Proposal Writing
Bid content creation for all elements and sections of a proposal: how to write and design layouts, executive summaries, cover letters, and other components.
How Long Does It Really Take to Write a Winning Proposal?
Writing a winning proposal takes 10 to 40+ hours across 2 to 3 weeks, depending on the bid. Here's the breakdown by bid size and type, where the hours actually go phase by phase, and the five moves that compress your timeline without cutting quality.
How to Proofread Bid Documents: Tips, Tools & Checklist
A single typo or misplaced zero can cost you a contract. Here's a step-by-step process for proofreading bid documents, the mistakes that show up most often, the tools that help, and when to bring in a professional.
Should Your Bid Responses Include a Project Timeline?
A project timeline shows a buyer you understand the scope well enough to sequence it. Include it whenever the solicitation asks, and seriously consider it even when it doesn't. Here is what belongs in one, how service and product timelines differ, and what evaluators are actually checking.
RFP Graphics: Using Imagery to Elevate Proposals
A graphic earns its place in a proposal when it replaces text an evaluator would otherwise have to parse — a process diagram, a compliance matrix, a comparison table. Here is which types work, the rules of thumb for using them, free tools, and why the retention statistic everyone cites is worth dropping.
Writing Successful Key Staff Summaries for Your Next RFP
A key staff summary names the people who will do the work and proves they are qualified - and naming them is usually a contractual commitment, not a suggestion. Here's what the section must contain, what you are promising when you write it, and how to lay it out so it scores.
How to Build an RFP Response Template
An RFP response template guarantees nothing required gets left out and removes the blank-page problem so your time goes into tailoring rather than rebuilding. Here's how to build one section by section, how to design it for the way evaluators actually read, and how to keep improving it after every bid.
References for RFPs: A How-to Guide
References are how an evaluator tests whether your claims survive contact with someone who worked with you. Here's how to choose them, what each entry needs, why you should call before you submit - and why part of your federal past performance record is held by the government, not by you.
RFP Buzzwords: Eliminating Stale Language From Bid Proposals
Not all procurement jargon is filler. Here's how to tell them apart, what to write instead, and how to find the filler in your own draft.
RFP Proposal Writer: How to Write Like an RFP Expert
Whether you’re a small company or a major firm, you might need to purchase a product or service from an external source. That means shopping around. An RFP will give you a chance to collect offers from various vendors. But once you’ve found your perfect procurement opportunity (maybe you found it through Bid Banana, the…
How to Organize Original Documents and Forms of Solicitation
An agency posting is rarely one file. Set up folders for the solicitation, the attachments and the addenda before you read anything closely, keep both individual and merged copies of the forms, and re-check the posting throughout — because attachments cause more bid failures than proposals do.
Get an RFP Editor to Tackle Your RFP!
An RFP editor is a second person who reads the finished bid as an evaluator would. The role exists because writers cannot reliably edit their own work under deadline — they read what they meant rather than what is on the page. Here are the five layers a real edit covers and when to bring one in.
Cover Letter: From Uneasy to Breezy
A cover letter transmits your proposal; an executive summary argues it - and only one of them is usually scored. Here's what belongs in each, whether you need both, which to write first, and why collapsing them wastes the opening of your scored section.
RFP Content Portfolio to Simplify Your RFP Responses
An RFP content library is the maintained store of answers, documents and proof you reuse across bids - distinct from the template, which is the document's shape. Here's what belongs in it, how to organize it, what goes stale and how fast, and how to build one out of bids you're already doing.
Content for RFP Responses: Leverage Content for Bid Proposals
Most of the answers an RFP wants already exist somewhere in your business - the website, the pitch deck, old grant applications, the employee handbook, your press coverage. Here's where to look, what each source answers, and what to change before you paste any of it into a response.
Writing a Successful RFP Executive Summary
An RFP executive summary tells the evaluator who you are, why you understand their problem and why your solution wins - all before the technical pages begin. Here's what to include, how long to make it and why you should always write it last.
RFP Cover Letter: The Dos and Don’ts
An RFP cover letter is a one-page business letter that follows the solicitation's own formatting rules - font, size, margins and all. Here's the structure element by element, where it belongs in the package, whether it needs a signature, and the formatting mistakes that recur most.
Writing an RFP During the Coronavirus
During the Covid pandemic, very few aspects of our personal and professional lives have gone unaffected. Social distancing, remote work and economic changes are yielding new developments in how we work and conduct business. With all of these changes, you may find it challenging to manage an RFP response on your own. Writing an RFP doesn’t…
RFP Layout: Tips to Design Bids Exactly Right
The best RFP response layout mirrors the solicitation exactly — same headings, same order, same numbering — so an evaluator scoring against a rubric can find each answer without hunting. Here is how to build the compliance and attachment lists first, where design fits, and what to avoid.
What Makes a Good RFP? Diagnose Yours by the Bids It Draws
A good RFP produces comparable bids from qualified vendors at prices close to your budget. When it doesn't, the document caused it - and each failure points at a specific defect. Here's how to read your own responses as a diagnostic, and what to fix before the next solicitation goes out.
5 Tips and Tools for Creating Amazing RFP Responses
The five tools that actually move an RFP response: a content library of reusable answers, document design software, a collaboration platform with version control, AI used narrowly, and a way to find well-matched opportunities in the first place. Here is what each solves and when it earns its cost.
How Do I Write a Scope of Work for an RFP?
The scope of work is where the issuer defines what will be done, delivered and accepted - and it's the section every bidder prices against. Here are the sections it needs, how specific to make it, the difference between an SOW, a PWS and an SOO, and the omissions that cause disputes later.
Here’s What to Include in an RFP Cover Letter
An RFP cover letter is one page that names the reader, opens with something specific about them, states who you are and which requirements you match, and closes with a signature. Here's each element, the mistakes that recur in every one of them, and what to leave out entirely.
What Makes a Perfect RFP Writer?
Judging an RFP writer takes more than reading their samples. The skills that decide outcomes are compliance discipline, the ability to extract information from busy experts, and writing to a scoring rubric rather than to impress. Here is how to test for each, what to ask, and the warning signs.
Why You Need an RFP Writer
Your organization needs to build a new website. You’ve been chosen to spearhead the project. Now, it’s time to build a Request for Proposal (RFP) – and of course, you’ve never done this before! What is an RFP? How do you even construct one? Where do you look for help?
How to Write a Winning Bid
A winning bid answers the question asked, in the order asked, with evidence instead of adjectives. Here's how to turn claims into checkable proof, find the three or four discriminators that separate you from the field, structure each answer for a scoring evaluator, and use a debrief when you lose.