Writing a more compelling and persuasive proposal than your competitors can significantly improve your chances of winning. In this series, we will provide some tips professional proposal writers use to make sure their proposal stands out from the crowd.
Is your proposal just compliant with the RFP? In a “Lowest Price Technically Acceptable” source selection, (see FAR 15.101-2), this is fine since everyone is competing based on price only. But the Government uses “Tradeoffs” when it is in the best interest of the Government to consider award to other than the lowest priced offeror or other than the highest technically rated offeror. A “tradeoff” is when the government gets to decide that a more beneficial approach, better past performance, or maybe better management plan or other non-price factor is of enough value to the customer that it warrants spending more and not making award to the lowest priced offer. And if you are competing based on a “Tradeoff Source Selection Process (see FAR 15.101-1)” (or “Best Value) and your proposal is just compliant, then you are vulnerable to someone with a better proposal.
Going beyond RFP compliance means being more credible and trustworthy in your proposal or showing that your offer better aligns with what the customer really wants and not just the providing the bare minimum qualifications. Make sure your proposal answers the following questions to improve your chances for award selection.
- Does your proposal demonstrate to the evaluators why what you are proposing is their best alternative? The customer has lots of proposals to choose from and can even choose none of them if they don’t like what they see. You need to help the customer to see that you understand what the customer really wants (not just saying “we understand…”). Sometimes this includes things that are not included in the RFP.
- Have you tried to find out what the customer thinks of the incumbent contractor? (See our Webinar coming up in February titled “Taking the Mystery Out of Getting to Know Your Customer” for some tips in this area!) What has he done wrong? How can you make sure the customer doesn’t have this same problem with you? Do you know what the customer’s preferences are and how they will view the technical vs price trade off? If so, have you written directly to those issues, helping the evaluator to see the benefit of your proposal? Winning a contract award is not about being the best you that you can be. It’s about being the customer’s best alternative by their standards.
- Have you answered all the questions the customer might have? A lot of proposal writers have trouble with this. Instead they simply restate what the Performance Work Statement (PWS) or Statement of Work (SOW) says that they must do. An easy way to ensure that you answer the customer’s questions is to address “who,” “what,” “where,” “how,” “when,” and “why” in your response. Ask yourself these questions and see if you can’t add detail to your proposal by providing answers to all of them. [Hint: the most commonly missed question in proposals is answering “How” you will perform the work!]
- Have you written your proposal to achieve the highest possible score based on the evaluation criteria? This is actually one of the most important things you can do to improve your chances of winning. Study the evaluation criteria and make sure that what you have written will get the highest score. Use the same terminology as in the evaluation criteria to help the evaluator tie it to the best score. Don’t include information that is not addressed in the evaluation criteria since you won’t earn any extra points for it and it just clutters what the evaluator is looking for.
Finally, don’t forget to make sure your proposal is also compliant! The best technical proposal in the world will not be awarded a contract if you haven’t met all the RFP requirements! Do a thorough check of your proposal against the requirements before sending it in – and don’t forget to sign it!