Clear thinking

Earlier posts stressed the need to develop proposals that address an issuer’s specific requirements and how to build relationships that provide the needed input to proposal strategy, including business development in large prospects. As a team, that means...

Many bidders seeking to adopt our strategy-first approach find their biggest stumbling block is lack of a prospect familiarity and/or project knowledge. They often realize this only after the RFP is released—when the window for communication has closed. In the past,...

An earlier post identified the importance of understanding the client and prospect in developing successful proposals. This week we explore the skills that enable business developers to get close enough to prospects to acquire that understanding. How close can you...

Some marketing departments also handle proposal responsibilities. On one level, this makes sense. Marketing people are familiar with their company's products and their features and benefits. They also understand the market and tend to be good writers. So, especially...

Past posts have focused on key tasks in the bid lifecycle—process steps that can tip the balance between losing and winning. These included: Pre-RFP pursuit The bid/no-bid decision Building a win strategy Kickoff planning and execution This post's topic is the Red...

The bid lifecycle includes key tasks where careful execution can greatly improve your chances of success. We posted earlier on three of these: Pre-RFP pursuit The bid/no-bid decision, and Strategy making and testing This post considers another: the kickoff meeting....

This month we’re posting on critical tasks in the bid lifecycle—those where opportunities can be won or lost. Previous posts focused on pre-RFP pursuit and on the bid/no-bid decision. This post covers strategy—in our experience the single biggest improvement...

This and future posts examine critical points in the bid proposal lifecycle—opportunities to exert outsize influence on your chance of success. The bid/no-bid decision is one of those. This point is a bit of an outlier, since it’s about whether to bid, rather than how...

There are seemingly countless tasks involved in responding to a competitive Request for Proposal (RFP). High performing teams will want to fine-tune their processes and execution in every area. But, for teams that aren’t there yet, this month we’ll cover five tasks to...

We recently posted on proposal organizational chart basics, using org charts to show team evolution across project phases and using org charts to show project governance. This post explores other information suitable for showing or org charts. About two thirds of...