Can you improve your proposal operations (and your win rate)?

Despite poor results, we often continue to do things the same way. This pattern may apply to your proposal shop as well. Perhaps your win rate is stagnant or declining, your team is burned out, your technology doesn’t work, and/or proposal quality is at an all-time low. But how to improve?

To provide a roadmap for improvement, Lohfeld Consulting Group offers an independent Proposal Improvement Assessment. This review is an objective analysis of proposal operations (people, processes, and technology) versus best practices as well as proposal quality versus our 7 quality measures proven to increase win rates. Based on the analysis, we provide detailed, actionable recommendations that will dramatically improve results.

I have conducted a number of these reviews, and my observation is that this service offers the best return on investment (ROI) for proposal improvement that will increase your win rate. Often, proposal shops realize they have problems, but don’t know how to articulate and fix issues. Even when they realize what the fix is, they don’t know how to implement it and/or they don’t have organizational buy-in. By investing in the unbiased opinion of an expert, proposal organizations can better understand strengths and weaknesses and take actionable steps to improve effectiveness and efficiency.

Through documentation reviews, observation, interviews, and focus groups with proposal operations employees and focus groups with business unit customers accessing proposal services, the assessment uncovers what works and what doesn’t. Combined with review of representative submitted proposals, the analysis helps organizations achieve positive results by competing more effectively to win more bids. We provide an oral and written briefing that documents our findings and provides detailed recommendations and actionable next steps.

“Thanks for the excellent review of our proposals. This will be very beneficial to us. Our challenge is to make sure we heed your advice and incorporate your recommendations.” –Customer email

“Thank you (Lohfeld Consultants)! You got us off on the right foot, that’s for sure!” –Customer email after a big win resulting from our review recommendations

Too busy? A packed calendar is not a problem, as we can conduct the review to work around your schedule. If desired, we can complete much of the analysis off-site. We provide a documentation list, and all you need to do is gather and provide the materials. Interviews can be conducted on or off-site with a very flexible schedule at your convenience. Optional focus groups are the only aspect of this service that must be performed on-site, but they are definitely a great way to gain a true understanding of customer perspectives and overall satisfaction with the proposal shop services.

Capture management is a problem as well? We can add an independent assessment of the capture processes to the review. Lohfeld Consulting Group often conducts capture and proposal operations assessments simultaneously, providing experts in both areas who can ask the right questions and provide unbiased appraisals.

Get the year off to the right start. Resolve to improve by making the best investment ever in a proposal (and capture) operations get-well plan! Contact Amy Barden or Brent Hunt for more information.

By Lisa Pafe, Lohfeld Consulting Group Principal Consultant

Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn

Lohfeld Consulting

See Full Bio