Experienced Government Contracts, RFP and Proposal Consultants:
Watson & Associates, LLC is a Colorado based law firm that also provides concise and meticulous government contract consulting based on actual experience from working on the other side. As compared to other entities that you currently use, we bring hands-on experience to the table. Our government contracts team helps you with RFP and proposal advice and help that increase your chances of award.
Our RFP and Government proposal experts provide comprehensive and cost effective consulting services to small, medium and large government contractors in Colorado and throughout the United States that want to increase their bottom line – more government contracts.
Consultants at Watson work with clients to write winning responses to federal requests for proposal (RFP).
We work with your subject matter experts.
Our government contracts experts will work with your subject matter experts and guide them to what works, makes suggestions for future contract award posture such as teaming arrangement and building genuine relationships with other small businesses.
Florida, Arkansas, California, Hawaii, New York, Maryland, Texas, Wyoming, New Mexico, Michigan, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Indiana, Ohio, Alaska, Georgia, Tennessee, Washington D.C., Washington, State, Denver, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, Kansas, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin
Medium and Large Businesses are experiencing a decline in Government Contract Awards.
The tides are turning. Less and less proposals are being awarded to large businesses. What our government contracts and proposal writing consultants find is that medium and large business fail to get the advice they need.
Learning how to market to the federal government changes everyday.
End users have different missions from hire headquarters, small business development is changing. You need sound proposal writing and government contracts consultants to help you through the ever-changing forest of government contracts. Contact us today or call (720) 941-7200.
THE RFP
The RFP process requires time-consuming reading and concise analysis to be effective. If you choose to wing it and not hire an RFP or proposal writing and analysis expert then:
- Read it once, and then read it again. And again. Experienced bidders know that several readings of an RFP are necessary for a complete understanding of what is required.
- Learn what the lettered sections of an RFP are (e.g., Section B refers to your pricing, Section C is the scope-of-work, Section K contains Representations and Certifications, Section L provides instructions to the bidders, Section M specifies the bid evaluation criteria, etc.). The titles of the lettered sections are generally the same in every RFP.
- Be aware that information critical to your bid may be scattered among many different sections of an RFP.
- Put the RFP in a 3-ring binder for easy use as a reference document. You might also want to insert dividers in front of each important section for quick reference.
- Use small “Post-It”™ notes at the edge of a page to mark important pages or paragraphs. That way, you can find them quickly.
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RFP
Our RFP and government proposal team understands the process. We Colorado based consultants and lawyers help you through the proposal process.
- If you don’t understand some of the information in the RFP, you can submit written questions to the Contracting Officer.
- Some RFPs specify a date by which questions are due. Make sure you send in your questions before the due date or they may not be considered.
- Be aware that the Government’s response to all submitted questions is distributed to all bidders, usually through a written amendment to the RFP. Although you and your firm will not be identified as the “asker” of specific questions, the way in which you word your questions could provide important information to your competitors. Word your questions carefully to ensure that you don’t give away information on your strategy or pricing.
- If you call the Contracting Officer to obtain or clarify information in an RFP, be aware that verbal information given to you by the Government is not binding.
THE PROPOSAL OUTLINE
If you have downloaded an RFP from the Internet, you can use that file to begin constructing your proposal outline. If you do not have the RFP on disk, use a scanner to scan in important sections for use in preparing your outline.
Some people prepare an annotated outline as well as a basic outline. An annotated outline can contain important points from the RFP, as well as your own information on what you are planning to say in each section.
If you prepare an annotated outline, copy your file, save it under a different name, and delete the annotations. The result will be a basic outline that you can use for easier viewing and tracking of proposal sections and subsections.
For each section and/or subsection of your outline, indicate the estimated number of pages that will be written, the person responsible for doing the writing, and the evaluation points.
Put important instructions on the first page or at the top of your outline, so you don’t have to rummage through the RFP to find them. These instructions might include: proposal due date and time, number of copies, page limits, font size, page margins, packaging and delivery instructions.
THE PROPOSAL SCHEDULE
PROPOSAL PREPARATION
- Make sure you are familiar with the instructions in Section L of the RFP.
