The Top 10 Bid and Proposal Mistakes
Contractors Repeatedly Make
Breakout Session #603
James (Jim) Phillips, Esq.
Barbara Kinosky, Esq.
Centre Consulting, Inc.
July 20th, 2010
4:00 PM
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The Top 10 Bid and Proposal Mistakes
Contractors Repeatedly Make
• Successful proposal preparation and management is a
discipline like any other in federal contracting. Do it
consistently well and you will be rewarded. Do it poorly or
inconsistently and you lose desirable business opportunities
or, worse, land money losing contracts.
• This session will identify the core issues that need to be
considered and executed in performing bid and proposal
activities under competitive federal procurement. It will also
identify and discuss how to avoid the most frequent mistakes
that a great many contractors commit on an alarming basis
while performing bid and proposal activities.
• You only have a finite amount of bid and proposal dollars.
Learn how to use them wisely.
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Degree of Difficulty: Basic to
Intermediate
• Learn the core issues to master for
successful bid and proposal effort.
• Understand how to avoid common bid
and proposal mistakes.
• Learn how to enhance your bid and
proposal success rate.
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Mistake #1 - Spraying & Praying
• It’s the quality of the capture planning and
execution, not the quantity of proposals submitted,
that leads to success.
• Bidding without a plan or in the hopes of getting
lucky is hopelessly unproductive & expensive.
• Bidding for customer requirements where you are
not a known & credible supplier is equally
unproductive. In order for your proposal to be
effective it cannot be the first time that the customer
has heard of you!
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Mistake #1 - Spraying &
Praying
Effective bids and proposals are the end
result of effective advance marketing in
which you’ve -1. introduced the customer to your
offerings and capabilities,
2. gained traction that your offerings and
capabilities are considered desirable
or effective and,
3. most importantly, the customer is predisposed to viewing you as a prime
contender for the contract.
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Mistake #2 - Failing to Assess
the Customer’s Goals & Risks
• A procurement contest is not a beauty pageant –
You don’t win by looking great in a swim suit or by
singing swell.
• You win by effectively communicating to the
customer that you understand & have proposed a
solution that addresses and fulfills the following:
 their everyday requirements;
 their larger goals;
 their hot buttons; and
 their deepest & darkest fears
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Mistake #2 - Failing to Assess
the Customer’s Goals & Risks
It takes a lot of advance work &
marketing to gain insight into the
customer’s goals, fears & hot buttons.
Without them, it is hard to be
successful. Invest time and effort on
sales calls, networking and building
positive relationship.
This is why spraying and praying
does not work!
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Mistake #3 - Ineffective Bid/No
Bid Reviews
Most effective contracting organization
pursue a rigorous “bid/no-bid” process
before committing time and resources to a
specific opportunity. Subjects to consider in
an effective “bid/no-bid” process include the
following:
Extent of successful and relevant past
experience performing this work?
Technical proficiency in performing this
work?
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Mistake #3 - Ineffective Bid/No
Bid Reviews
• More Subjects to consider in an effective “bid/no-bid”
process include the following:
 Quality of team, including subs and key personnel?
 Availability of key resources (manpower, facilities,
capital) to support requirements under the customer’s
schedule?
 Extent of customer rapport?
 Extent of market intelligence regarding opportunity?
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Bid/No Bid Reviews Cont’d
• Other “bid/no bid” factors:
 Strength/weakness assessment vs. likely
competitors?
 Ability to respond with an effective proposal?
 Importance of price and effectiveness of pricing
strategy?
 To what extent does this opportunity have growth
potential?
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Bid/No Bid Reviews Cont’d
• Other “bid/no bid” factors:
 To what extent does this opportunity align with
our strategic growth plan?
 Does this work pose a conflict of interest threat to
other programs or proposals we are pursuing?
• Unless you can assign a positive rating to the
opportunity after assessing these factors you are
almost certainly best served by not bidding the
opportunity!
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Mistake #4 – Little or No
Competitive Analysis
• Unless a procurement is approved as a solesource buy, you have to compete with other
vendors to win contracts.
• Many vendors, however, have no clue about
their likely competition or how they stack up
against the competition.
– That is ruinous!
