Here is a story that illustrates how much difference a small amount of added evaluation points can make. In 1964 the two top golfers were Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. Their average scores that year were only a small fraction of a point apart. Yet Palmer made nearly twice as much income as Nicklaus.
Here are 9 things that will help you win more contracts this year:
1. If you don’t have a process for systematically focusing your proposal on your win points, then start one now.
2. Conduct a Price-to-Win (PTW) study on every proposal. This study can be however elaborate or simple is appropriate in proportion to the importance of the proposal.
3. If you are going to use personnel lacking proposal experience on your team, figure out a way to provide training. And / or use proposal consultants who can help fold in the work of the inexperienced players.
4. Try to focus on only bidding those contracts where you have enough customer intimacy to know (a) what solution is favored; and (b) what budget is available.
5. If you are one of the many companies that always starts too late to prepare a really strong proposal, then figure out a way to correct your process.
6. Get a strong program manager to propose by getting advice from the customer as to who or what skills he would like to see in the position.
7. If you will need to use consultants on the proposal, then contact your source starting six weeks in advance. This will give them time to locate personnel who are both better qualified and less costly than those available without advance notice.
8. Employ a solutions process combining customer insight with engineering and pricing skills.
9. Get early executive buy-in, in order to rapidly solve problems that frequently arise such as a need for decisions and / or added resources.
Are you able to provide information regarding training in Proposal Writing for the Federal Govt