To find out why proposals cost too much, I asked our proposal consulting team to share their insights. Since this team works on the front lines of about 400 proposals per year, I was sure they could offer valuable insight into why costs are too high and what companies can do to reduce proposal costs without lowering win rates.
Here are some of the reasons we found that proposal costs are higher than they should be.

Lisa Pafe answers questions related to winning against incumbents in the federal marketplace.

Julia Quigley shares thoughts on building credibility you can wield to resolve conflict, muscle through roadblocks, and challenge your teams to higher standards.

You talked. They listened. Soon enough it becomes clear that you talked, and they did not hear you. As George Bernard Shaw said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

Should companies outsource their business development functions in the federal market?

Bob Lohfeld recently spoke to the WashingtonExec Federal Acquisition Council for Business Development Professionals…

Bob Lohfeld offers a warning and advice about how the government applies price reasonableness and cost realism rules, and how often a low price can just get lower.

If we are going to move away from LPTA bids, then we must offer an alternative that helps the government achieve lower acquisition costs, while not sacrificing performance in the process.

It seems like everyone has been jumping on the procurement reform bandwagon this year and has been saying that the government’s procurement system is broken. While reforming government procurement is… Continue reading Should we have procurement reform or just improvement?

Watch Richard Nathan, CEO, AOC Key Solutions; Bob Lohfeld, CEO, Lohfeld Consulting; and Brad Douglas, COO, Shipley Associates share insights on winning in a budget-constrained market.

Senior executives in my organization are constantly inserting material into the proposal that is not called for in the RFP and spending time on proposal components that don’t get separately evaluated…How can I scale this back before it kills us all?