- Study the proposal evaluation criteria and the points allocated to each section/subsection of the technical proposal, as well as the points that are allocated to cost. This information will tell you what to emphasize and where to put your efforts with regard to proposal preparation.
- Hold initial and regular follow-up meetings with your proposal team to discuss strategies, progress and problems.
- To the extent possible, your Technical Approach and strategy should provide answers to the following questions: who, what, when, where, how, and why.
- Depending upon the instructions in the RFP, your Management Section might contain a discussion on how you will manage the overall project, a discussion on how you will manage and oversee the work of your staff and subcontractors (if any), an organization chart of the project, and position descriptions of project staff.
- In your Personnel Section, you may be required to include narrative information on the experience and skills of the staff members you are proposing for the project and/or their resumes.
- In your Related Experience or Capabilities Section, you may need to demonstrate that you have performed similar or related work for this or other clients.
- Your proposal may have other sections such as an Executive Summary, a discussion of your Understanding of the Problem, Appendices, or other required Don’t assume that the Government knows your organization’s capabilities, staff or the projects you have carried out. The Government is supposed to evaluate only the specific information contained in your proposal. That means it must be written down in accordance with RFP instructions.
- Use tables, charts and graphics to summarize information (”a picture says a thousand words”) or to
- Check the entire proposal for the following: technical consistency; spelling; page numbering; section/subsection numbering or letting; consistency of appearance of headings, subheadings, font types and font sizes.
- Make sure you have filled in and signed all the forms in the RFP that you must return with your bid.
- Before and after copying your technical and cost proposals, check to see that each copy contains all pages and that they are in the proper order.
COST
- You have a technical proposal strategy — you should also have a costing strategy! Retaining our services can dramatically reduce man-hours while creating effectiveness in your proposal strategy. Don’t wait until the last minute to begin gathering cost information that you will need to prepare your budget.
- Be aware of and understand the type of contract you are bidding: fixed-fee, cost-plus, cost-reimbursement, time and materials, etc. This will likely affect the way you price your proposal.
- Prepare a spreadsheet template or checklist of items to include in your budget.
- Make sure your budget is consistent with what you are proposing to do or provide.
- You may need to develop some specific assumptions for budgeting purposes. If appropriate, you can include these assumptions in your cost/business proposal on a separate page or as footnotes to your budget. In any event, always document your assumptions so that you can refer to them later and make changes if needed.
- Check and re-check your numbers and formulas. Review the hard copy of your budget to help in spotting errors.
- Make sure that your budget can be easily read. Don’t use a font that is too small.
PROPOSAL PITFALLS - Don’t Let These Happen to You!
- Failure to follow the RFP instructions regarding organization of the proposal, inclusion of required information, page limits, volumes, etc.
- Failure to take evaluation criteria and allocated points into consideration when preparing your response.
- Failure to understand and to demonstrate an understanding of the problem (i.e., the reason why the agency is issuing the RFP).
- Failure to submit your proposal on the required date and time.
- Failure to include all of the information requested by the Agency.
- Failure to tailor your response to the specific RFP.
- Costs/budgets do not provide any detail or breakdown information (if required) for line and sub-line items.
- Failure to include specifics of your proposed approach to the project.
- Proposal is unprofessional in appearance (e.g., typos, blank pages, unnumbered pages, smudges, no whitespace, sloppy-looking, etc.). This reflects poorly upon your company.
- Proposal is poorly written (e.g., information is not presented/organized in a logical manner, proposal is difficult to follow, poor grammar, etc.)
- Proposal merely repeats or paraphrases the RFP.
- Proposal does not explain how or by whom the project will be managed.
- Proposal does not contain RELEVANT information about your firm, its capabilities, and/or its management and staff.
- Proposal does not demonstrate that your firm/organization and personnel have the experience and capability to carry out the project.
Contact us today or call (720) 941-7200.
When you find yourself lacking in proposal and RFP awards, contact our office for immediate help from people that have been on the other side of the fence and knows how to write winning government contract proposals and RFP. We can eliminate current overhead by providing you with outside counsel services for you proposal-writing deficiencies.
