What a Proposal Team Should Do Between Bids
While RFPs can be challenging, taxing and stressful at times, they’re anything but static. How you write and manage your proposals evolves as your company grows and takes on new business. As such, proposal management involves the vital role of working behind the scenes to reflect these changes within the RFP process. In fact, driving business…
The work that decides whether you win your next bid mostly happens when you are not bidding. Content libraries go stale, references move jobs, due-diligence answers drift out of date, and the SME who gave you a figure eighteen months ago has since changed roles. A quiet month is not downtime for a proposal function - it is the only time this maintenance can happen without a deadline attached.
Seven tasks fill that window. Done between bids they cost hours; done during one they cost you the bid.
What Should a Proposal Team Do Between Bids?
| Task | What it involves | What it prevents |
|---|---|---|
| Audit the content library | Re-read every reusable section; check dates, figures, named staff | Submitting a claim that stopped being true a year ago |
| Refresh references | Confirm contacts still hold the role and still consent | A reference call reaching a disconnected number |
| Pre-answer due diligence | Complete the standard questionnaire while nothing is due | Chasing finance for a ratio two days before submission |
| Update the SME map | Re-confirm owners per requirement area, and name backups | A requirement nobody owns, found four days out |
| Run a win-loss review | Analyze the last six months by category, with debriefs | Repeating the same losing pattern indefinitely |
| Study upcoming solicitations | Read past versions of contracts you intend to bid | Meeting a 90-page format for the first time under deadline |
| Brief the wider business | Tell staff how bids work and what will be asked of them | Company-wide confusion every time a solicitation lands |
None of these are glamorous and none of them have a deadline, which is exactly why they slip. Putting them on a quarterly calendar with a named owner is the difference between a proposal function and a proposal scramble.
How Often Does a Content Library Actually Go Stale?
Faster than teams expect, because the decay is invisible. Staff numbers change, certifications lapse and renew, insurance limits get revised, a named project lead leaves, a client you cite as current becomes a former client. None of that announces itself in the document, so a content library that felt reliable last spring can contain half a dozen quiet inaccuracies by autumn.
Date-stamp every reusable block with when it was last verified and by whom. It takes seconds when you write it and it converts a vague worry into a filter: anything older than six months gets re-checked before it goes into a submission. That single habit catches most of what would otherwise be submitted wrong.
Pay particular attention to anything a buyer could verify independently. An overstated staff count or a lapsed certification is not merely embarrassing; in a public procurement it can put your responsiveness in question.
Why Read Solicitations You Are Not Bidding On?
Because the contract you want will be recompeted, and its previous version is usually public. Reading it tells you the format, the evaluation weights, the mandatory qualifications and the scale of the response - months before the window opens, when you can still do something about a gap.
It also tells you whether you are eligible at all. Discovering a bonding threshold or a certification requirement while there is a year to address it is a different situation from discovering it during the response window, when the only available answer is no.
Watch for sources sought notices and RFIs in your categories for the same reason. Requirements are frequently drafted from vendor input gathered at that stage, and a specification written with your capabilities in view is worth more than any amount of proposal polish afterward.
What Does a Win-Loss Review Look Like?
Sit down with the last six months of submissions and separate the losses by cause. Losing on price is a pricing conversation with whoever sets rates. Losing on technical score is a content and evidence problem. Being eliminated as non-responsive is neither - it is a process defect with a checklist fix, and it should be tracked to zero rather than to an improvement.
Take every debrief a buyer offers and write down what they say in the same place as everything else. Patterns emerge across four or five debriefs that are invisible in any one of them, and the pattern is the thing worth acting on.
Who Owns This Work in a Small Company?
One named person, even at a few hours a quarter. It does not require a dedicated proposal manager - our guide to the bid management team covers how smaller teams combine the roles. What it does require is that the work belongs to somebody, because maintenance with no owner and no deadline is maintenance that does not happen.
A workable minimum for a small business: one half-day per quarter, one owner, and a short standing agenda covering the seven tasks above. That is roughly two days a year, and it converts your next response from a research project into an assembly job.
Use the Quiet Period
The best use of a quiet month is to make the next busy one cheaper. Start by seeing what is actually being competed in your categories, and read a couple of solicitations you have no intention of answering - Bid Banana makes that a filter rather than a project. If the maintenance keeps losing to client work, The Bid Lab maintains this material for clients between bids as well as writing the responses - call 1-844-4BIDLAB or email respond@thebidlab.com.
Frequently asked questions
What should a proposal team do when there are no active bids?▼
Seven maintenance tasks that only fit in a quiet period: audit the content library for stale figures and departed staff, re-confirm references still hold their roles and consent, pre-answer the standard due-diligence questionnaire, update the map of which subject matter expert owns which requirement area and name backups, run a win-loss review of the last six months, read past versions of solicitations you intend to bid, and brief the wider business on how bids work.
How often should you audit an RFP content library?▼
At least quarterly, and date-stamp every reusable block with when it was last verified and by whom. Content decays invisibly - staff numbers change, certifications lapse, insurance limits get revised, a cited current client becomes a former one - and none of that announces itself in the document. A simple rule of re-checking anything older than six months before it enters a submission catches most of it.
Why read solicitations you have no intention of bidding on?▼
Because the contract you actually want will be recompeted, and its previous version is usually public. Reading it reveals the format, evaluation weights, mandatory qualifications and the scale of response required, months before the window opens. That matters most for eligibility: finding a bonding threshold or certification requirement with a year to address it is a completely different situation from finding it during the response window.
How do you run a win-loss review?▼
Take the last six months of submissions and separate losses by cause, because the causes have different fixes. Losing on price is a conversation with whoever sets rates. Losing on technical score is a content and evidence problem. Being eliminated as non-responsive is a process defect with a checklist fix and should be tracked to zero. Record every debrief a buyer offers in the same place, since patterns emerge across several that no single one shows.
Does a small business need a dedicated proposal manager for this?▼
No, but the work needs a named owner. A workable minimum is one half-day per quarter, one person accountable, and a standing agenda covering the seven maintenance tasks - roughly two days a year. Smaller teams routinely combine the proposal roles across existing staff. What does not work is leaving maintenance unassigned, because work with no owner and no deadline reliably loses to client work.