RFP writing services | Writing for Results

You publish an RFP, wait for the flood of brilliant proposals… and instead you get a handful of thin responses that miss the point, ignore your constraints, or clearly copy-paste past work. It is frustrating — especially when you know there are capable vendors in the market.

Often the issue is not the quality of the vendor pool: It is the way the RFP is written and structured.

Vendors Are Not Mind Readers — And Your RFP May Be Too Vague

Strong vendors want to bring their best work to the table. They cannot do that if they are guessing at your goals

Fuzzy objectives: “Improve outcomes” without clear success measures.
Limited context: Little information about your environment, constraints, or history.
Hidden priorities: Everything is labeled “critical,” so vendors cannot prioritize.

When vendors do not know what really matters, they respond with generic language to cover every possibility.

RFP Quality Checklist

The RFP Quality Checklist is a 35-item quality gate for anyone who writes, issues, or responds to RFPs. Part A gives issuers 15 checkpoints — from scope clarity and budget transparency to proportionality and current federal procurement thresholds — to ensure their solicitation attracts strong, comparable proposals. Part B gives responders 15 checkpoints — from compliance traceability matrices and Red Team reviews to pricing strategy and client-specific customization — to catch the errors that get winning proposals eliminated. Part C is the differentiator: five crossover questions written from both perspectives, showing how understanding what the other side needs is the fastest way to improve your own document. Print it, pin it to your wall, and run every RFP through it.

RFP QUALITY CHECKLIST

Structure: The Silent Driver of Proposal Quality

A well-structured RFP acts as a guide for vendors and a filter for you. It should make it easy to:

Understand the project quickly.
Find key requirements and constraints
See how proposals will be evaluated.

At minimum, include:

Background and objectives.
Detailed scope of work.
Technical and functional requirements.
Budget guidance or constraints, if possible.
Evaluation criteria and weighting.
Timeline and decision process.

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Clear sections and headings are not bureaucracy — they are how you get comparable, complete responses. This mirrors the structured approach we use on the response side, because the best RFPs and the best proposals share the same quality: they make it easy for the other side to do their job well.

Scope and Budget: Where Misalignment Quietly Kills Good Fits

To improve the proposals you receive:

Be honest about constraints. Vendors can design within them.
Specify what is in scope and explicitly note what is out of scope.
Invite options (for example, “base proposal plus one or two recommended enhancements”).

The goal is not to lock vendors into your solution. It is to give them enough structure to propose realistic, creative approaches.

Evaluation Criteria: Tell Vendors How You Will Decide

When evaluation criteria are missing or vague, vendors guess at what you care about. Some will guess wrong, and you will see it in their emphasis.

Improve this by:

Listing your criteria and approximate weight (for example, Approach 35%, Experience 25%, Price 25%, Team Fit 15%).
Aligning your questions and requested sections with those criteria.
Calling out any “must-have” items that are non-negotiable.

You will get proposals that are easier to compare and closer to what you actually value.

Communication: Questions, Clarifications, and Fairness

The period between releasing the RFP and the submission deadline is your chance to shape better responses — but many issuers treat it as a black box.

Consider:

Providing a clear process and deadline for vendor questions.
Publishing answers to all vendors to keep the field fair.
Offering an optional Q&A call or pre-proposal conference for complex projects.

The more clarity you provide early, the better the proposals — and the fewer surprises later.

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A Simple Checklist to Raise Proposal Quality

If your last round of proposals was underwhelming, use this quick checklist before you issue the next RFP:

Have we clearly described our objectives, constraints, and context?
Is the scope realistic for the timeline and budget we have in mind?
Are requirements specific, prioritized, and testable?
Have we stated evaluation criteria and approximate weights?
Do vendors know how and when to ask questions?

You may be surprised how much proposal quality improves when you fix these basics.

The Other Side of the Table

Here is something most RFP consultants will not tell you: the same principles that make a strong proposal also make a strong RFP. Clear objectives, structured communication, honest constraints, and transparent evaluation — they work in both directions.

That is why we built the Both Sides Advantage — because organizations that understand both the issuer’s and the responder’s perspective write better documents, attract better partners, and close better deals.

Want Stronger Proposals from Your RFP?

For every RFP we create, we perform issuer-side reviews focused on clarity, structure, and evaluation design — so you get stronger, more comparable proposals from the vendors you actually want to work with.

LET US CREATE YOUR RFP

It is easy to say yes to every promising RFP. It is much harder to admit that some opportunities are unwinnable or strategically unwise, no matter how shiny they look. Porter’s Five Forces gives you a practical way to make that call before you commit weeks of work.

You do not need a strategy workshop to use it. You need a clear view of five forces and the courage to walk away when the picture is wrong for you.