Our government contracts attorneys and consultants serve clients throughout the United States to include: Florida, Arkansas, California, Hawaii, New York, Maryland, Texas, Wyoming, New Mexico, Michigan, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Indiana, Ohio, Alaska, Georgia, Tennessee, Washington D.C., Washington, State, Denver, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, Kansas, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin
Federal proposal requirements
Federal government solicitations, or RFPs, often demand a great deal of detailed information from responding bidders. The government’s purpose is to determine if bidders are sufficiently qualified and experienced to accomplish successfully the objectives described in the RFP.
In submitting a proposal, a client faces competition from other bidders. A government committee evaluates each proposal but awards the contract only to a qualified bidder that also offers the best response to every section the solicitation requires. Therefore, a bidding client’s willingness and ability to address each required proposal section is of high importance in winning a contract.
The responses a bidder must complete vary from solicitation to solicitation, but consultants at Watson & Associates are experienced at guiding clients in providing the right information to complete each proposal section.
We increase the probability of award.
Proposal consultants at Watson & Associates boast focus on improving the probability of contract award. By preparing federal proposals using proven methodologies. First, we outline all RFP requirements to identify solicitation requirements and specifically address each one. Second, our trained and experienced proposal writers work to present a client’s ability to accomplish government objectives in the most favorable light possible.
Teamwork approach.
We work as a team with clients as bidders to prepare RFP responses that completely satisfy solicitation requirements. RFPs may ask bidders to supply items such as those listed below. However, the information does not often need to be submitted in finished form. Watson’s proposal consultants arrange graphics and text to accommodate the page limitations RFPs commonly impose.
Teaming with our experienced consultants, clients greatly increase their chances of winning contract awards.
Information supplied by bidders
1. An organization chart, if only a rough drawing, that illustrates the lines of authority bidders will use to execute the specific project in the RFP. All staff members that bidders plan to use in carrying out a project should be represented in the organization chart. If minor staff members have not yet been hired, they are shown as TBD (to be determined).
2. A flow chart showing the procedures or methods the bidder proposes to use to accomplish the project. Flow charts are impressive to contracting officers because they demonstrate a bidder’s careful planning. However, solicitation respondents do not always need to include them. Consultants at Watson & Associates can include flow charts in a proposal based on the client’s verbal description of his or her plan.
3. A statement of work is a detailed verbal explanation of steps or methods bidders will use to accomplish the project described in the solicitation.
Large or complex steps are often termed “milestones.” To reassure the government that progress towards project objectives can be observed, a successful proposal often includes ways a contracting officer can determine that milestones have been accomplished.
However, all RFP respondents must carefully think through the details of how they plan to accomplish objectives in the RFP. Watson’s proposal writers are accustomed to representing a client’s plans in clear and positive language.
4. Certifications or licenses are often required of the bidder to perform certain tasks, especially if the tasks involve technical responsibility. Successful bidders must supply a copy of all licenses and certifications they claim in order to demonstrate their ability to perform required work.
5. Resumes of all known staff, especially supervisory staff, to be used for a government project must be supplied. If an RFP requires specific qualifications for project staff, such as years of experience performing certain job duties or specific certifications/licenses, a successful bidder will show these qualifications in staff resumes.
6. Past performance is a section usually included in all federal proposals that gives detailed information of prior jobs the bidder has done that establish his or her ability to perform tasks described in the RFP.
Past performance references should include the name address and phone number, or other contact information, of companies or individuals the bidder has worked for that show an ability to perform tasks of similar size and scope as those described in the RFP. The government uses the contact information to verify past performance.
7. A quality control (QC) plan is often requested as part of a proposal submission. The document that contracting officers wish bidders to provide is a written plan for ensuring staff, products, and services meet contract standards.
The government sometimes supplies a separate quality control plan that details how the government contracting officer will evaluate and report a contractor’s progress and quality of work. The government’s QC plan is separate from the contractors QC plan.
Contact us today to become more successful in government contracting.
Watson & Associates, LLC
1001 South Monaco Parkway, Suite 310
Denver, Colorado 80224
(720) 941 7200
