Sign Iowa Banking RFP Easy

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hello everyone and welcome to federal contracting made easy where it's our goal to take the complex world of government contracting and break it into simple steps that anyone can master we're on episode 89 and before we get started I wanted to take a moment I tried to do a live stream today because I wanted to tell you why the video wasn't going to be released and it may not be released on time but hopefully I'll get it done the problem is the software that I'm using to record the video does a screen capture and it also does capture from the DSL camera is not working it will not take my DSL camera now it'll take my iMac webcam but I don't like the quality of the picture that it provides so until I can get this resolved and I'm working with technical support most of this week we're stuck at the place we are right now so please bear with me the videos will be getting better as we go along but I wanted I wanted to take a few moments and explain that to you I know I couldn't get the video to work on the YouTube live I'm gonna work on that I'm gonna try to get that set up to where people can actually see it but I'm gonna have to have a couple test people so if you're interested in testing that with me let me know so last week we walked through how to do an invitation for bid today we're gonna concentrate our discussion on a request for proposal however we are going to be mentioning in a request for information and a request for quote the request for quote for proposal are pretty much similar and so I'm not going to go into detail on the request for quote at this time so if you remember on an invitation to bid we you had to fill out some forms and send those in with the initials bid package and that or the proposal package and that became your bid package to the government however it's not the same for a request for proposal or a request for quote we're gonna find and go into what's different in detail so request for proposal is a solicitation that outlines a problem or a requirement and it asks small businesses to propose their methods for solving the problem or fulfilling the requirement you will need to calculate all associated costs necessary to solve the problem or fulfill the requirement so how does a request for proposal differ from an invitation for bid we know that an infant a Shinto bid requires you to fill out forms does that mean you don't have to fill out forms for a request for a proposal unfortunately no there's gonna be one or two forms that you are gonna have to fill out but most of the proposal is you explaining to the government how you're going to meet the government needs you're gonna also provide documents what kind of documents well you may have to provide drawings a bio on key personnel any management plans and any and any other documents pertinent to the requirements for example if you're in construction you may have to have a safety plan you're gonna have to demonstrate your capabilities show the government how you're capable of performing on this contract remember you need to keep this proposal as simple and straightforward as possible it must be concise complete and accurate however an RFP can drain your resources additionally you're gonna need to balance your current workload with your resources available to be able to bid on projects so a request for a proposal is time-consuming and you need to know that up front and you're gonna have people tied up so it's gonna cost the business money you're gonna also have to have a way to evaluate solicitations for a bid no bid decision remember this all takes time once you submit your proposal you're gonna have to have some work coming in until such time as the government goes ahead and makes a decision and that could be 30 days it could be a day to 30 days to 60 days sometimes I've seen it take up to a year I don't know why it does that but sometimes I'm complex so we talked about whether to bid or not so that's called a bid no bid decision let's talk about that up for a minute how can you decide whether to bid or not bid on a requirement well the easiest way is to ask yourself some questions maybe you'll want to create a checklist of items and rate them to help you with your decision with this in mind pay attention to the solicitation is the solicitation and request for information or is it a request for quote or a request for proposal so let's look at if it's a request for information versus if it's a request for proposal if the requirement is a request for information then the government is looking for market information this is not a bid solicitation the government's not asking you to provide a bid for that solicitation sometimes a request for information will become a requirement in future but not necessarily at this moment in time so you do you spend your time responding to a request for information or do you pass on it well you need to respond to the request for information if you can but you want to make sure that you're selective with the information that you provide to the government don't give away too much information make sure that you mark all information proprietary information or private if it is that you don't want to give the government you don't want to give the government full access to all that information without if it's proprietary without a disclaimer so make sure you mark all the information considered private and spread Priory this statement will help protect the proprietary information if you fail to do so the government can use that information as they see fit given that the information is the best to protect your company as much as possible you want to make sure you protect it in addition you may want to contact your attorney and ask for what his recommendations for the exact wording to use now does the requirement match the products or service that you provide and that's probably first question that you really need to ask you don't want to be one of those companies that tries to bid on every solicitation that comes their way these companies are hoping that they'll win sooner or later it's kind of like they think it's like a lottery I'm if I put in 50 bids I got 50 chances of winning well not necessarily responding to every bit is great practice and it gets you familiar with all the government forms and everything but it's not reasonable to do so remember that most companies only win one contract out of every ten bids that they respond to so make sure that it's in your wheelhouse before you spend the time and effort if you write a proposal for every solicitation that you cross your win ratio is gonna be very high and this the all the time and resources that you've spent on writing these proposals and you can soon go broke as I said earlier you need to come up with a system to determine whether or not to bid on a solicitation next question you should ask yourself is do you have the technical capabilities to perform the contract and in requirement that you've been on needs to match your capabilities if it does then you need to look at the technical specifications does your business have the technical background to be able to bid on the project if not if you cannot provide or you don't have the technical background to perform the requirement then pass on this solicitation there are going to be other solicitations for you to submit a proposal on on the other hand don't fail to respond to requests for information that is a great match for your capabilities just because the solicitation appears to be written to a specific company or a specific technology from time to time the government may use parts of past solicitation for something they want that is similar at the same time if you can demonstrate that you can make or your service is the same thing or perhaps even better you have a great possibility of winning now here's a tip you may come across the requirement that looks like it's specific to a particular company don't assume that that government wrote that requirement for that business remember when we talked earlier