Here are the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) DoD Source Selection Procedures 3-4-11 (USA007183-10-DPAP), 3-4-11, as referenced by Bob Lohfeld in Washington Technology.

To write a great, short proposal, it’s helpful to imagine how your proposal is likely to be evaluated. In this case, you might visualize evaluators sitting at a large table. At one end of the table are stacks of proposals, and at the other end are two boxes—one for proposals that are likely to be successful and the other for proposals that are likely to be unsuccessful.

Based on results from surveys conducted with the Association of Proposal Management Professionals and with the Deltek GovCon team, Bob Lohfeld shares six quick fixes that most companies can make to improve their win rates.

Managing a big, complicated proposal is hard enough without having to listen to my complainers all day. I have two of them. They complain about everything from the quality of the graphics to the mayonnaise on the sandwiches at lunch. Responding to their issues and listening to them vent is just taking too much of my time, and I am worried about meeting our deadline for red team. I might even have to postpone it. How can I deal with these individuals?

These survey results (7 Proven Factors to Raise You Company’s Win Rate (Survey Results) March 2012-Lohfeld Consulting Group) show how proposal managers from 36 companies rated their individual company’s performance in the 28 factors that we use to predict a company’s overall win rate. You can see from the survey that there is room for improvement in all of the areas surveyed. Areas where most companies need immediate improvement…

If protests are to become the norm for competing in major programs, then it’s to everyone’s advantage to find ways to reduce the number of protests and awards that are overturned.

Imagine how much additional revenue your firm could generate if you could increase your win rate by 20% — and imagine how much you could grow your business with the additional profit.

You can’t be responsible for the proposal document if you are not engaged in all facets of it—there are too many interdependencies

Despite a kick off meeting at which we discussed roles and responsibilities, everyone on this proposal seems to be stepping on everyone’s toes. The coordinator keeps trying to do my job; the capture manager is trying to be the solution architect; the contracts representative is getting way too involved in pricing. We have redundancy and re-work in some areas and complete neglect in others. How can I get things back on track?

The government will read what you write, and they will validate the content. A good writer can present your past performance in a credible, compelling way, but if the underlying performance is less than desirable, it’s hard to overcome the truth.