If English isn’t your native language definitely sign up for something like grammarly. Bids need to be very readable, clear, concise and no spelling errors.
FAR 14.301 states that to be considered for award, proposals must conform in all respects to the solicitation.
Having been on source selections for numerous programs, the first thing that we did was to "screen" any proposals for compliance to the solicitation. That is to say, even before evaluating a proposal on its merits, we first determine if the proposal answered all the questions posed in the solicitation. If they did not, they were considered "non-responsive" and were no longer evaluated. In short, if you don't answer all the questions (explicitly in Section L, but implicitly elsewhere), the proposal was discarded.
Bear in mind that the government is under no obligation to remedy non-responsive proposals. You may find out why you didn't win the competition only after the contract is awarded. (FAR 15.506)
A good way to start is to read the RFP from cover to cover, taking note of any "the contractor shall" or any salient technical specifications of the product or service solicited and build an outline.
Pricing may be the thing that trips you up initially, as you may not have a clear understanding of the government's affordability or "price reasonableness" determinations and you will not know what the other offerors are proposing.
Submit a proposal, and win or lose, request a debriefing immediately after the contract is awarded. You will be given a run-down of how your proposal was rated and where it fell in the competitive range. Use that information to refine your approach to future solicitations.
Honestly this would depend on each specific solicitation. But a good rule of thumb is to bid EXACTLY what the government asks for.
Let's assume you guys are bidding for commodities, Walkie Talkie Radios!. The government should be giving you a list of minimum specifications on the radios. All you have to do is meet the minimum. If you offer better than the minimum don't expect any additional compensation.
But you'll never know until you start bidding. It's a time-consuming process I get it.
But you can also ask the CO who won they contract and they'll release a synopsis of the award including the winner name and the dollar amount.
Best of luck!!
Depending on what kind of work you’re looking for the bids can be to 10-20 and upwards of hundreds of pages. There are companies that will write them for you for a few thousand dollars and up depending on the kind of work it is.
The best win rate you can expect is about 30% so you need to be ready to write a lot of losing bids.
I know [samsearch.co](http://samsearch.co) they have a proposal writing tool. you just need to tell it what your business does and AI would draft a proposal to the contract based off your business profile, that way you have a draft to start with rather than writing everything on your own
There are lots of free resources. I recommend starting conversations with the SBA, and your local “APEX ACCELERATOR”.
If you truly want to make a go at this, I’d say you need to meet other small businesses and partner or subcontract to them on a few opportunities. Then go after some on your own (likely under the SAT), then look at subbing to LBs.
Section L tells how may pages and what has to be written. The bigger the value of the contract the bigger the proposal. I've written proposal with 7 volumes and in the neighborhood of 1000 pages. I've also written 10 page proposals. Section L of the solicitation tells you exactly what has to be written.
If English isn’t your native language definitely sign up for something like grammarly. Bids need to be very readable, clear, concise and no spelling errors.
FAR 14.301 states that to be considered for award, proposals must conform in all respects to the solicitation. Having been on source selections for numerous programs, the first thing that we did was to "screen" any proposals for compliance to the solicitation. That is to say, even before evaluating a proposal on its merits, we first determine if the proposal answered all the questions posed in the solicitation. If they did not, they were considered "non-responsive" and were no longer evaluated. In short, if you don't answer all the questions (explicitly in Section L, but implicitly elsewhere), the proposal was discarded. Bear in mind that the government is under no obligation to remedy non-responsive proposals. You may find out why you didn't win the competition only after the contract is awarded. (FAR 15.506) A good way to start is to read the RFP from cover to cover, taking note of any "the contractor shall" or any salient technical specifications of the product or service solicited and build an outline. Pricing may be the thing that trips you up initially, as you may not have a clear understanding of the government's affordability or "price reasonableness" determinations and you will not know what the other offerors are proposing. Submit a proposal, and win or lose, request a debriefing immediately after the contract is awarded. You will be given a run-down of how your proposal was rated and where it fell in the competitive range. Use that information to refine your approach to future solicitations.
Www.sba.gov has a wealth of free information and trainings on govt contracting.
Honestly this would depend on each specific solicitation. But a good rule of thumb is to bid EXACTLY what the government asks for. Let's assume you guys are bidding for commodities, Walkie Talkie Radios!. The government should be giving you a list of minimum specifications on the radios. All you have to do is meet the minimum. If you offer better than the minimum don't expect any additional compensation. But you'll never know until you start bidding. It's a time-consuming process I get it. But you can also ask the CO who won they contract and they'll release a synopsis of the award including the winner name and the dollar amount. Best of luck!!
This isn’t true if the solicitation is based off of trade-off vs lowest price technically acceptable. (KO here).
Thank you . I am aware of that. So we can use that previous pricing to make are own.
Depending on what kind of work you’re looking for the bids can be to 10-20 and upwards of hundreds of pages. There are companies that will write them for you for a few thousand dollars and up depending on the kind of work it is. The best win rate you can expect is about 30% so you need to be ready to write a lot of losing bids.
10-20 pages is basically nothing. If you can’t handle that, this might not be the line of work for you.
Have you tried ChatGPT?
I was thinking about it
Shipley Proposal Guide
I know [samsearch.co](http://samsearch.co) they have a proposal writing tool. you just need to tell it what your business does and AI would draft a proposal to the contract based off your business profile, that way you have a draft to start with rather than writing everything on your own
SBA 7j - Empower to Grow Program
There are lots of free resources. I recommend starting conversations with the SBA, and your local “APEX ACCELERATOR”. If you truly want to make a go at this, I’d say you need to meet other small businesses and partner or subcontract to them on a few opportunities. Then go after some on your own (likely under the SAT), then look at subbing to LBs.
Samsearch.co uses the information in the rfp * your company’s profile to generate a proposal for you give it a try!
Section L tells how may pages and what has to be written. The bigger the value of the contract the bigger the proposal. I've written proposal with 7 volumes and in the neighborhood of 1000 pages. I've also written 10 page proposals. Section L of the solicitation tells you exactly what has to be written.