Here are 11 problems we can all avoid with a little planning and forethought:

1. An electrical storm took your power down shortly before submission, and you don’t have a backup site with power where you could finish.

2. You are out of budget and can’t complete because you didn’t get the commitment of the VP in advance of the bid.

3. Getting the solution written is painful because your system engineers (SE) haven’t had training in proposal prep.

4. You need a consultant immediately but haven’t established a relationship with a good provider.

5. You didn’t do a test print in advance; the graphics don’t render right; and there is no time to print again.

6. The key program manager has left the company, and there is no way to recapture the past performance data.

7. Getting the input is a nightmare, because the authors are in 10 different states, and with 11 different managers.

8. You started late, and there isn’t a qualified subcontractor left in the industry.

9. You discovered too late that there were disagreements between the different volumes.

10. There was a decision to skip the PTW, so you won the technical but lost on price.

11. You didn’t make the electronic submission in advance, the customer system was tied up, and you couldn’t submit on time.