There are many reasons why bids win or lose. However, in this newsletter, we’ll review the six most common issues and mistakes that cause proposals to lose.
- Compliance
One of the most common (and heartbreaking) reasons for losing a bid is non-compliance. It can be easy to miss something when responding to a complex request for proposals (RFP) with multiple amendments and volumes. Avoid this mistake by creating a compliance matrix early in the process and keep it updated. It can also be extraordinarily helpful to have someone with fresh eyes run a compliance check on your proposal before submission.
- Not Knowing Your Customer
If you don’t know much about your Government customer, then it is very difficult to write a compelling proposal that speaks directly to the evaluators, and you’re unlikely to win. You need to understand your customer’s hot buttons and pain points. What are your customer’s wants, needs, and greatest fears? Only after you thoroughly understand what your customer is looking for can you tailor the perfect solution for them and describe it in your proposal.
- Not Researching Your Competitors
You can only successfully undercut your competition (or convince them to join your team and eliminate them as a competitor) if you know who they are, their relationship to your customer, and what they are likely to offer the customer. You need intelligence on your competitors to help you make the most informed decisions on teaming, price, and win strategy.
- Start Early and Do Capture
You get a lot more bang for your buck investing in preparation before an RFP is issued. Every dollar invested in capture on the front end saves you the money (and hassle) of having to hire extra writers on the back end to pull together a substandard proposal. Boost your win probability by performing capture and preparing as much as possible in advance.
- Follow a Proposal Process with Color Team Reviews
Don’t expect to win with a proposal that’s written in pieces and only partially reviewed before submission. To increase your win probability (Pwin), follow a proposal process with Color Team reviews, even if the schedule is abbreviated and your review team includes only a handful of people. Identify your proposal team early and clearly delineate tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities. The proposal improves with each draft. At OST, we use a six-phase proposal process based on agile, iterative development that uses a sprint-like draft development process and includes formal synchronous or rolling color team reviews.
- Do a Pricing Analysis, such as Competitive Analysis or Price-to-Win (PTW)
Price is key to winning Federal bids. The Federal Government awards most contracts to the lowest bidder or to a slightly higher cost bidder with an outstanding solution in a best value tradeoff evaluation. It’s vital to have the information at your fingertips to develop winning pricing strategies for your proposals. Depending on the bid size and complexity. You may need a competitive analysis of labor rates for a services proposal, or you may need a full Price to Win exercise to arrive at the right price targets needed for your proposal.
If you’re unsure of why your proposals keep losing, then reach out to us to discuss our proposal review service. We will grade your proposals like a Government evaluator using 60 quality parameters, and we work with your proposal team to show exactly how they can improve on the next proposal. Click this link to learn more:https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/product-category/proposal-quality-assessment/.
OST Global Solutions is a professional business development consulting firm. Our capture and proposal consultants have helped our clients win more than $25 billion in funded contracts. We can provide capture and proposal teams to develop a complete, winning proposal, or we can provide consultants on a case-by-case basis to fill gaps on your business development team. Our services include capture management, proposal management, orals coaching, proposal writing, graphics support, editing, desktop publishing, and cost volume development.
Reach out to us to discuss how we can help you win your next bid.
Upcoming Bid & Proposal Academy Classes
Master AI to Enhance BD, Capture, & Proposal Processes
OST Global Solutions 7361 Calhoun Place, Suite 560, Rockville, MD, United StatesAre you ready to enhance your bid flow, improve your Pwin, cut down the time it takes to do most BD tasks, improve decision-making, and reduce proposal risk by ensuring your submissions are compliant and compelling? This course is specially designed for BD professionals in Government contracting firms seeking to harness the power of AI in their operations. Over three comprehensive sessions, you will gain the knowledge and tools to transform your BD strategies and execution.
Writing Persuasive Government Proposals
OST Global Solutions 7361 Calhoun Place, Suite 560, Rockville, MD, United StatesThis proposal writing course shows how to develop compliant and highly persuasive proposal sections in half the time, to increase your Government proposals' win probability. Learn to outline within the proposal sections for compliance and responsiveness, brainstorm as a group and individually to develop proposal section content, infuse proper structure and flow into your sections, and implement the correct writing process. Learn proposal persuasion techniques.
Proposal Editing Workshop
OST Global Solutions 7361 Calhoun Place, Suite 560, Rockville, MD, United StatesThis class teaches how to edit Government proposals while working with a proposal team. Not another English grammar class, this course teaches proposal-specific professional editing skills to improve your proposals' Pwin.
