The Top 10 Bid and Proposal Mistakes Contractors Repeatedly Make

2. 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 1

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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!

6. Mistake #1 - Spraying & Praying Effective bids and proposals are the end result of effective advance marketing in which you’ve -- introduced the customer to your offerings and capabilities, gained traction that your offerings and capabilities are considered desirable or effective and, most importantly, the customer is pre-disposed to viewing you as a prime contender for the contract.

7. 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

8. 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!

9. 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?

10. 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?

11. 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?

12. 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!

13. Mistake #4 – Little or No Competitive Analysis Unless a procurement is approved as a sole-source 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!

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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!

17. “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.”

18. “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.”

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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).

22. 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)

23. 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?”)

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. 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!

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. Questions? The Top 10 Bid and Proposal Mistakes Contractors Repeatedly Make

33. The Top 10 Bid and Proposal Mistakes Contractors Repeatedly Make Thank you! James (Jim) Phillips jphillips@centreconsult.com (703)288-2800