Not a sales person, but a former technician who is now a product owner and deals with this daily.
Your role is to find the best product that meets your requirements during your RFP. If products B and C are comparable or better than product A, a good procurement team can negotiate pricing. Also, nothing is a done deal until the MSA and SOWs are agreed to and signed. I’ve had a situation where product A would fall through due to legal disagreements, so we went with product B.
During my last RFP when we were releasing a vendor towards the end, they came back with a counter proposal that gave us the first 6-months of a 36-month contract for free, bringing the price to be competitive with the other vendors.
Let the process play out. Your role is to help choose the best product for the company, it’s your purchasing team role to handle the money aspect. These B2B reps understand this process too and are happy as long as you’re still engaging with them at least.
Know this isn’t the answer/perspective you were searching for, but I felt the same as you during my first RFP and felt bad for the vendors. Now they’ve become great network opportunities and I have more future job prospects lined up in the event I’m ready to make a move.
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