Complimentary Webinar Government Proposal Writing for Newcomers Richard

Complimentary Webinar: Government Proposal Writing for Newcomers Richard White rwhite@fedmarket. com 301. 908. 0546 888 -661 -4094 Press “ 2” for Sales

Richard White Mr. White founded a federal contracting company is 1973. He built the company form its inception $170 million in sales before selling the company in 1989. As CEO of his company he headed a 300 -person computer services organization and a 1, 200 -person federal facility management division. Earning a B. S. in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters in Computer Science, Mr. White dedicated his career to government contracting and computer-related fields. He has served as a management consultant with Booz, Allen, & Hamilton and as President of Macro Systems, Inc. Mr. White is a recognized expert in government marketing and sales. He knows the nuances of selling to governments, including the sales processes used for individual government markets defined by procurement size, multiple award schedule sales, negotiated procurement sales, and proposal writing. Mr. White is the author of seven books on government contracting and is a frequent speaker on federal contracting topics. He teaches the good, bad, and ugly of government contracting and how to win government contracts in the unique and the seemingly irrational world of government bureaucracies. www. fedmarket. com

Complimentary Webinars q Realities of the Government Marketplace - Learn the truth about selling to the government from a veteran federal contractor. Companion e. Book: The Realities of Government Contracting q GSA Schedules 101 - In a quandary about GSA? What is it, why do I need q Government Proposal Writing for Newcomers - Is there a secret to one, do I really need one? Your questions and more answered right here. Companion e. Book: GSA Schedules: The Shortest Path to Federal Sales writing a winning government proposal? Not really, but there are 2 critical aspects not to overlook. Companion e. Book: Government Proposal Writing for Newcomers q Small Business Preference Programs - Understand the different types of preference programs available, the certification process, and get an honest assessment of how beneficial a preference program could be to your business. Companion e. Book: Small Business Preference Programs: The Good and Not So Good www. fedmarket. com

Realities of Winning Government Contracts 1. Open competition is too expensive and time consuming for most federal purchases. The government would grind to a halt if open competition were used for every purchase. 1. Federal buyers cannot just purchase a product of service without following rules concerning the amount of competition required. Limited competition is allowed and the limitations depend on the dollar amount of the purchase. 2. The actual competition is usually less than specified by the rules. 3. Discussions with vendors early in the buying process is critical so end users know the features, benefits, and value of what they are buying. www. fedmarket. com

Realities of Winning Government Contracts continued… 5. Contracting officials often discourage early sales discussions (preselling) when in fact the federal purchasing regulations actually encourage it. 6. Contracting officers do not tell prospective bidders about pre-selling activity that may or may not have taken place with end users because they probably won’t know. Or if they do know they don’t say to give the appearance of a level playing field. 7. The award file and what it shows on paper is the all-important document in federal contracting. 8. The appearance of competition in the award file is as important as actual competition because the file has to pass the scrutiny of superiors and the unsuccessful competitors, and survive an audit by federal auditors. www. fedmarket. com

What You Should Know 1. Federal end users (the decision makers) are risk averse because their jobs and reputations depend on contractor performance. As a result, in most cases they will select the known company over the new company. 2. Incumbent contractors usually win reoccurring contracts. They have an inherent edge because they know the contract and the customer inside and out. Some say they should not be able to compete for contracts that they hold but that would be not be practical or cost effective for the federal government. www. fedmarket. com

What You Should Know continued… 3. Companies with federal customers have a built in sales network because they are known to their customers and use customers for referrals to other customers. They can pre-sell as they perform contracts at little cost. 3. Aggressive pre-sellers have an edge (whether new to the market or insiders) because they know the customer and the customer knows them at the time of the bid. www. fedmarket. com

Execution is the key to winning federal contracts. Almost all failures in the federal market can be attributed to lack of execution of an aggressive sales program. Proposals close a deal, not sell it Execution is difficult because of the lack of (1)customers to use as a base, (2) money, (3) talent, and distaste for rejection www. fedmarket. com

Effective Proposal Writing Requires Experience It’s Like Riding a Bike § You must have experience to write winning proposals. Experience comes from writing proposals over and over. § Even natural and talented writers are not necessarily good proposal writers. An experienced Proposal Manager is critical to success! www. fedmarket. com

Most Companies Hate Proposal Writing Why is proposal writing the Achilles heel of government contracting? They are: • Messy, costly, and invariably behind schedule • Emotionally hurtful when they lose • Can impact billable percentage severely • Like the dreaded term paper for college Government evaluators hate them too! www. fedmarket. com

