Our last installment discussed the haphazard and disjointed federal proposal writing efforts that take place in most companies and why they occur. This installment presents concrete steps that can be taken to minimize the problem.

1. You have heard this one before. Have top management actually get seriously involved in the proposal-writing process. Recognize the immense waste that can occur and the less-than-top-quality proposals that go out the door. It's all about revenue, profit and writing proposals that are both defensive and customer centric. Submitting winning proposals can have a major impact on revenue and the survival of a federal services company.

2. Integrate the sales and proposal-writing process. We have said a great deal about the importance of this before and will discuss it again in the next installment. This critical component is what creates winners.

3. Hire an experienced, full-time proposal manager who has mastered the art of minimizing the chaos. It is essential to make sure that your proposal manager likes to write and edit rather than just manage.

4. Implement a structured, documented and automated proposal-writing process. Make sure that it integrates sales and proposal writing (there will be more about this subject in a later installment).

5. Invest in building a database of up-to-date resumes and corporate experience and actually keep it updated. The proposal manager can oversee this provided he or she has the right software. However, as will be discussed later, management must implement the right carrots and stick to actually get the technical staff to do it.

6. Automate and "version control" your old proposals and Management Plan boilerplate. Once again, the proposal manager can do this but management must invest in effective software and staff support to accomplish the task. This, too, will be discussed more in a later installment.

7. Write the Executive Summary before the proposal kickoff meeting. Make sure that it includes winning themes and salient selling points. The person who drafts the Executive Summary should be the sales or management person who knows the customer best. We suggest tackling this task ahead of time even if the first draft of the Executive Summary is only an outline with critical selling points as bullet points.

8. Use an incentive system to compensate your best technical writers when you win. I can feel you cringing about this one but it works. After all, why do most of us come to work? Yeah, I know it's the creative challenge but money helps.

Stay tuned for more in-depth discussions about Points 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7.