For many companies proposal writing is reinventing the wheel over and over, at great costs within tight deadlines. Creative and concise documents emanate from original thoughts and repeated rewrites; each rewrite sparking more creativity and sophistication. The luxury of creative rewrites and many refinements usually cannot be achieved with a federal proposal because of the time constraints created by unrealistic due dates in federal Requests for Proposals (RFPs). How many times have you heard: "We know it's coming, we know what's in the RFP because we are the incumbent (or we drafted the specs), so let's start early?" I suppose that has happened but most people would admit that it is very rare.

Beat the tight deadline and cost game by modeling your core proposal(s) and then refining the model with each subsequent proposal. The more commonality among proposals experienced by your company the better this approach works. Some commonality exists in every company and almost all federal contracts use boilerplate and model text to some degree. Try taking it to a new level with model chapters.

Most companies do not take the time or have the discipline to take the suggested approach. Have you heard this in your company: "Didn't we do that last year, does anyone remember which proposal that was and where I can find it?"