Reminder and Olessia’s 5 tips for proposal professionals

I am in foggy San Jose in Silicon Valley, teaching a course for Stevens at NASA Ames. It is an intense, inquisitive, and exceedingly bright group of students. Some of their questions got me to remember some truths in the proposal profession that I began to take for granted – so I am sharing them with you after quickly jotting them down at 4 am (I am still on the East Coast time).

Tips for overcoming proposal writer’s block

Are you just like I was seven years ago? By that, I mean – do you struggle with writer’s block when it comes to proposals? Have you spent too many all-nighters rewriting atrocious proposal sections? Do you spend nights and days without seeing your family because proposal writing occupies all of your time? Do you work with people who dislike writing wholesale and will do everything else, but postpone the writing portion of a proposal as much as possible?

How to organize to win every task order on an IDIQ

Those who have been around IDIQs for a while know that your chances of winning a task order diminish with each month that passes by, and each competition where you lose or fail to participate. This is why it is critically important that you set up a bid engine that...

When you don’t have time for capture

I often get this question: “What to do when you have no time for capture?” These situations happen more often than we prefer: our management tells us we have to bid on something, NOW; or we are in a situation like a fast and furious task order environment and the...

Do you have a task order manual for your IDIQ?

Have you won an IDIQ? Congratulations, but get prepared for another race. Otherwise, task order requests for proposals may catch you flat-footed. You have to put numerous measures in place in order to succeed in winning as many tasks as possible. One of these measures...