with procurement departments to educate them on how much effort we put into our RFP documents to ensure fair procurement practices are addressed.
What is your hope for the US’s creative sector?
The sector is flying, there is no doubt about that. We want our agencies to feel confident stepping outside of their comfort zone and looking at International business. We’re opening our US office in 2018 to support and encourage buyers to use our US based creative agencies. This will be a core focus for us during 2018 and any interested agencies should contact me direct so we can chat about how we will support agencies with this development.
You’ve chosen Boston as your first US office, why is this?
There is a number of reasons really, firstly it’s the shortest flight from the US now that they’ve opened direct flights from the North, it is also only a short 50-minute flight from New York. Secondly, we’ve visited Boston attending conferences, events, hosted meetings with businesses and government bodies and we feel the support on offer and the welcoming nature of the business community, that Boston is ideal for us to dip our toe in the water and start making some waves in the US.
What’s the future for the Creative RFPs Website?
The sky’s limit. No really. We’ve made significant progress in the year and a half we’ve been in business. I dare say 90% of all UK agencies know who we are, we have over 500 customers which grows daily and we have an exceptional retention rate for agencies choosing to stay with us year on year. Now that we’ve launched another 9-sector specific RFP portals, we’re working on Hudson Discover which is an online inter-trading portal, allowing businesses to buy and supply directly to one another from our system.
The next 12 months sees us focusing on opening the US office, launching RFP Bank to support agencies through simplifying RFP, ensure Hudson Discover is up and running and operating successfully and generally working hard to double the number of RFPs we upload daily. We’re currently uploading about 10-30 every day, we want to make that a minimum of 50 new opportunities every single day by the end of 2018.
What can agencies expect when working with Creative RFPs?
Consistency. We will ensure you get your daily bulletins so you don’t miss any opportunities. We will guarantee that if you log a support query someone will call within 1 working hour maximum, and we ensure our customers that we are constantly flying the flag for the creative sector and encouraging fair procurement practices.
We won’t become stale either, we are constantly in development and constantly generating new products that benefit US agencies during their RFP journey.
If you could explain Creative RFPs in one sentence what would you say?
An innovative product that ensures timesaving for busy agencies, making it a business-critical tool for agency growth.
