Joe Jamison

Note: Joe Jamison is a proposal manager who has won 80% of engagements — some exceeding $1B — over a 30-year career.

This is not the 1980s, when Government contracts were often bigger, bidding entities larger, technologies evolved slower, and acquisition efforts proceeded more deliberately. Today, the majority of Government contracting offices don’t have the resources to run meticulous acquisitions, from which fully mature and vetted procurements arise, that reward only best-in-every-way offerors.

Overworked acquisition leaders (PMs, COs, CORs, and COTRs) today often feel compelled to “take the easy route”—relying on multiple-award IDIQ vehicles to limit the number of RFP respondents; dictating severe page limitations on proposals—which while quicker to “get through,” are guaranteed to inhibit fair and accurate evaluation of offer comparison; and imposing tight deadlines that preclude sufficient pricing and solution thinking and rethinking—the natural evolutionary process—that does lead to best value, best priced offers.

Forget the vision of a source selection committee dutifully ticking off the checkboxes of a compliance matrix. And rigorously dissecting and weighing the pros and cons of every bidder’s solution element vs. the respective solution elements of every other bidder. Yes, full compliance is verified, and general conclusions are reached about the viability of bidder solutions But, ultimately, the final decision between Good Bidder A and Good Bidder B comes down to confidence and trust. Most contract awards go to those bidders the Government customer believes are most vested in the customer’s success and are best able to ensure their own success.

Confidence and Trust

Confidence and trust are earned through corporate commitment and hard work over the long haul. You don’t convince the customer of this through fancy sales-speak in your proposal document. More and more, the Government customer relies on word of mouth, and word of CPARS, PPIRS, and Past Performance Questionnaires. If your company doesn’t have a strong record of service delivery, you are unlikely to receive an award any time soon.

If you respond to customer Requests for Information (RFI), or requests for comments on Draft RFPs with superficial response documents, you are proving to the customer long before proposal submission that you really don’t have his best interests in mind. If you use these same opportunities — along with your interactions at bidder conferences, industry days, and face-to-face meetings — to push too much corporate agenda vs. “we’re here to help” stuff, —your bidder “face” will not be the face the Government customer will want to see over the Base Year plus Option Years.

And furthermore, particularly since this will be the Government’s last good look at you before receipt of your proposal, use the RFP Request for Clarification as a time not to be either silent or whiny, but instead a time to earnestly help the Government improve its procurement effort. If there is something they are doing in the RFP that will hinder the effectiveness of the evaluation, a.k.a. preclude all bidders from offering best value proposals, pipe up. Ask the question and explain clearly and without being either patronizing or obsequious, why amendment of the RFP is in THE GOVERNMENT’S best interest.

Finally, put in the effort, or recruit the resources—either from within or outside the company—to make certain that the solutions you develop, the personnel resources you propose—all at the prices you devise—are delivered through a document that is easy on the eyes and brain. Easily read, understood, and evaluated. This isn’t just “making it pretty;” it is your final proof of an earnest commitment to the customer…your desire to make every day of your hoped-for future partnership and shared success as difficulty free and rewarding as possible.