The Keys to Writing Winning Proposals

The keys to proposal writing are to make sure you clearly understand what the government agency is asking for and can meet their requirements. This is your “Go – No Go” decision point and saves you time and resources from chasing solicitations you cannot qualify for or fulfill. Be realistic in your approach and prepare in advance so you can compete for and win on the proposals that meet your capabilities.

In this episode of FedBiz’5 we host Darrell Hammond, a senior proposal development consultant that handles capture management and proposal management. For over 10 years Darrell has helped companies bind, track, and create federal, state, local and commercial bids. Darrel has worked with a variety of 8(a), small and disadvantaged businesses, as well as businesses transitioning from small to large, and large multibillion dollar businesses.

What is the main component of a successful government contract bid and how does it differ from proposal management in the private sector?

The most important part of proposal management in the government space is compliance. The government is typically looking for more information than you would submit for a commercial bid. Government proposals have additional compliance components for submission known as the Federal Acquisition Regulations (“FAR”).

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The federal government is compelled to request certain disclosures and information prior to awarding any contract. This is the primary difference from the private sector, government compliance to the solicitation format. A good starting point for preparing your response to a government proposal is creating an outline document, sometimes referred to as a compliance matrix, so that you carefully follow the directions and the evaluation criteria to make sure all sections are thoroughly completed.

What common mistakes do businesses make when submitting bids?

One common mistake many businesses make is not understanding how many people and what specific skills are needed for the proposal process. This is especially true for smaller businesses and those new to government contracting. It’s important to have enough people available with the skills required to make sure your bid is submitted on time and in compliance.

Another common mistake comes from not having prior experience with government contracts. If you’ve never seen a solicitation or proposal format for a government contract in your industry, it’s difficult to deliver a bid that meets the same quality, compliance, and completeness standards as a more experienced competitor.

How can businesses avoid these common mistakes?

It’s important to understand the requirements, have a schedule for submitting documents, and a process for reviewing and adjusting your proposal. Once you gain mastery in identifying the necessary compliance steps, information required, and experience for your team, the process of developing your proposal flows much smoother.

Starting from scratch with no outside help can be challenging as you have no existing context for what’s required and no pre-defined content. However, as you gain experience and submit compliant bids, you can reuse and adapt content from previous proposals for future bids. This is a big time-saver for future turnaround time in proposal management.

How important is it for businesses to understand and address the specific requirements and evaluation criteria outlined in a solicitation?

Very important! If the requirements read, “The contractor will…”, “The contractor shall…”, “The contractor must…,” these are things that you HAVE to be able to do to be considered for the contract.

Can you share any examples or best practices?

Typically, it is a hard and fast rule that everything must be in compliance – ‘t’s crossed and ‘i’s dotted. As mentioned previously, it’s important to create an outline document as a guide to make sure you are carefully following the directions and the evaluation criteria to complete all required sections of the proposal. This should always be done upfront to make sure you can meet the proposal requirements.

However, in some situations the government is flexible, and they’ll come back to you to fix areas in the proposal. But they don’t usually do that. For instance, once I turned in a proposal and in the pricing section, we had moved a decimal point one space to the right for one item. So instead of saying $70, it was $700. So, the government said, “I think we’ve identified a few areas where there may be an issue? Can you confirm whether your price was supposed to be significantly higher than the rest of the bidders and provide us the correct information?”

Now, that doesn’t happen often. In fact, hardly ever. Usually, if you miss a compliance item or if the proposal calls for past performance or previous experience that is similar in size, scope, and complexity to the contract you’re bidding on and you can’t provide it; that kills your bid.

The keys are to make sure you clearly understand what the government agency is asking for and can meet their requirements. This is your “Go – No Go” decision point and saves you time and resources from chasing solicitations you cannot qualify for or fulfill. Be realistic in your approach and prepare in advance so you can compete for and win on the proposals that meet your capabilities.

What resources would you recommend for businesses looking to enter the government contracting marketplace or improve their proposal writing skills?

Utilize a compliance document template and prepare general responses in advance to create a library related to your specific businesses, such as your past performance, capabilities, general business information, etc.

When putting together a bid, it’s common to create an annotated outline. This outline includes sections for each requirement provided by the government. It organizes the evaluation criteria and instructions, as well as the technical specifications or statement of work. Having an outline makes it easier to write in accordance with the government’s needs and understand how they will evaluate the proposal. Additionally, a compliance matrix can be helpful as an evaluation tool when reviewing the proposal.

Another important aspect of proposal writing is knowing how to deal with the technical questions from the government. It’s important to answer them accurately and pay attention to words like “shall,” “will,” and “must” in the questions.

One helpful technique is to speak your response and record it, rather than immediately writing it down. This allows you to get your ideas out first. If you struggle with writing, this can be especially useful. Engineers, who often have complex and detailed processes to explain, can benefit from interviews with a skilled proposal writer or manager. If you don’t have someone available for that, speaking your answer aloud and then editing it can be a good starting point. Afterwards, seek assistance from artificial intelligence (“AI”) or other resources such as ChatGPT to refine the language and format.

Can you share a success story for your experience in helping a business win a government contract through a well-crafted proposal?

I worked with a company in Virginia on a successful bid. By researching what the customer needed and understanding their challenges, we created a stronger bid designed specifically to address their needs. We spoke with the program manager and others involved in the project to gather information about their goals and objectives and learn their ‘hot buttons’.

We tailored the proposal to address their specific needs, including detailed process graphs and maps since they were process oriented. We designed the entire bid to make their lives easier, and we won the bid.

An important lesson is that all the information doesn’t exist in the proposal solicitation. You have to reach out to the contracting officer and discuss the information to gain better insight into their needs. You should understand what’s going well, what’s not going well, and how they’re struggling, so that you can put together a bid that helps them to solve the problems that they have.

What advice would you give to businesses that are new to government contracting, or struggling to win contracts, despite submitting multiple bids?

I think if you’re struggling to win contracts, the best thing you can do is request a debrief. Once you find out that you haven’t won a contract, you can reach out to the government and say, “Hey, please provide a debrief”. That means the government has to explain why you didn’t win.

In situations where you lose on compliance, that means that you weren’t quite ready to do all the things that the government needed, you didn’t clearly describe the processes and other requirements they wanted to see, or you may be excluded something that needed to go in entirely.

A debrief evaluation will let you know what you missed. It’s important for you to review the debrief and then look at what you submitted to find where the problems exist to determine what you can improve upon for the next bid.

Also, if you lose on price that’s entirely different. At that point, you’re looking at another part of your business model and cost structure.

How would a business go about getting a debrief?

You specifically can request a debrief from the contracting officer or the contracting officer’s representative. Whoever posted the solicitation is usually the person that you would request the debrief from. Typically, you will have been in contact with this person throughout the process.

Proposal writing is a continual learning process.

FedBiz Access (“FedBiz”) has an experienced team that works with small businesses and takes the time to get to know your business and ask questions to ensure you have a solid contracting plan. FedBiz is a leading government contracting business development and marketing firm that provides engagement strategy coaching, SAM & DSBS registration, set-aside certification registrations, GSA Schedules, and targeted market research.

FedBiz has over 22 years of experience working with thousands of companies worldwide to help them win over $35.7 billion in awards. From registration to award, FedBiz helps businesses succeed in the government marketplace.

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