Are There Any Secrets? Sell before you write, and write only winners (an overall goal) Like any platitude, selling before you write has exceptions: • Proposals for Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts for which the primary requirements are qualifications and price • Proposals where you are one of the few who may be qualified (“sweet spots”) • Teaming situations where one team member has sold the customer • Intelligence gathered after the issuance of the Request for Proposal (RFP) indicates that you can win, e. g. , they don’t like the incumbent contractor. www. fedmarket. com

Keys but not secrets Day 1: Make a bid/no bid decision; the CEO is traveling syndrome Afternoon of Day 1: Start the proposal outline Don’t reinvent the wheel, develop and store: • Technical (subject matter) legacy content • Corporate experience & resumes • Model text for management plans & approaches www. fedmarket. com

Characteristics of a Losing Proposal Most proposals lose because the government had another company in mind when the RFP was drafted and then don’t tell you who they have talked to. Preselling is encouraged. A loss can also occur because of a better “best value argument” combined with a superior price, or you had an excellent “best value argument”, but a “piggish” price. In the case of an incumbent, you can expect your proposal to lose if your company has inadvertently let its performance slip. A loss will almost always have to do with your relationship with the customer (or lack thereof) and its reflection in the proposal’s content, and in how you have presented your solution to the customer’s problem. 
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Know When to Hold Them and Know When to Fold Them In making bidding decisions, your firm should be realistic in considering six important issues: Is there an incumbent? Have you sold the customer prior to the posting of the bid? Does the customer even know you? What are your unique capabilities? Who will be competing against you and what are their capabilities? Do your competitors know the customer? What are the costs of writing the proposal? How much content do you have on the shelf? Is existing content well done and compelling and what will be required of the professional staff in developing new, required content? When in doubt, fold’em and wait for a better hand. CEOs tend to overbid www. fedmarket. com

Why a Structured Outline is a Necessity? A typical federal RFP will: • Contain a morass of important and unimportant clauses • A baffling list of proposal requirements, and statements of work that are poorly written or insufficient in detail. • And everything is smashed together in a poorly organized RFP. • Missing a detail in this morass can lead you to file a proposal that does not meet the agency’s requirements. • A phrase, a misplaced punctuation mark, an ambiguity in an instruction or requirement, or missing a page limitation can make the difference between success and failure. • Don’t give the evaluators a reason for throwing you in the “not responsive pile”. www. fedmarket. com

Structured Proposal Writing Process, You Must Have One The complexity of government RFPs demands a highly structured proposal writing process; namely, a detailed outline containing everything pertinent from the RFP. If you have a structured system that produces winners, use it. But you must have a system; you are taking risks without one. Our proposed structure is a detailed initial outline containing everything required to write, before you write www. fedmarket. com

Why Have a Structured Process? The key to success is having a system (any system) that meets the following five objectives: q q q Ensures compliance to RFP requirements. (Noncompliance is one of the primary ways the government moves your proposal into the “not worthy of further consideration” pile. ) Helps writers produce compelling content. Helps to ensure readability, conciseness, and clarity. Reduces proposal costs. Helps to eliminate last-minute proposal production crises. (Management involvement is the primary factor in reducing crises. ) The larger and more complex the requirement, the more important an RFP-driven, detailed outline becomes. www. fedmarket. com

Additional Benefits of a Proposal System A detailed outline (template) provides two other benefits in producing a winning proposal. 1. A template is an absolute necessity for extracting content from subcontractors. 2. Detailed proposal templates can be stored and improved each time a proposal for similar services is written. On other words, templates evolve and get better and better. Ask veteran proposals writer and they will tell you legacy content makes their lives worth living. www. fedmarket. com

Eliminate “Circling” If done first and comprehensively, an outline eliminates the endless circling around the proposal writing project and wasted billable time, as everyone tries to communicate what the proposal should contain without anyone actual writing anything. Typical circling statements include: • “Let’s have a meeting so I can tell you my ideas, but you write it. ” • “Let’s not write; let’s have fun and map out our ideas, themes, and thoughts on whiteboards, and then schedule another meeting to deal with the writing issue. ” www. fedmarket. com

Help Writers with Writers Block Technical writers usually hate to write and will hide when a proposal is scheduled. An outline will assist them in getting it done and ideally will show them models from previous proposals and a tight organization structure with guidelines and instructions. Try to make the technical writers think they are not writing but filling in the dot points. www. fedmarket. com

Minimize Protest Risk A structured system helps you fend off protests against an award to your company by making your proposal bulletproof-compliant in every way. • Address each and every requirement • Substantiate all claims • Check required personnel certifications and related RFP requirements • Justify your price in every way in case the government attempts to go low bid www. fedmarket. com

