Are your federal proposals ready for "busy season"?

The last quarter of the federal fiscal year starts Saturday, can you believe it? The upcoming "busy season" of proposals stands right before us with an uptick of anticipated proposals increasing month-over-month from July through September. Needless to say, it's imperative for your proposals to be as strong as they can be. Here are a quick set of three ideas to consider in strengthening your proposals:

• Establish relevance. Don't expect the evaluator to understand why you chose that specific example or past performance citation. Consider adding a short relevance block (or meatball chart) that explicitly states why that content is directly relevant to the evaluator's challenges and/or objectives. 

• Highlight and brag on your team. Evaluators want to understand the people that will be on their business. In each area of your functional work plan (and most certainly in your management plan), try to call a proposed team member out by name. And, why they are going to relevant and valuable for the client. Also, if you're using internal titles ... stop. Swap those out for their functional roles and/or what their mapped labor category is on the contract. 

• Provide specificity. Often times, we're bidding large, complex engagements. Instill confidence in your ability to manage and navigate the contract through the addition of specificity. For example, in your management plan add a robust narrative calling out dependencies and major milestones. 

For the last couple of months, we've been reviewing previously submitted proposals and providing suggestions to improve future proposals. Often times this includes reviewing a small sampling (3-4) of recently submitted proposals and identifying 7-10 immediately actionable areas for improvement. Please reach out if this is of interest. We're working on a first-come, first-serve basis through July and early August.