Responding to a Blizzard of RFPs with a Small Team
Many of the professional services firms we speak with are routinely resource challenged particularly with business development and proposal support. The larger companies are frequently underwater and both small business and large business alike often have too few dedicated team members for business development and proposal activities...if they have anyone at all. If you have a small business development / proposal team, how do you stay focused, figure out which ones to spend time on, and turn out a good product?
As we continue to head into the eye of “busy season” in the federal market, it’s important to keep up with the onslaught of opportunities — specifically:
Prioritize. We all get excited about a bunch of RFPs dropping during procurement season, but now is the time to be cold eyed about what we have the best chance of winning. Don’t chase bluebirds - sit down with your team and winnow the prospects down to the best targets. Now is not the time to make stretches into new markets or pursue an opportunity that you are just now learning about on SAM.gov.
Decide on a bid / no bid decision swiftly. Avoid losing days as a result of indecisiveness. This is especially important the more resource constrained your company is. Every day counts.
Leverage proposal libraries for past performance, resumes, etc. instead of reinventing the wheel for each proposal. Just don’t forget to tailor each for the opportunity at hand.
Next week, we'll cover some thoughts on addressing a question asked during a recent training we delivered “How can we do a color team review when there’s generally just two of us working on these?”