Key Solutions Blog

Starting a new job is an exciting endeavor, and like many recent college grads, I felt privileged to land a job—as a junior proposal writer at a great organization.

If you’re new to Federal Government contracting, you may be overwhelmed with all the new terminology and the many different procurement and contract types you’re hearing about.

If you pursue opportunities in the federal market, I’m sure several Government Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) are on your radar and you perhaps have access to them via partnerships.

An oral presentation with the government is like a job interview. Your goal is to present well and ultimately win the contract.

“What do you mean they haven’t developed a solution?!”

In the proposal world, it isn’t a case of whether or not you have heard, or will yourself utter this phase in exasperation, but when and, unfortunately, how often.

Writing is such a critical component of the proposal process.

As proposal professionals we are very process and procedure oriented. 

If you want to improve your overall win rates, there are several tactics that can help you succeed.

You are at the post-award contract debrief. Win or lose, you search for the good, bad, and ugly about your proposal. 

Graphics are what distinguish an effective proposal. Research shows that readers recall seven times more information when presented with a graphic than through text alone.

In this world of bids and proposals, we all certainly want to win more. However, there are so many factors that impact a company’s probability of win.

Have you ever hired a proposal development consultant, only to feel deceived or disappointed with the result? 

Over the years our proposal team has helped many small businesses significantly increase their revenue through sound Proposal Management.

Learning how to make smart bid/no-bid decisions is one of the most crucial skills individuals and government contractors can develop to improve their overall success. 

Too often, businesses jump into pursuing contract opportunities without doing the necessary work on the front end.

Data calls typically occur early in the proposal effort, but can ostensibly happen at any point during the proposal planning or writing processes.

As proposal professionals, we continually look to find ways to lead our teams and ensure we are getting the best results possible.

One of the most crucial phases in the federal business development lifecycle is Capture.

A common problem with proposal teams is that it is so easy for authors to avoid communicating—particularly when one or more author is working virtually.

The Cost or Price Proposal is exactly what it sounds like: a detailed account of the costs of your Technical and Management Approaches for a potential government contract.

Your government contract ends soon, and your customer will issue a new RFP. Who's worried? Over time the scope has increased, and the contract is now a significant element of the customer's business model.

Successful proposals must be two things: compliant and responsive.

As we approach the end of the year, the government proposal season tends to slow down for us here in the U.S.

Storyboards have long been a part of our standard proposal best practices. We all know that the proposal giants include storyboarding as an integral part of the proposal development process, but where did this concept of storyboards originate?

There is a common misconception that developing a compliant proposal is relatively easy — you just follow the instructions in Section L of the Request for Proposal (RFP), the way Dorothy and Toto in The Wizard of Oz followed the yellow brick road.

So, you’re about to start proposal writing for the first time. Maybe you’re transitioning careers, or maybe you’re a recent college graduate, stepping into government contracting culture for the very first time. 

Tight page limitations are becoming a more frequent challenge as contracting officers continue to look for ways to streamline their acquisition processes.

Sure, companies lose contracts because of faulty pricing, unqualified key personnel, lack of customer insight, a flawed strategy or approach, or some other technicality or non-compliance. But too often, these maladies are only symptoms, not the root causes for a loss. 

Did you know that Microsoft has a staggering 1.2 billion Microsoft Office users worldwide? These users include millions of professionals who rely on Microsoft Office software every day and use only a fraction of its capability. 

As proposal professionals, we know that compliance is king, but did you know that MS Office has tools to help you work smarter AND achieve compliance?

We know that Evaluators evaluate and score submitted proposals. Therefore, as bidders looking to win work, we should aim to make the evaluators’ jobs as painless as possible.

What do you do when the Request for Proposal (RFP) provides a voluminous Statement of Work (SOW) or Performance Work Statement (PWS) and a minimal page count in which to address it in the proposal?

Each year at this time we stop and take a breath. Clear our heads. Gain some perspective. And reconnoiter the GovCon horizon. 

You have just been tasked with writing the executive summary for a must-win proposal. The stakes are high, the pressure is real, and the scrutiny will be intense. Here are 8 tips for writing a clear, concise, and persuasive document.

We all have jams that amp us up. You know, the songs that get us up and moving no matter how tired we are. With all of the ups and downs that Proposal Professionals face on a daily basis, we decided to create a playlist to keep you motivated and smiling! 

This time of year, the Government’s acquisition cycle is in full swing. Sometimes it helps to step back and consider what makes a difference between winning and losing government contracts.

In Government Proposals, Proposal Managers develop a Proposal Plan to guide them through the proposal effort. A Proposal Plan is a comprehensive set of documents, instructions, processes, tools, and templates that aids in the proposal development process.