How Do Proposal Evaluators Think? Making it easy on proposal evaluator’s scores valuable evaluation points. They may have 20 proposals to read at 10 pm at night after their children soccer games. Reading a stack of overly verbose and off-the-mark proposals is no more fun than writing them. They read only portions and some hardly at all. Many companies (usually large ones) provide proposal evaluators with content, which (1) wasn’t requested, and/or (2) may actually reflect negatively on the company. www. fedmarket. com

How Do Proposal Evaluators Think? Continued… Examples of worthless content include: • • • Beautiful PDFs with complex graphics that say very little--great graphics can enhance a proposal but the graphic must say something pertinent Confidentiality statements crafted by corporate lawyers Content that pushes the page limits, i. e. , too much information Complex, state-of-the-art solutions Overblown puffery attempting to show technical superiority, and slogans like “we strive for excellence” Features, features, and more features, but with little emphasis on benefits Long and flowery executive summaries that don’t succinctly explain the benefits to working with your firm and how your firm will reduce the procurement officer’s risk A regurgitation of the scope of work An attendee at the last webinar was a proposal evaluator and emailed me to say: “we could spot corporate puffery even when we only skin read. ” www. fedmarket. com

How Do Proposal Evaluators Think? Continued… In most cases, evaluators want the facts and the proof that your firm provides the best value, and they want an executive summary that allows them to skip most of the rest of the proposal and just read a few key sections. The headaches for evaluators come from figuring out how to dump the duds as quickly as possible, how to score your favorite without looking biased, and then how to write the “file” required to justify the winner. When former government proposal evaluators attend Fedmarket’s proposal writing courses, they invariably agree on the characteristics of proposals that receive the most evaluation points: www. fedmarket. com

What do proposal evaluators want? superior organizational structure brevity and clarity easy to read and understand no frills, extras, or puffery contains only what the RFP asked for the solution the customer wants, not what they need an effective, practical solution to the customer’s problem In short, make their life easy--it is not fun evaluating twenty proposals in a limited amount of time. www. fedmarket. com

Proposal Writing Strategies and Tips Show the customer you understand their problem and present a practical, risk-free solution laden with insights and benefits. Write the Executive Summary first using customer insights, your experience with similar work, and contract performance and management insights. Then refine and rewrite it as the proposal progresses. Don’t just parrot back the RFP requirements. Develop, name, and store model text, so you can retrieve and reuse what you have written for previous proposals. www. fedmarket. com

Proposal Writing Strategies and Tips continued… Always tailor model text to the RFP requirements. Evaluators can spot untailored model text from a mile away. Don’t use broad, unsubstantiated claims like “Collectively our company has 100 person-years of experience. . . ” or “Our company is a world class. . . ” You will make the government evaluators guffaw and they’ll end up subtracting evaluation points. Be subtle and if you are going to boast back it up with evidence. Never give evaluators more than they asked for, just to impress. If the RFP asks for three experience summaries, the evaluators want three of your best. If the RFP asks you to submit a key persons resume only, that is what the evaluators want. www. fedmarket. com

Proposal Writing Strategies and Tips continued… Pack the proposal with understanding of the customer’s needs and with compelling solutions. Write to the evaluation criteria and put the emphasis on sections that count the most. Consider not bidding if you can’t provide point-scoring content that’s clearly based on the customer’s needs. There is nothing wrong with abandoning a proposal in the early stages of writing. Be brutal and get out early if it appears that you cannot score evaluation points. www. fedmarket. com

The Fedmarket RFP Deconstruction System Proposal Chapters 1. A government proposal outline is comprised of the following chapters (or primary sections). 2. Executive Summary (Introduction, Summary Letter) 3. Compliance Matrix 4. Technical Proposal 5. Management Plan 6. Personnel 7. Corporate Experience 8. Business (Price) Proposal 9. Relevant Contract Clauses 10. Proposal Instructions www. fedmarket. com

RFP Deconstruction Procedure Read the RFP cover to cover and note the basics of the government’s requirements evaluation criteria, and instructions. Set up the primary chapters (sections) in a Word document. Now read the RFP again. Read sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-byparagraph and section-by-section and make a judgment concerning the relevance of each item (sentence, paragraph, or section) before you proceed. As you read sentence-by--sentence the pertinent items that you will encounter will be various types as shown in Table 1. Move the item into the appropriate Chapter(s) of the outline and color -code as shown in Table 1. Use Table 1 and the Color Coding Guide as guides to deconstructing the RFP. www. fedmarket. com