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Mistake #4 – Little or No
Competitive Analysis
• Before you commit the time and resources to a
bid and proposal effort, make a realistic
assessment of :
who the other likely bidders are;
how you stack up against them for this
specific requirement; and
at a minimum understand if there is an
incumbent contractor, who that incumbent
contractor is, and perform a competitive
analysis.
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Mistake #4 – Little or No
Competitive Analysis
• A frequent tool bidders use to perform
competitive analysis is the so called “SWOT
Analysis:”
 SWOT is an integrated assessment of our
competitive “Strengths” and “Weaknesses” in
relation to the “Opportunities” and “Threats”
posed by a particular procurement. At a
minimum, you should understand how a
particular procurement opportunity aligns with
both your strengths and weaknesses, and those
of your likely competitors, before proceeding.
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Mistake #4 – Little or No
Competitive Analysis – “Win
Themes.”
• The end product of your competitive
analysis should be the articulation of
multiple “win themes” on which the
proposal will be predicated.
“Win themes” are exactly what they sound
like – they are the articulation of the
reasons why the customer should prefer
your solution over all others!
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“Win Themes” Cont’d
• Win themes should be focused on the factors that
differentiate your “strengths” from your competitors
in a manner that is highly beneficial to the customer.
 A “Win theme” cannot relate to a factor that it
immaterial to the customer – “Our
headquarters is located in Class A Building. And
Sea World is only a mile away!”
 Likewise a “win theme” can not relate to a
factor that is performed equally well by many
vendors – “We were rated among the top 500 IT
firms in the Washington DC area.”
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“Win Themes” Cont’d
A real “win theme” links a unique attribute to a
tangible benefit to the customer –
 “Since the introduction of our proprietary
continuous learning program we have achieved a
documented 7% per year reduction in program
labor hours in the performance of our multi-year
programs.”
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Mistake #5 – No Price to Win
Strategy
• Price must be evaluated on all federal procurements.
Therefore you always need a pricing strategy.
• Although best value procurements may result in awards to
other than the low priced offeror, increasingly price is a major
consideration, if not the major consideration, impacting the
award of virtually all contracts.
• Therefore:
 You need to carefully assess what price is likely necessary
to win the contract given the nature of the requirements
and the nature of the competition.
 Take the time to understand how similar contracts have
been priced as awarded by this customer and how your
competitors typically price similar work.
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Mistake #6 - Ineffective
Proposal Management
• Almost by necessity your proposal will require the input of
many members of a capture team in order to be effective.
Given this reality it is imperative that you designate and
empower a proposal manager charged with ensuring that the
proposal “speaks with one voice” and communicates and
reinforces the “win themes” you have developed for the
opportunity.
• An effective proposal manager is also empowered to ruthlessly
develop and enforce the internal schedule for the proposal
effort. This is essential to ensure that the proposal effort is
effective.
• Too many companies cobble together their proposals without
any central management. Not surprisingly, their proposals
themselves reflect this.
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Mistake #7 – Ineffective use of
Questions & Answers
• Do ask questions for the following reasons or
purposes:
 To address and resolve clear inconsistencies in
the solicitation or related documents (Example –
the Deliverable Schedule in the SOW is
inconsistent with the Deliverable Schedule in
Section J of the solicitation).
 To address and resolve pricing or performance
contingencies that would otherwise be subject to
different treatment by bidders. (Example – the
hours of operation for a contract to operate
government facilities).
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Mistake #7 – Ineffective use of
Questions & Answers
• Do ask questions for the following reasons or purposes:
 To shade the customer’s treatment of an issue in an
manner that is advantageous to you (Example –
obtain confirmation that offerors that have previously
produced the contract items are entitled to waiver of
first article test requirements)
 To resolve “make or break” issues that require
resolution in order for you to develop a competitive
bid (Example – Requesting permission to use excess
inventory from a prior contract when the cost of
acquiring new material is exorbitant or involves
excessive lead times)
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Ineffective use of Questions &
Answers – Cont’d
• Do not ask questions under the following circumstances:
 Where your question will tip off the competition to
your proposed technical solution (Example –
please confirm that the performance standard will be
deemed met if the offeror proposes a roving patrol to
cover three of the six security points)
 Where your question reveals a fundamental lack of
understanding of the customer’s requirements (You
should not be bidding this requirement!)
