Proposal Services
A poorly written, non-convincing, or non-compliant proposal can lose the best Captured deal. A winning proposal is a direct result of properly conducted Capture activities, effective proposal processes, robust templates, and innovative thinking, but the key ingredient is always the same—it’s all about the people. Smart BD offers all of these ingredients, but our primary mission is to attract and offer our clients the best Proposal Experts in the industry.
Our Proposal Services are highly tailorable to the needs of our clients. We can stand up an entire proposal team for your strategic bid, or act in a staff augmentation/surge capacity to your existing proposal shop. We can develop and package a complete proposal or provide à la carte services such as Color Review support or an Annotated Outline artifact. Some of our most popular services include:
Proposal Management
An effective Proposal Manager is like a conductor directing an orchestra. Our Proposal Managers are not only adept at following Shipley-like processes, but also excel at directing simultaneous performance efforts of numerous proposal participants. We recognize that Proposal Management is not only about schedule and compliance, but it is first and foremost about motivating and inspiring people to be creative, work hard, and strive to achieve the best possible product under very stressful circumstances. And that is the Art of Proposal Management.
Proposals As A Service™
PaaS is a turnkey proposal capability on selected bids with high probability of win. We offer highly discounted hourly rates or deliver the proposal on firm-fixed-price basis for a fraction of the cost in exchange for a win/incentive bonus. Under this business model, we also offer Capture support on selected deals.
Our Proposal Managers range in skillsets, abilities, and experiences from managing 30-50 person proposal teams (on $Billion+ efforts) to wearing multiple hats and helping manage and write small Task Order proposals.
Outline/Compliance
A Compliant Outline is key to delivering a compliant proposal. Smart BD provides Annotated Outlines and Compliance Matrices as part of our Proposal Management support or as a separate firm-fixed-price service.
Color Review Support
Smart BD has numerous experts to help with Color Reviews across multiple domains. We offer compliance reviews, technical domain/knowledge reviews, former Government evaluator reviews, and Capture/messaging reviews.
Strategy & Solutioning
Without concrete solutions and service offerings that will appeal to your customers, a proposal is just “fluff.” Our experienced facilitators lead strategy and solutioning sessions to tease out key solutions and messages and capture them on white boards or paper to ensure that information collected during the Capture stages directly translates into the Proposal Artifacts.
Storyboarding
Laying out the story helps write the first draft. Smart BD uses various tools to help authors organize the solution on paper and helps reviewers adjust direction before the first draft is ever written. Our storyboarding tools and approaches include Storyboards, Solution Worksheets, Annotated Outlines, and many more.
Technical Writing
Proposals are very different from technical white papers—they are technical sales and marketing documents. As such, they have to be exciting, persuasive, and compelling to your customers. Our technical authors specialize in proposal writing. They are adept at interviewing your technical Subject Matter Experts and skillfully packaging their knowledge and experience in a winning proposal.
Technical Editing
Our versatile Technical Editors review the documents for completeness, consistency, grammatical accuracy, and English language errors. This support may also include one-voicing, substantive editing, and including suggesting revisions to enhance clarity and persuasiveness. The editing process typically includes an acronym scrub and developing acronym tables. Our Technical Editors can develop and leave behind writing style guides or use your existing corporate style guides.
Pricing Support
Our Pricing Support spans your total proposal needs: building full staffing and pricing models, developing Excel spreadsheets, writing Basis of Estimate (BOEs), writing cost narratives, and managing the entire Price/Cost Volume.
Graphic Design
A great picture should be worth a thousand words, without having to use a thousand words to describe it. Our talented Graphics Artists translate your technical ideas into visually pleasing artwork. They conceptualize and render graphics, and use concept discovery and exploration to fuel innovation and drive design. Additional specialties include graphical Executive Summaries, development of Mother of All Graphics (MOAGs), anchor illustrations, and proposal covers.
Desktop Publishing
Our Desktop Publishers develop compliant proposal templates based on the Request for Proposal (RFP) instructions and lay out text and graphics on the page using consistent and aesthetically pleasing styles and colors. Our Microsoft Word experts excel at fitting the text into the page limitations without unnecessary content cuts.
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned are an important growth tool for any Business Development organization. They help bring together insights gained during each proposal that you can easily apply on future efforts. Lessons Learned help us continuously improve and increase our future win rates. Smart BD has experienced Lessons Learned facilitators and offers robust templates to help your business implement and institutionalize Lessons Learned.
Post-Mortem Reviews
No matter how good you are… you can’t win them all! Post-Mortem Reviews constructively use your lost bids to help identify improvement opportunities. We analyze your Capture and Proposal artifacts, interview your Capture and Proposal teams, and develop a set of actionable future recommendations and improvement ideas.