Deconstruction Procedure Insertion Step/Type of Information to Insert in Outline Section/Chapter 1. All requirements Compliance Matrix from RFP (include title and RFP section number) 2. RFP Statement of Work requirements (item-by-item) into a work hierarchy or solution description Color Code (Font Color) Person Responsible Notes Black Proposal Manager This is the proposal evaluator’s road map to check compliance. Proposal Manager Work requirements should be translated into a work or solution hierarchy. Proposal Manager Management plans can vary from not required to extensive depending on the RFP Technical Approach Purple (Work hierarchy or solution description) 3. Contract Management Plan management requirements (if in the RFP) Purple www. fedmarket. com

Deconstruction Procedure 4. All pricing Business (Price) Proposal Black 5. Relevant contract clauses Relevant Contract Clauses Black 6. Evaluation criteria 7. RFP pricing instructions, requirements, and formats Proposal Manager instructions to price proposal developers Anywhere they are Yellow applicable Business (Price) Red Proposal Manager Chief Financial Officer Proposal Manager Contract Manager When in doubt as to relevance, insert the clause Proposal Manager -- Proposal Manager - Sales people www. fedmarket. com

Deconstruction Procedure Proposal delivery instructions, font size requirements, page limitations, volumes required, number of copies required and binding and packaging instructions Proposal Manager instructions to proposal writers, suggestions, notes & writing guidelines for creating content Proposal Instructions Black Proposal Manager -- Where needed in the outline Red Proposal Manager The more the better www. fedmarket. com

Deconstruction Procedure Color-Coding Guide Open the color-coding guide in a window as a reference when building the proposal outline. Or print it out as a convenient way to determine color-codes. Color Code Green Pink Red Purple Yellow Information Application in-line help instructions Editable text in outline chapters Proposal Manager instructions of any type RFP requirements RFP evaluation criteria www. fedmarket. com

Deconstruction Procedure Add non-RFP information to the Proposal Outline Make the outline as complete as possible before assigning writing tasks and beginning the writing process. Make writing assignments and set deadlines. Hold a meeting to explain the outline and discuss assignments and deadlines. Monitor writing progress and assist writers as necessary. Fill in the holes in the Word version of the outline as content is provided and edit. Hold reviews, edit again, text, and produce the final draft of the proposal. www. fedmarket. com

Some May Say Deconstructing an RFP is Easy (It’s Harder Than It Appears) Deconstruction of the RFP requires a proposal manager with judgment and proposal writing experience. Selecting which items to move from the RFP into the outline is a highly selective process. (Sensing whether or not a contract clause might be an issue. ) Knowing what content from previous proposals is pertinent and rewriting resumes and corporate experience requires skill gained from previous proposals. Preparing guidance and instructions for technical writers is a creative process. www. fedmarket. com

Or Some May Say It’s Too Hard What part of this would you not do, and why not do everything required in the beginning? Other reasons why you must do some form of outlining. • All writers are working from a common outline and the government is getting precisely what they asked for. • Outlining is fundamental to good writing. • An editor can work with a sequence of clearly organized sentences, but poorly organized content has to be rewritten from scratch. • Makes the proposal easy to read and score. www. fedmarket. com

Fedmarket’s Proposal Writing Tools, Services and Seminars Writing and Managing Winning Proposals Advanced Proposal Development Workshop Basic Cost Proposal Workshop Advanced Cost Proposal Workshop www. fedmarket. com

Fedmarket’s Proposal Writing Tools, Services and Seminars Services • Strategic Consulting on Proposal Writing • Customized Proposal Training at Your Location – call 888 -661 -4094, Ext. 2 for details www. fedmarket. com

Fedmarket’s Proposal Writing Templates, Services and Seminars Templates Proposal Wrting Template Price Templates Call Fedmarket’s sales staff at 888 -6614094, Ext. 2 with have questions concerning products/service www. fedmarket. com

Other Available Complimentary Book Downloads § Rolling the Dice in DC: How the Federal Sales Game is Really Played § Cracking the $500 Billion Federal Market: The Small Business Guide to Federal Sales § Loading the Dice in DC, Legally: Learn the Politics and Realities of Federal Contracting § Government Contracting for Donkeys www. fedmarket. com

About Fedmarket assists companies in obtaining federal contracts by providing training and consulting services and online market intelligence services. • Training • Proposal writing • Buyer contact lists (standard and customized for your company) Please call me at personally at 301. 908. 0546 if you would like to discuss any aspect of federal sales, or call Fedmarket’s sales team at 888 -6614094, Ext. 2. Richard White Fedmarket 301. 908. 0546 rwhite@fedmarket. com www. fedmarket. com