Proposal management is the work of getting a proposal from opportunity to on-time, compliant delivery. You help decide whether to pursue the work, turn the RFP into a plan, get the right content from the right people, and make sure what goes out the door answers what the client asked.
Nobody sat me down and explained this when I started. I learned by submitting over 1,000 proposals, and by making plenty of mistakes along the way. Most people I meet learned the same way.
The proposal management process
Firms name these steps differently, but nearly every proposal effort moves through them.
| Step | What you're doing | How it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Go/No Go | Deciding whether this is a competition you can win | The RFP sits on a desk for two weeks |
| RFP review | Reading the RFP and building a cheat sheet and outline | A requirement gets missed |
| Schedule | Planning backward from the due date | No float, so any slip wrecks the plan |
| Kick-off | Getting everyone on the same page | People leave without clear commitments |
| Content | Getting input from technical staff and subconsultants | Late sections and uncustomized materials |
| Editing | Reviewing, making other people's edits, finding errors | New mistakes get added during editing |
| Compliance check | Confirming every requirement and question is addressed | The client's question goes unanswered |
| Delivery | Getting a complete proposal to the right person on time | Everything depends on one courier or one drive |
Proposal manager vs. proposal coordinator
Titles vary from firm to firm. Who's responsible for what depends on the systems and abilities of the marketing and business development staff, and on what each firm expects from its technical team. I wrote about that range in the Proposal Experience Spectrum.
Whatever your title, if the proposal is your problem when something goes wrong, you are doing proposal management.
Why proposal management is so frustrating
I collected over 1,000 data points from proposal coordinators and managers through interviews, surveys, and online discussions. Firms big and small kept naming the same three problems:
- Slow Go/No Go decisions
- Late delivery from the technical staff
- Lack of trust, respect, and appreciation
The third is the hardest to pin down and often the most painful. People ask me, "Why don't they see me as the professional I am?"
What top proposal managers do differently
Under those complaints sits a mindset problem. Everybody has invisible scripts, the things we subconsciously tell ourselves. A common one in our world goes like this: "I'm doing my job, and these people are stopping me from doing it." I used to believe that. It makes you feel powerless every time you walk into work.
Stop defining yourself as a proposal manager. You're a proposal solver.
A proposal solver owns any problem that gets in the way of the timely completion, compliance, or success of the proposal, no matter whose problem it is. Instead of saying "here's what you should do," they say "here's what I'll do." That one change opens the course, because everything else depends on it.
How do you learn proposal management?
You can do what I did: talk to the best in the business, read every book on the subject, and submit over 1,000 proposals. It took a long time. You can also take training.
If you want a formal industry credential, look at APMP certification. If you want practical systems for your next proposal, that's why I built Proposal Management Mastery. You receive a certificate of completion, and you keep lifetime access to the lessons and vault.
Learn in three weeks what took me ten years.
See what's in the course
I've submitted over 1,000 proposals and created Proposal Management Mastery. The American Institute of Architects included my relevancy formula for proposals in The Architect's Handbook of Professional Practice.