Upon receiving the solicitation, the proposal manager develops an outline based on the requirements. After circulating it to the bid team, the capture lead sends a reply. He writes the structure “doesn’t flow” and demands changes because the outline does not allow him to tell the story he wants.

Eventually, every proposal manager runs into a capture lead who fights the structure developed. Despite my belief that proposals are creative enterprises, proposal professionals do not have carte blanche to develop a response however we see fit. Proposals must follow the structure prescribed in the solicitation, regardless of if it allows the “right” story to be told.

This post provides proposal professionals with three points to make to difficult capture leads when developing the response structure. Two relate to the general outline; the third focuses on a particular pet peeve of mine – the need for a summary at the end of sections and/or documents.

proposals are evaluated, not read

If there is one point you take away from this post, it is that no one reads a proposal cover-to-cover. Proposal evaluators are often tasked with reviewing submissions as extra duties. They have a lot of competing demands on their time and attention, both in the office and outside of it. As such, they are not reading your proposal for knowledge; instead, they are focusing on how well you address the requirements of each individual section. Often, they have a checklist of requirements to map against your submission.

This is the main reason to structure responses to the requirements – to make the evaluator’s job as easy as possible. Allow your evaluators to “check” each requirement easily. The more you make them hunt for each individual requirement the longer your evaluation takes and the more likely you will not get full credit.

This is not to say the team should simply write a technical step-by-step response to the requirement. Having a technically accurate response will only get you so far. You also need to show that your firm can address the needs of the client that drives those requirements. Clearly articulating the benefits of your approach, and how they answer the client’s underlying needs, allows your proposal to stand out and make an impact.

only address what they ask for

Because proposals are evaluated (not read), you need to focus your response only on what the client asks you to write about. Anything not asked for should not be included in the response.

For example, some solicitations only ask you to write to some PWS/SOW requirements but not others. When this occurs, use it as a sign – the client wants your focus on these specific areas. Other solicitations ask for your corporate experience but not a solution/approach to doing the work.

Adding content that is not included in the instructions and/or evaluation criteria is a waste of your writer’s time and of page count. It does not matter if it tells a good story or helps bridge what you understand to be a problem the client faces; if they have not asked for you to write about it you will not get any credit for doing so. Also, you risk annoying those who developed the solicitation. Evaluators have told me they worry about the ability of an organization to follow direction on a contract if they cannot do so in the proposal.

In the Government sphere, the evaluator can only give you strengths based on what has been identified in the evaluation criteria. It does not matter if you are the best designer of widgets in the world; if they do not ask you how to design a widget you should not include it. In short, answers what the client asks, not what you think they should have asked for.

you do not need a summary

There are many people out there who have been trained in the “tell them what you will tell them – tell them – summarize what you told them” approach. However, I am not a proponent of this approach. I do believe in beginning a section with a brief, client-focused introduction that shows you know what they need and how you answer it. However, a summary can be a waste in three key ways:

• You waste time developing something that will not be evaluated
• You waste valuable page space that can be better focused on answering the requirements of the solicitation (given the summary will not be evaluated)
• You are simply reiterating something you said up front (which will not be evaluated)

If you are not tightly constrained on your page count, or you have extra time, summaries may be okay. However, on these “unicorn” bids you need to decide if it is worth allocating resources to something the evaluators will likely ignore.

conclusion

Proposals are designed to resonate with evaluators and, most importantly, to score maximum points. It is not meant to be a literary masterpiece, a page-turner the evaluator cannot put down. In order to win, proposal teams need to focus on the client, follow their directions, and make sure the response correlates to what they ask for and what they need.