I can create a simple, reusable tool that is a practical go/no‑go framework based on Porter’s Five Forces–one that your sales and proposal teams will actually use.

A quick refresher on Porter’s Five Forces

Porter’s Five Forces is a framework for understanding how attractive a market or opportunity is. It looks at:

Rivalry among existing competitors.
Threat of new entrants.
Threat of substitutes.
Bargaining power of buyers.
Bargaining power of suppliers.

In the RFP world, this translates directly into how hard it will be to win and how profitable the work will be if you do.

Force 1: Rivalry – how crowded is this bid?

Some RFPs quietly favor an incumbent. Others go to open market and attract ten or more vendors. The more intense the rivalry, the more you need a clear edge. Ask yourself:

Are we the incumbent or a credible challenger?
Do we stand out meaningfully on capability, approach, or relationship?
Is the buyer mostly comparing on price?

High rivalry plus no clear differentiator is a warning sign.

Porter’s Five Forces and Apex Solutions

Using Porter’s Five Forces to Decide Which RFPs Are Worth Your Time

Apex Solutions almost wasted $47,000 and six weeks chasing an RFP they were never going to win.

They’re a mid-size IT services firm — 120 employees, solid past performance, reliable delivery. When a federal agency posted a $4.2M IT staffing and development contract, their BD team’s instinct was “absolutely bid.”

Then their proposal director ran a Porter’s Five Forces analysis on the opportunity:

Competitive Rivalry — Seven known competitors were bidding. The incumbent had a three-year relationship with the client and inside knowledge of their systems. Apex had zero prior contact with the agency.

Threat of New Entrants — Two new firms had entered this market segment in the past year alone, each undercutting on price to build past performance. Low barriers meant more crowding, not less.

Bargaining Power of Buyers — The agency dictated every term: fixed-price contract, 90-day payment windows, and a rigid evaluation rubric that heavily weighted past performance with their specific office.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers — The cleared developer market was extremely tight, with 15% salary inflation year-over-year. Apex would need to recruit new talent just to staff this contract — adding risk and cost.

Threat of Substitutes — The agency was simultaneously exploring AI-driven automation tools and expanding their in-house development team. Even if Apex won, the contract scope could shrink mid-performance.

The Decision: No Bid.

Not because Apex couldn’t do the work — but because every force was working against them. They redirected those six weeks and that $47,000 in proposal costs toward two Q3 opportunities where they had existing relationships, strong past performance, and favorable contract terms.

They won both.

Most proposal teams treat every RFP like a must-bid. The ones who win consistently are the ones who know when to walk away — and have a framework for making that call.

Force 2: Threat of new entrants – will this market keep filling up?

If an RFP sits in a market that is easy to enter, you may win once and then fight off low‑cost competitors every renewal. Look for clues:

Low regulatory or technical barriers to entry.
Buyers who routinely “refresh the market” to chase lower prices.
Minimal onboarding or integration cost for new vendors.

When the door is wide open, you need a plan to defend your position after you win.

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Force 3: Threat of substitutes – are there simpler alternatives?

Sometimes the real competitor is not another vendor; it is a different way to solve the problem. Ask:

Could the buyer solve this internally with a process change or small tool?
Are they testing the market while leaning toward a different model?
Does their scope read like they are unsure what they really want?

If substitutes are strong, the project may shrink, stall, or disappear after award.

Force 4: Buyer power – who really holds the leverage?

Some buyers are highly constrained and will work with you as a partner. Others have many credible options and will use that to push price and terms. Signals of high buyer power:

Many qualified vendors in your space.
Very prescriptive terms and conditions with little room to negotiate
Heavy focus on discounts and price breakdowns.

High buyer power is not always bad, but it should inform how much effort you invest and how you price risk.

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Force 5: Supplier power – what will it cost you to deliver?

On your side, supplier power shows up in your cost base and capacity. Consider:

Do you rely on scarce specialists or external partners?
Are input costs volatile, with little room to adjust pricing later?
Will this project tie up resources you need for more strategic work?

Winning an RFP that strains your supply side can hurt more than losing.

Turning the Five Forces into a go/no‑go decision

You do not need perfect data. You need a simple, repeatable conversation. For each RFP:

Score each force as Low, Medium, or High risk for you.
Note 1–2 reasons behind each score.
Decide whether the overall picture is Attractive, Marginal, or Unattractive.

Then pair that with your fit: domain expertise, references, solution strength, and relationship access.

Attractive forces + strong fit: lean in and invest.
Marginal forces + strong fit: proceed, but manage expectations.
Unattractive forces + weak fit: politely decline.

Why this matters for your RFP team