What’s your win rate these days? A recent report by OPEN by American Express shows that though bid rates are down by half from three years ago, win rates are edging up.
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Watch out for these common symptoms of a non-responsive proposal…and fix them BEFORE you submit! Got comments? Email us! (link sends e-mail)
- Failure to follow the RFP instructions regarding organization of the proposal, inclusion of required information, page limits or correct number of volumes.
- Proposal shortcomings or weak spots on high-value evaluation criteria and allocated points.
- Failure to demonstrate an understanding of the problem (the reason why the agency issued the RFP); generic proposal templates that do not reflect the RFP you’re responding to.
- Late or misdirected submission that can’t be re-routed in time.
- Incomplete responses to information requested in the RFP.
- Costs/budgets are unreasonable (too high or too low) or incomplete.
- Costs/budgets do not provide the detail required for line and sub-line items.
- Insufficient detail of the proposed solution.
- Unprofessionally produced proposal (as evinced by typos, blank pages, unnumbered pages, smudges, minimal white space, or inconsistent formatting)
- Poorly written proposal: Information is not presented/organized according to the structure required by the RFP; Proposal is difficult to follow; Contains poor grammar or features punctuation errors.
- Incomplete corporate data about past performance, staff, capabilities, or project management plans.
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Thanks to Deborah Kluge ( (link sends e-mail)www.proposalwriter.com) for inspiring this article, which adapts a checklist from her informative web site.
What’s next?
First, check out the other free resources at www.SummitInsight.com (link is external)!
Business Owners:
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