Hello again.
As you've discovered by now, it can be a challenge to keep up to speed
on RFP announcements, especially when trying to cover multiple sources
like federal agencies, state and local governments, and private
businesses. There are a few key tools that can assist you in this,
however.
The first is a commercial service that specializes in compiling and
making available information on RFPs, called -- naturally enough --
FindRFP:
http://www.findrfp.com
Getting started is simple.
Their front page includes a search box, so just include the term (or
terms) of interest for your search. In your case, a simple search on
the word "lockbox" should do the trick, but if your interests or focus
should change, just change the search terms as appropriate.
The default search is for "All States" (federal RFPs are automatically
included). Use this for a nation-wide search, or select a state of
interest if you want to localize your search.
Then click "Search".
That's it!
My search returned a list of the titles of seven RFP's.
Now...to find out the details of the RFP's, you have two options.
One, is to click on the RFP title, which will take you to a page of
FindRFP where you can sign up for their service. The original sign up
is for a free trial period, which certainly seems worth a try. After
that, of course, you will have to pay for their service to continue.
As part of their service, you can arrange for FindRFP.com to email you
whenever a new RFP appears that meets your criteria.
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The second option for finding RFP details is to copy the title of the
RFP of interest (from the list of seven returned by the free search)
and paste it into a Google search. Many, if not most, of the RFP's
are posted on the internet, and will turn up in a search.
For example, I searched on the most recent RFP:
"LOCKBOX SERVICE FOR REAL ESTATE TAX COLLECTION"
Note that I used quotation marks in the search -- these help zero in
on the right website. Also, I dropped the RFP number from the search,
as these don't always "behave" well during searching.
The search gave me few results, the very first one being:
http://www.lehighcounty.org/deptdata/purch/13Lockbox(FinalTab)04.pdf
which is a status report from Lehigh County, PA on this particular RFP.
If you decide not to sign up for the FindRFP.com automated service,
just repeat the above search steps every few days, and it should do a
good job of keeping you up-to-date on new opportunities.
==========
In addition to the FindRFP site, there is also a wonderful tool
available to automate internet searches and be notified by email
everytime a new document appears pertaining to a lockbox RFP.
First stop is to head to a service known as GoogleAlert:
http://www.googlealert.com/
Click on the "Sign Up" box, and then give yourself a user name and
password as requested, and then enter the email address where you want
to be notified of new results.
You'll then be taken to a page of "Search Settings" where you can
enter the search of interest to you. In the first line, copy and
paste the following search terms:
lockbox (intitle:rfp OR intitle:bid)
The use of the "intitle" command will look for the terms RFP or Bid in
the title of the document, rather than in the body of the text (the
latter returns far too many results to be useful).
The click "Go".
That's it. Your automated search is now set up. After a short while,
you should receive an email from GoogleAlert giving you the results of
its initial search.
The first results will include a lot of links -- essentially, anything
that is already out there on the web -- but subsequently, you will
only be notified when NEW results appear on the web.
==========
Another Google-oriented automated search will do the same sort of
thing, but this time, for breaking news stories and press releases,
rather than general web content.
Head to Google News at:
://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en
and enter the exact same search terms as above, along with the email
address, and set the "How often" choice to "As it happens". You will
then be automatically emailed every time a new news story appears that
contains your search terms.
==========
These three search tools should keep you well informed about new
RFP/Bid opportunities for lockbox work.
Use them for a while and see how they perform. If you want help at
any point in fine-tuing your searches, just let me know by posting a
Request for Clarification, and I'll be happy to assist you further.
All the best in your work.
pafalafa-ga
search strategy: Used bookmarked sites related to RFP's. |
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