Experienced Proposal Managers develop a Proposal Plan to guide them through the proposal effort. A Proposal Plan is a comprehensive set of documents, instructions, processes, tools, and templates that aides in the development of a winning proposal. 

This is the third part in our Proposal Plan series, that discusses developing the Win Strategy.

An unsubstantiated claim in a proposal is a statement about any of your company’s capabilities, past experience and performance, product and service features/benefits, and discriminators that is not supported with a proof statement.

In government proposals, experienced Proposal Managers develop a Proposal Plan to guide them through the proposal effort.

All of us have been there. If not, your day will eventually come. The Red Team Review members have done their pigeon-like thing. Now, your proposal writers are swimming in the after wash. How do you learn from it, keep moving, and improve your proposal?  

In September 2016, I set off to explore unanswered questions regarding Category Management in our Category Management article series. Initial questions were:

Spring never fails to remind me of the Easter Bunny and eggs! So, I got to thinking if I wanted to deliver the perfect proposal basket to the government in response to a Request for Proposal (RFP), what are the most important eggs that would go into my basket?

The Consolidated Appropriations Act (“The Act”), signed into law in March of 2018, provides $500 billion in new federal spending for defense and domestic programs over two years. 

People often confuse proposal win themes and section themes. Win themes are those high-level features and benefits that transcend the entire proposal.

We have all heard about the importance of maintaining a healthy business development pipeline—an organized, visual way of tracking multiple potential buyers (federal agencies) and developing (or stalled) opportunities through different stages in the government contracting procurement process.

But most don’t understand that a pipeline’s importance goes beyond a mere list of potential contacts or contracts.

It is becoming common knowledge that proposals are scored, not read. But as a writer, you may be compelled to tell the story in your proposal narrative. You may even get internal reviewers who lament over the fact that your proposal just isn’t telling the story well.

So much about developing proposals to win a government contract, is the scaffolding, the process.

The holidays are fast approaching and Christmas is almost here! 

As a proposal writer who has just completed a long and hard proposal, I got to thinking about what proposal professionals like me might like to receive this holiday season, just in case someone out there with a beard and a red suit wants to know.

In today's world of federal contracting, multi-company teaming arrangements are the rule rather than the exception.

So your company is hunting "big game" in the government contracting world? Well you are not alone.

The Federal Government, both defense and civilian, operate their procurement and acquisition needs off of hundreds of contract vehicles a day.

The progressive, sequenced structure of color-coded proposal reviews works. That is, it works on major proposals where you have lead time of 30 days or more, especially if there is a draft RFP that can help you jump start the process, and you have access to the client’s resources and Subject Matter Experts.

We often hear negative representations of Government contractors, and these stories seem to garner alot of media attention. But what about the positive impact these companies have on our larger community? Now more than ever, for professionals in the government market, it's important to know that each day you come to work you are privileged to have the opportunity to do something great, difficult, unlikely, or nearly impossible to achieve.

We've all heard the phrase there is no such thing as a dumb question. The fact is, even a seemingly obvious question can elicit a helpful and sometimes surprising response by the Government.

The world of Government proposals is a world with its own language and rituals. 

As someone who’s rewritten hundreds of resumes for federal proposals, you start to notice patterns in the way people construct their resumes that often make it difficult for evaluators to assess the quality of the candidates.

Resumes are the first chance the Government gets to meet (virtually speaking) your team, especially your key personnel.

On May 23, 2017, the White House Administration released to the public part two of its FY18 budget named “A New Foundation for American Greatness.” 

This document works in tandem with the FY18 “skinny budget”  called “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again” released in March 2017. 

On March 13, 2017, the Trump Administration released his “skinny budget”, his administrations’ first federal budget blueprint revealing the President's plan to dramatically reduce the size of the Government.

A benefit of being proposal consultants is the variety of our experience on a range of government proposal types, teams, and companies. It makes us useful and valuable, but it can also work against us.

In this post, the final of my Category Management Series, I am going to make a few suggestions for Business Development and Strategy Professionals to add to their Bid and Proposal “New Year’s Resolution” List. These resolutions are primarily based on the key trend of contract consolidation through Category Management.

Happy Fiscal New Year! With the start of the new fiscal year comes promises of a clean slate, and a fresh start fiscal start (or at least funding until December 9). It is also an opportunity to reframe your everyday business development tasks and reinforce your tactics to stay competitive.

Now that we have the WHAT down for Category Management (read Part 1 here)– it is time to move on to WHY. But first, a brief history lesson:

Lately I have come across a myriad of blog posts, articles, conferences and stories detailing a mysterious and ominous Federal Government Category Management initiative.  I decided to do more research on the subject. I noticed two things immediately:

According to many contracting officers, there is no such thing as over communicating when it comes to bidding on a contract. The most successful government contractors will ask the contracting officer intelligent and thoughtful questions to gain the most information possible about the Request for Proposal (RFP).

