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Category Results for Government Proposals
Can you keep your bid out of the reject box?
This article was originally published May 16, 2012 in WashingtonTechnology.com.
By Bob Lohfeld
I was asked to review one of the proposals submitted for the first stage of the Army’s multi-billion dollar “Army Eagle” logistics procurement and to advise an unsuccessful bidder why the company had failed to make the cut. My answer was straightforward – the bidder failed to write a proposal for the evaluators to evaluate. Here’s how the proposal went wrong.
Army Eagle is a multiple award procurement for large and small…
How to avoid a contract protest
This article was originally published March 22, 2012 in WashingtonTechnology.com.
By Bob Lohfeld
Are protests destined to become just one more milestone in the federal procurement process? Recent evidence might suggest so. Notably, the protested award to Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Antarctic Research program in the South Pole and the Hawker Beechcraft protest of the award of the new light attack aircraft trainer are recent examples.
In addition, market experts predict that as defense budgets decline, companies fighting over fewer dollars will launch more protests when losing procurements that…
Improving Win Rates – Strategies and Tactics to Raise Your Success
Did you know your company can raise its win probability by 20% on each and every bid that it submits by following 7 proven steps?
Imagine how much additional revenue your firm could generate if you could increase your win rate by 20% — and imagine how much you could grow your business with the additional profit.
Increasing win rates is everybody’s goal, yet few people address the task of raising overall company win rates.
In this webinar, capture and proposal expert Bob Lohfeld shares…
Dear Proposal Doctor,
Please help. I am mid-way through a large and important government bid. The two or three people who have all the knowledge we need to document the solution are in pricing meetings that go on for hours, and by the time they start working on the non-price aspects of the proposal, they are exhausted and not productive.
I’m worried that we are going to miss interim deadlines and have to rush through our reviews and document production cycles. I don’t…
3 tips to maximize past performance
This article was originally published February 1, 2012 in WashingtonTechnology.com.
By Bob Lohfeld
Almost every proposal you write has a requirement for information on past performance. The government uses this information to evaluate how well your company has performed on similar programs and expects your past performance to be a predictor of how well you will perform on the program you’re currently bidding.
Because past performance can be an important discriminator in the evaluation and selection process, there are some things you should know…
How to raise your win rate by 20%
This article was originally published January 5, 2012 in WashingtonTechnology.com.
By Bob Lohfeld
All executives want to increase their win rate. If you could raise your company’s overall win rate by 20%, the payoff in additional revenue, earnings, and shareholder value could be huge. Company revenues would increase, earnings would increase by the marginal profit rate on the new revenue, and shareholder value would increase proportionally to your increase in earnings.
But, knowing which investments to make and predicting the payoff is the challenge….
Proposal Doctor: Stop the madness
Dear Proposal Doctor,
The company I work for is bidding on a large government contract, and the proposal is a huge undertaking. My team consists of more than 50 people, and my MS Project schedule has hundreds of lines. It’s a challenge, which is to be expected. I was excited and optimistic when we started, but now I have a boatload of senior executives breathing down my neck. All the time! I spend at least half of every day explaining and justifying what we…
Section L Update – November 2011
In this issue – and in upcoming monthly issues – our capture and proposal experts share capture and proposal management knowledge, offer helpful tips and techniques (check out Beth Wingate’s Audio Clip on how creating your proposal outline and compliance matrix) and Wendy Frieman’s latest Proposal Doctor advice for writing technical volumes more efficiently), and provide insightful commentary about challenges in our industry.
We’ll help keep you current on best practices in our field with valuable information you can apply every day!
The Proposal Dentist: Extracting a Technical Approach from the Technical Experts
(This article appeared in the Fall 2011 edition of APMP-NCA’s Executive Summary eZine.)
As budgets shrink, there will be fewer new contracts in the government market. With fewer deals, firms that compete for federal business will need to write sharper proposals to win their share of work. It is imperative that our proposals tell a clear story that resonates with the buyer. In particular, we must be able to present a fact-based approach that demonstrates a clear, tangible value to…
This article was originally published November 14, 2011 in WashingtonTechnology.com.
By Bob Lohfeld
In last month’s column, 6 ways your proposal can fail, I wrote about a company that submitted a less-than-professional proposal and wondered how pervasive this problem really is. After all, as professional proposal managers, how bad can our proposals really be?
All professional proposal managers strive to make every proposal compliant, responsive, and compelling, yet a recent presentation reinforced my assessment that only about 15% of the firms bidding…
