As budgets shrink, there will be fewer new contracts in the government market. With fewer deals, firms that compete for federal business will need to write sharper proposals to win their share of work. It is imperative that our proposals tell a clear story that resonates with the buyer. In particular, we must be able to present a fact-based approach that demonstrates a clear, tangible value to the potential customer. To achieve this, we need three critical elements…

In a GovCon Business Development Weekly webinar hosted by Deltek’s Michael Hackmer, I discussed four fundamentals for creating a winning proposal. The first three fundamentals comprise creating a compliant, responsive, and compelling proposal. We polled the 150 webinar participants from a cross-section of small to large government contractors and asked them to rate how well their proposals did in achieving those three objectives.

Failure to follow the RFP can get you thrown out of the running for being non-compliant. Establish a standard process for evaluating your RFPs and developing your compliant—and compelling—proposal outlines and compliance matrices. This will keep you on a solid path towards proposal success.

Dear Proposal Doctor,

I work for a small business, and all our engineers work on a customer site while our BD/Proposal staff work at our office (which is in another state). This makes writing the technical volume really difficult because we can’t get our engineers on site to write. We end up having to travel a lot, which disrupts the proposal and takes people away from their families for weeks at a time. How could we write technical volumes more efficiently?

Check to see if a competitor has gotten language inserted that shows the procurement is wired to them!

One SME has the bulk of the info needed for the technical proposal – all in his head. We’re a week into writing, and he has produced nothing. He is inaccessible all day and doesn’t answer his cell phone in the evening. Panic is setting in. What’s a proposal manager to do…

See Bob Lohfeld’s tips for developing compliant, compelling, and responsive proposals with feature-rich solutions

Professionally developed proposals always have the same characteristics — they are compliant, responsive, compelling, and customer focused. They present a solution that is easy to evaluate and score well — and they are aesthetically attractive.

Not all requests for proposals (RFP) call for an Executive Summary, and when proposals must have limited pages, it might be best to skip an Executive Summary. But for large proposals or RFPs that ask for an Executive Summary, here are seven steps to creating an effective one.

Proper positioning lays the groundwork for a win well before the acquisition takes place and makes you a partner in the acquisition development. If you help define the battlefield, your odds of winning increase.