Federal Government Proposals / Bid Contracts Writing

There are many mistakes first time proposal writers make when submitting a bid with the federal government. The following outlines some of the key mistakes many firms make when writing their own proposals.

Key Point 1: Using “government speak” in your proposal (that being the terms and acronyms that people in that agency use when communicating) is critical for demonstrating an complete understanding of the government task order.

Key Point 2: Additional information should be added to most proposals that will decrease the effort required by the procurement officer giving your bid a much higher likelihood of winning the contract.

Key Point 3: “Trial and Error Method” many lucrative government contracts are awarded for up to a five (5) year duration. Using these contracting opportunities as learning opportunities while you perfect your bidding process can result in the loss of a great deal of revenue for the firm.

Key Point 5: Understanding the bid evaluation process or “best value factors”, meaning the numerical values the federal procurement officers will assign to the various attributes in the proposal. This helps the firm to do a self assessment to identify weaknesses in the proposal and develop a strategy to bolster those areas.

Key Point 6: Each awarded contract gives the firm additional “past performance” increasing the firms resume in the federal market space. This makes getting the next contract easier and each successive contract builds upon itself usually increasing in responsibility and dollar value. Winning contracts early in a firm’s federal contracting career may result in additional revenue in many future contract awards.

Key Point 7: Writing a successful government proposal takes an in-depth analysis of the proposal as understanding the other agendas that are critical to that federal agency. Copying and pasting RFP responses from one proposal to the next is a poor strategy used by many firms that leaves the door wide open for your competitors to shine.

Key Point 8: If your product or service offering provides additional benefits to the federal agency be sure to clearly document these advantages, as this can be critical information in a “best value” consideration.

Key Point 9: Use your proposal to eliminate as much risk as possible from awarding your firm the contract. An awarded contract that results in failure and the removal of the awarded company results in a great deal of additional work for the procurement officer and therefore always in the back of their minds when evaluating proposals.

Key Point 10: Being unsuccessful with your first few proposals so abandoning the federal market space as an income source.

Our Winning Proposal Process

1. Advisement from proposal writers who have won millions in government contract dollars

2. Extraction of crucial information from your key players

3. Development of winning and competitive strategy

4. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) interpretation

5. RFP compliance determination

6. Competitor Analysis

7. Strategic development when necessary for CTA contract teaming agreements and JV joint-venture agreements

8. Pricing review and guidance

9. Proposal writing, as well as support and analysis

10. Full technical writing, editing, and redrafting services from multiple reviewers and contributors

11. Subcontracting plans