 Where the questions are repetitive or are becoming
argumentative (Example – “Do you really mean to require
offerors to post a payment bond?”)
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Mistake #8 – Ineffective/Boring
Proposal Writing
• Reading a batch of proposals is not a
fun task for anyone. In order to make
your proposal stand out from the
competition, make sure it is easily
readable and is also devoid of blatant
hyperbole or other ineffective content.
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Ineffective/Boring Proposal
Writing Cont’d
• Do the following:
 Provide an Executive Summary at the outset of your proposal
that summarizes your proposed solution, establishes and
communicates your win themes, and provides a compelling
depiction of how your proposed solution is highly beneficial to the
customer and superior to competing solutions.
 Liberally use graphics, text boxes and tables to summarize,
depict and communicate your core messages. These tools are
highly effective ways to catch the eye of the reader who otherwise
may “zone out” on your proposal text.
 Ensure that your proposal speaks with one voice. The
communication, messaging and themes needs to be consistent
throughout. If different portions of the proposal are written by
different persons be sure to harmonize them.
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Ineffective/Boring Proposal
Writing Cont’d
• Don’t do the following:
 Rely extensively on broad, repetitive, unsubstantiated
claims of grandeur – We are the best, We are the best!
 Parrot back the requirements – Restating the requirements
of the SOW is not a technical approach!
 Addressing technical requirements by stating that you
understand and will comply – that’s not a technical
approach either.
 Assume the reader appreciates the benefit associated with
a proposal attribute. Spell the benefit out to them so that
you will be ensure of getting credit for it!
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Mistake #9 –Believing Your
Own BS!
• It is human nature to fall in love with one’s own
prose. Likewise where groups of people create a
written product it is not unusual for “group think” to
creep into the process. This can be highly
dangerous to effective proposal writing.
• Except for very small dollar procurements, always
subject the draft proposal to a final (red team)
review of completely independent and
knowledgeable reviewers in order to assess the
effectiveness of the proposal strategy, the win
themes, the competitive approach, the fulfillment of
procurement requirements and effectiveness of the
proposal content.
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Mistake #9 –Believing Your
Own BS!
• The red team review should be a complete top to
bottom review of all proposal aspects to ensure that
the capture strategy is on track and has been
executed as effectively as possible. It is imperative
that you allow sufficient time and resources for
an effective red team review to be conducted and
for changes to the proposal to then be implemented
based on the feedback from that review.
• On larger dollar procurements it is typical to
conduct earlier interim reviews designed to assess
the effectiveness of both the capture strategy and
the proposal effort.
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Mistake #10 – Ineffective
Pursuit of Debriefings
• Proposals require a lot of cost and effort to create.
Unfortunately you just aren’t going to win them all.
That does not mean that the proposal effort has
been wasted however because even where we are
unsuccessful on a proposal we are typically entitled
to a post award debriefing.
• Debriefings provide unique opportunities to gain
valuable information for next time. Think of them as
a “focus group” marketing opportunity & use them
accordingly – make it clear to the customer that you
would appreciate an “in person” (or at worst
telephonic) debriefing to enable you to submit a
better proposal next time.
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Ineffective Pursuit of
Debriefings Cont’d
What are your debriefing goals?

To learn what was liked and not liked about your proposal
or your proposed team or your technical solution;

To obtain suggestions about what you could do differently
next time;

To understand clearly areas where your proposal was
downgraded or did not obtain maximum scoring; and

Position yourself for next time.
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Ineffective Pursuit of
Debriefings Cont’d
• Do not use debriefings to:
 Argue the merits of the Customer’s proposal evaluations
 Denigrate the awardee
 Denigrate the Customer’s conduct of the procurement.
• At the debriefing you need to be in “listen mode” so
as to be able to solicit and receive as much
information as possible. If you believe the process
or the outcome was flawed you have the opportunity
after the debriefing to consider or submit a formal
protest.
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The Top 10 Bid and Proposal Mistakes
Contractors Repeatedly Make
Questions?
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The Top 10 Bid and Proposal Mistakes
Contractors Repeatedly Make
Thank you!
James (Jim) Phillips
jphillips@centreconsult.com
(703)288-2800
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