about that request for information the government may have taken the information provided by that company and used it to help write their proposal because it basically said it better than the government could say so themselves so if you can meet or exceed the requirement contained in the solicitation of scope of work been on the project now are there any market considerations you need to be aware of so let's get into those if the request is something considered a new product to you if so then can you lever that leverage this into more business by selling it to other customers above all look at whether winning will cost you an existing contract or be at the expense of the different product lines or services you don't want to stretch yourself too thin there and for this reason you may want to look at your current products and services and to decide to eliminate one that is the least profitable from those in your business equally important in other words do you already have a relationship with the buyer if is it good or is it strained also as you're working with the government's agency you'll find that some agencies are just easier to work with than others you may decide that it's not worth the hassle to deal with specific customers I have numerous clients that will not work with a specific agency because they can be difficult also consider letting the customer go that is not worth the hassle that they give you life is just too short to put up with problem customers I totally believe in the parrot Otto principle otherwise known as the 80/20 rule basically means that 80% of the affects come from 20% of the causes in other words 20% of your customers cause take up 80% of your time well for me that's at least how it is now has the project been funded this is an excellent point to keep in mind if they're not any funds for the requirement the government can issue a contract you do not want to spend a ton of time and resources on a proposal if the government has not funded the project if you are told that there are reserve funds the government can redirect those funds elsewhere in the project you are bidding on will go unfunded so what happens if you elect not to respond to requests for information but you've already talked to contracting officer go ahead and let them know that you're not going to bid on the project and the reasons why you decided to pass that's good way to keep customer relationships going next we're going to talk about the steps to do before writing your proposal and you've decided to bid on the RFP now what everyone that will be involved in writing the proposal should do the following before they even pick up a pencil or get on their computer to write reread that RFP then you want to outline the RFP section by section and decide who is responsible for responding to each section choose somebody that's really good at responding or has the knowledge to respond to that certain section next you're going to create a proposed calendar with timelines milestones and due dates spelled out review the evaluation criteria that the buying office will use to measure the proposal ask the buyer or Contracting Officer if there's anything else that you need to know and clarify any criteria that you don't understand make sure that you know all the points so that you can dress every aspect in your proposal do this before you ever begin to write lastly think like the evaluators so you know the evaluators are going to have questions so when you write your proposal you're gonna respond to the government's needs and also write the way the evaluator so you know you're gonna answer any questions that they have and we're gonna go into that in a little bit more detail up next below are some of the standard criteria that evaluators may use in evaluating your proposal so have you formatted the bate according to the instructions if you haven't formatted that bit according to the instructions and shame on you the government's going to tell you how many pages a recession can be if you go beyond that then the it's gonna cut it off at that page they're not gonna read through a solicitation with 800 pages they don't have the time you need to be concise and to the point if the project solution presented in the bid plausible is that a really good good way to solve the government's problem yes or no have you organized a proposal and isn't responsive to the basic requirements did you follow the basic requirements is your delivery schedule acceptable have you demonstrated the capability to perform do you and your company have related experience has the company had past performance history is the company financially stable is there costing method a credible are the company's personal resources adequate have they created a bill of materials and have you read all the evaluation factors remember that preparation is key any checklist or system that you can put in place to assist you now is going to pay dividends on future proposals you can use some of the information from previous proposals on current projects just remember to use the same formatting the government is requesting on anything that you cut and pace for instance you're going to use the same organizational chart in business history resume is a key personnel are going to be the same no matter who or what you're bidding on so you want to make sure that you use make sure that they are in the format that the government is looking for don't make the mistake of concentrating just on the statement of work without looking at the evaluation section make sure that you stand equal time on both of those sections yes the statement of work may state the requirement the evaluation section may have a statement in there that the requirement has to be delivered by so-and-so date you wouldn't know that if you responded to the other and you need to have that date in your proposal so make sure that you go back and spend time on both sections you need to be as familiar with the evaluation factors as you are with that statement of work now we've talked about analyzing your competition prior we talked about a SWOT analysis for you those of you that don't our SWOT stands for strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats you need to do that on your competition you're going to gather that information and you're going to review any information you can find on your competition it is easier to keep to communicate to the government how superior your products or services are if you're familiar with the features and benefits of the competition include any information on subcontractors as well now I'm going to include a proposal outline this will be in the show notes for those that are on the podcast it starts off with an executive summary an introduction benefits and proposed solutions your organization experience and so on you can see it on the screen let's go on to the next page if you need to write this down I'm gonna have it into show notes I'll have it in a way for you to be able to get to my website and download it tip if your proposal shares propriety proprietary information include a proprietary notice in your proposal this notice should be on a separate piece of paper at the beginning of the pros on should read something along the lines as the following this proposal contains confidential information on XYZ company which is provided for the sole purpose of permitting the holder of this document to evaluate the proposal to blank agency in consideration of the receipt of repose 'el the buyer agrees to maintain the enclosed information and confident so not to reproduce or otherwise disclose any information to any person outside the group or team directly responsible for the evaluation of its contents and make sure that you have that it looked at by your attorney also that's it for this today's episode I broke this into two spots because if I did it in all one it would be over thirty minutes and I don't like 30 minute videos please remember to subscribe like comment review our videos to others and a special thank you to all our new subscribers until next time as always be safe