Based on my experience in the industry, I believe that, on the average, the level of commitment provided by the proposal consultant exceeds that of the employee. It is true that the proposal consultant’s position with the company does not require him or her to prepare a winning federal proposal to keep [...]
Creating your own draft RFP allows you to address the following key questions: 1.How extensive will the scope of work be? 2. Will there be a past performance review? 3. Will it be a "best value" procurement or a price shoot-out? 4. What will be the most important evaluation considerations? When customers [...]
It is unfortunate that most engineers and SMEs assigned to proposal tasks are not good writers. And even if they are good writers in their field, they usually don't know how to do the structured, pitchy type of writing that helps win the contract. Based on 27 years at an agency including about 2,000 proposals, I have seen these solutions, with variations:
Gary Everett A company/bid-team must perform effective pre-bid marketing actions to position itself to win. A Bid Decision Board of senior management must assess whether these activities were effective enough to prepare a winning proposal. The Board should evaluate the strength of the company’s readiness to bid based on the questions given [...]
Gary Everett Evaluators can be afraid of their failure as well as the contractor, and both are motivating factors for them. Contractors need to consider and write to evaluators’ emotions, fears, biases and feelings as well as to the facts. A good proposal will include meeting these key Evaluator sell points checklist: [...]
Gary Everett Obviously, many proposals lose on price. Reasons, other than price, given below, are from a GSA study. It lists, in the order of occurrence, the most prominent reasons why proposals lose. Noncompliance with Solicitation’s specifications and requirements Insufficient understanding of contract’s requirements Poor proposal organization Wordiness or unclear writing style [...]
Gary Everett Make sure you know your customer wants you back. Sometimes bad results are hidden from management, and this could kill any bid you put in. Your proposal content should: Take advantage of your knowledge of the customer environment and factors that are not in the RFP and that competitors will [...]
Gary Everett Is there a need to upgrade proposal capabilities at your company? I have taught 34 proposal management classes on company sites. Below are some of the reasons given by companies as to why they needed training: We need to define and use a consistent, standard, and repeatable proposal development process [...]
Gary Everett A Proposal Management course student who worked on 150 proposals came to my class. I have all students introduce themselves, give an overview of their company and their proposal experience and tell why they came. This student, with seven years of proposal experience, said he came to see if he [...]
TEACH (Train, Educate, and Coach) is a major new Multiple Award IDIQ coming out this year from the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation (PEO STRI). The value is estimated to be $600-$800M annually for seven years (1 base year plus 6 option years). Task Orders issued under [...]
