How to Shape Buyer Criteria Before RFQ

Have you ever received an RFQ that looked like an invitation to compete, but felt more like an exam whose questions had already been written by somebody else?

The customer has specified throughput, footprint, cycle time, controls, service response and a dozen other requirements. Your salesperson is technically capable. Your machine is technically capable. Yet suddenly the conversation is about whether your machine can fit the criteria.

Why were those criteria chosen? Who influenced them? And why did your team first hear about the project when the RFQ landed?

I am sure many of us have seen this happen.

For machinery manufacturers, especially in a long B2B sales cycle, this is not simply a sales problem. It is a timing problem. The real commercial issue is what happens to buyer criteria before RFQ.

The buyer is deciding before sales gets involved

A 2025 B2B manufacturing buyer study by R.H. Blake and Industrial Equipment News, based on more than 250 manufacturing executives and managers, found that 85% conduct preliminary research on vendor or supplier websites. Only 19% make contact during the first 10% of their buying journey.

The broader B2B picture tells a similar story. 6sense’s 2025 study of nearly 4,000 buyers found that buyers first contacted sellers about 61% of the way through the journey, while 94% had already ordered their shortlist by preference before speaking with sellers.

Before the RFQ, this is what happens.

I call it the Criteria Window.

This is when the buyer is deciding what matters, what to compare and which suppliers deserve serious attention.

1. Buyers are choosing the questions before they choose the machine

A technical buyer may begin with a problem: rising scrap, inconsistent output, labour dependency, obsolete equipment, energy consumption or a new production requirement.

At that stage, the buyer is working out what the machine really needs to be capable of, which specifications will matter five years from now, whether to compare purchase price or total cost of ownership, and which technology is proven in an application like theirs.

If your company is absent at this point, somebody else is helping answer those questions.

That somebody might be a competitor, consultant, application engineer, trade publication or peer. The important point is that learning has already begun before the salesperson arrives.

R.H. Blake’s research found that 64% of manufacturing buyers actively seek independent, objective information. Vendor websites, technical trade publications, trade shows, peer recommendations and sales/application engineers are among the important sources identified.

That changes how I think about machinery marketing.

Early-stage content should not merely announce, “We manufacture the best machine.”

It should help the buyer think better about the problem.

2. Shaping buyer criteria before RFQ starts with useful technical content

Think about the material your company publishes today.

A brochure might tell me that your machine runs at 120 cycles per minute. Useful.

But an application note explaining when 120 cycles per minute improves economics, what constraints affect sustained output, and where hidden costs appear is much more valuable during the Criteria Window.

In capital equipment, this distinction is crucial.

Now the manufacturer is not merely presenting a product. It is contributing to the buyer’s evaluation framework.

We can see versions of this approach in industry. Siemens maintains dedicated industrial-machinery resources and case studies, including work with Wipro PARI on virtual commissioning. Atlas Copco combines industry and application guidance with customer stories. These examples do not prove that content caused a sale. They show what it looks like when technical expertise is available before a sales conversation.

McKinsey’s 2024 B2B Pulse found that buyers use an average of ten interaction channels across the journey, with websites, in-person sales and video conferences among the most frequently used touchpoints.

Your salesperson is still important. But the salesperson is no longer the whole buying experience. You have to be present before the formal buying process begins.

3. By the RFQ stage, sales may be validating rather than creating preference

This is the uncomfortable part.

When the RFQ arrives, sales often thinks, “Now we have a live opportunity.”

The buyer may be thinking, “Now we are validating the shortlist.”

Those are very different starting points.

6sense found that the vendor ranked first at the end of the selection phase remained the final winner roughly 80% of the time in its 2025 research.

That is why an apparently strong machine can lose to a competitor that entered the buyer’s mind earlier.

Not necessarily because the competitor had a better machine.

Because the competitor helped define what “better” meant.

What does this mean for a machinery sales team?

It means we should stop treating the RFQ as the beginning of the opportunity.

For sales, it means listening for early signals: a production expansion, a new line, an ageing asset, a technology change or a recurring application problem. For marketing, it means building a visible body of technical knowledge around those issues.

The more useful question for both teams is what a buyer should know about the problem before writing the RFQ.

That question leads to better content, better conversations and earlier consideration.

You do not need to manipulate the buyer’s criteria. You need to earn the right to influence them through useful, credible knowledge. Before you chase the next RFQ, look at the questions buyers are already asking.

That is a different role for a machinery manufacturer.

• The RFQ is usually late in the buying journey, not the beginning.

• The Criteria Window is where problem definition, evaluation criteria and supplier preference start taking shape.

• Manufacturers that teach buyers early have a chance to be evaluated on the value they understand—not only on the specifications someone else has written.

To sum up, we do not need to wait for the RFQ to start selling. We need to be useful before the buyer starts asking suppliers to sell.