The opportunity of a lifetime has found its way to your organization in the form of a Request for Proposal (RFP). You share the RFP document with the members of your management team, and you begin planning your response strategy. That’s when you begin to realize the work that lies ahead.

Indeed, the excitement that an RFP generates is often quickly tempered by the dawning realization of the immense amount of toil that goes into competing for – and winning – that coveted government or private-sector contract. As always, it’s when the stakes are highest that everyone on your team must shine their brightest and produce their best work.

You can help by breaking down the proposal into manageable parts, by assigning specific sections to the appropriate individuals on your team, by establishing a series of realistic deadlines that allow for producing a polished looking proposal, and by ensuring that the finished proposal contains both a strong call to action and all the required information specified in the RFP.

INCOMPAS can assist you in all phases of this process, or you can call us in at the very end, to assist you in the editing and final presentation of your proposal. To get you started, we’ve developed a point-by-point plan to assist you in preparing a winning proposal.

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Proposal Preparation Plan


Be Informed:

· Read the RFP carefully, all the way through, at least three times, so that everyone in your organization has a thorough grasp of all requirements and expectations. The information that is crucial to your proposal will likely be scattered throughout the RFP.

· Recognize and understand the proposal for what it is: a plan that identifies a need or problem, followed by effective strategies that meet the need or solve the problem, a list of anticipated costs and an explanation of how the strategies’ progress and resulting benefits will be measured. Your proposal must contain a strong call to action, and it must be organized and concise, including all required information.

· Focus on the proposal evaluation criteria and the subsequent weight given to each proposal section. It is here that you will learn where to focus your efforts during the preparation of your proposal.


Be Organized:

· Develop a proposal schedule by working backwards from the due date, and stick to it. Establish separate due dates for financial information, allowing sufficient time to acquire more information and refine existing information. Hold regular meetings with your proposal teams to discuss strategies, progress and any roadblocks that are encountered along the way. Make sure you factor in plenty of time for copying, binding and delivery of your proposal. Set aside additional time for distributing your proposal to your entire team, and make sure there is a qualified person on hand to proof-read the final document before it leaves your organization.

· Delegate and inform. In each section of the RFP, specify the individual who will be preparing the information for that section, and provide them with a guideline word or page count as well as a bulleted list of the points to be covered in that section. Post important instructions, so that your team has easy access to information such as the proposal due date, the number of required copies, delivery instructions, etc. Don’t complicate your team’s job by making them hunt for this information.

· Create an RFP binder to assist your team in quickly and easily accessing the information that applies to them, with all the sections clearly divided. Highlight the most important sections of the RFP and flag them with post-it notes.


Be Prepared:

· Ask questions well in advance. If anyone on your team has any questions about the RFP, make sure that you ask them well in advance of the query deadline. And because agency replies are typically distributed to all proponents, it’s important to carefully phrase your questi