This strategy will help you create a well scored proposal.

Remember 5^th grade English Class? Learning to write essays meant being handed a topic you didn't like, being given an impossible deadline, being forced to write, edit and revise multiple times, and getting irrational comments from the teacher who clearly hated you.

Since it's St. Patrick’s Day, I got to thinking about some of the Irish legends, and the first one that came to mind was the legend of the Blarney Stone.

The most vulnerable point in the business development continuum is the handoff from capture manager to proposal management. This transfer to the proposal team seems to fail often. But why is that?

We see this time after time- the capture team creates a strong, defensible win strategy that by all measures should give the company an excellent chance of prevailing over the competition, but it never gets fully implemented by the proposal team management despite best intentions by all parties.  

If you are an incumbent contractor, doing a respectable job, but have a nagging fear of customer “incumbent-itis” as the contract re-compete date draws closer and closer, here’s a strategy and best practice that can help solidify your chances for winning:

People in our industry are wondering to what extent today’s government contracting market conditions represent a “new normal.” And, if not how soon can we expect a return to the “good old days?”

The government's use of oral presentations as part of the proposal process rises and falls like the waves in the ocean depending on the prevailing philosophy at the moment. 

We are often asked, sometimes too late, if the incumbent program manager should be assigned as the Capture and/or Proposal Manager for the recompete.

Like it or not, as a Proposal Manager your attitude is infectious. For better or worse, you set the tone that others see and internalize. 

In Government Proposals, experienced Proposal Managers develop a Proposal Plan to guide them through the proposal effort. This is the sixth in a series of articles that discusses part six of the planning process, Color Team Reviews.

In Government Proposals, experienced Proposal Managers develop a Proposal Plan to guide them through the proposal effort.

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve heard of The Hunger Games, the dystopian trilogy by Suzanne Collins that has edged out Harry Potter’s seven books as Amazon’s best-selling series of all time. The movies set records, and fans worldwide were hysterical in their enthusiasm.

In Government Proposals, experienced Proposal Managers develop a Proposal Plan to guide them through the proposal effort.

You've been assigned to manage a major proposal. Before springing into frenetic action, withdraw to your quiet place. Ground yourself. Anticipate. Plan. Preview in your mind the production about to unfold. Have a vision for how you will lead your team to win.

Your RFP (Request for Proposal) has just been released, and whether you are a single company, teamed with another company, or have multiple teaming partners, you will be required to submit various types of information as part of your proposal. 

As a Capture or Proposal Manager for a government contract bid, eventually someone will call for a technical “solution architecture.”

Subject matter experts (SMEs) are necessary to almost every proposal. They are the ones who design and build the product (or provide the service).

We have all been there: Stand-up meetings that began with such promise, but over time they languished until we came to dread them as time wasters.

Capture is as much art as science.

The best Capture Managers are not made in a classroom. The best capture techniques are learned from a mentor in the heat of battle.

Capture Management is too important to be delegated to the last individual standing when all of the direct charge numbers are handed out elsewhere. Inexperienced Capture Managers need tips, tools, methods, processes and insights on how to conduct effective capture.

Companies often undervalue the importance of resumes until they learn that they can count for 40% or more of total proposal evaluation points. Then they search for a resume specialist.

Successful proposals respond to the needs presented in the RFP. However, successful proposals also respond to “invisible” issues that influence decision makers: their “wants.”

You’ve heard it before. This doesn’t stop me from saying it again: proposals are a tough business. Don't get discouraged! Before reaching a breaking point, here are 15 actions you can take to heighten your enjoyment when working on a long, complex, and demanding project or proposal.

In the land of federal contracting "hunters and farmers," large IDIQ contract vehicles have become the prize catch for aggressive corporate hunters.

Since we proposal professionals don’t have enough pressure on us during a proposal effort, I thought I’d share these handy tips to spice up your life during those all-night deadline parties!

No doubt about it, proposals are hard. Tight deadlines, incomprehensible and inconsistent RFP requirements, lack of sleep, high carb diets. And the need to demonstrate to the government that not only is you qualified for the award, you are the best choice, hands down. These are all factors outside of our control. Unfortunately, companies also hamper themselves by staging a proposal team that is dysfunctional, and they do it to themselves.

In•cum•bent [in-'kəm-bənt] Noun. The current holder of a contract. Ex: The incumbent was preparing for a recompete of work it had successfully performed for years.

A sad, but true, fact of the proposal business is that proposals are not always edited to ensure that they are grammatically correct, internally consistent, conform to the pre-established proposal Style Guide, and read as though the entire proposal was written by the same person (commonly referred to as “one voice”).