Bid & Proposal Consulting Services
With an extensive background and knowledge across all Facilities Management sectors , Baachu can provide you with experienced short and long-term cost-effective business winning solutions for your projects.
Baachu have a pool of over sixty experienced Soft, Hard Proposal, Estimating, Commercial and Mobilisation resources. These associates have supported 50+ FM bids with a bid/win rate of over 80%.
Why would you have a need for additional support?
- Your existing team doesn’t have the knowledge and expertise needed for a specific bid
- Your business has a small inhouse bids team and needs extra support in times of holidays and staff absences
- You are looking for an outsider to give you an independent viewpoint on strategies and processes
- You need some extra training for your existing team
- You want a cost-effective solution which you are in control of, giving you the ability to ramp up or down at short notice, you will save money
- You want to tap into strategic business winning ecosystem to have access to strategy, sales pipeline, pre-sales, capture, proposal development, customer experience, account management and retention services.
Why Baachu Talent?
We use APMP trained resources who understand business development, focus on the customer, create deliverables, manage processes and are trained in the use of tools and systems. The talent we identify are given personality assessments, and sample testing before they join our Baachu community. We care about the wellbeing of our people and offer a supportive background in which to operate and thrive.
The level of support we provide include
- Simply supply tested and referenced APMP people to you.
- Provide end to end bid consultancy services
Our Talent are made up
- Proposal Writers and Managers
- Mobilisation Managers
- Sales Collateral and Bid Content Library Specialists
- Estimators/Cost Analysts/ Financial Modellers
- Programme/Transformation Managers
- Commercial Managers
- Sales Process Development Specialists
- Technical and Non-Technical Bid Writers
- Capture Managers
Baachu BD Process & Proposal Services
Our proposal staff will help you develop your entire proposal from start to finish, collaborating with your Subject Matter Experts, providing surge support, or offering targeted proposal guidance and color team reviews. We will ensure your proposal is concise, compliant, and compelling. We provide the following proposal services Request for Proposal (RFP) and other government solicitation analysis, Bid or No-Bid decision validation, Annotated outline development, Win themes development to give you an edge over the competition, Proposal Management, Writing, Graphics, Desktop publishing, Pricing, Orals, Proposal reviews: Pink, Red, Gold, Read Aloud, Pre-Submission (White Glove), Just-in-time training and APMP Certifications throughout the process to address gaps and advance skills
Baachu uses a six-phase agile proposal process adjusted to your needs based on proposal duration, resource availability, and size and complexity of effort. Our proposal consultants start with the integration phase where they create an annotated outline and develop a cohesive proposal plan, kick off the proposal, and then move through in-process reviews, Pink Team, Red Team, Read Aloud Review, final proposal check and delivery, and support you after the initial submission.
Our six-phase proposal process is based on agile, iterative development. We implement sprint-like draft development process that includes formal synchronous or rolling color team reviews and informal in-process reviews. We adjust our process to your needs based on proposal duration, resource availability, and size and complexity of effort.
In addition to the traditional color team reviews (Pink Team, Red Team, Gold Team, and “White Glove”), we conduct in-process reviews with our proposal managers providing real-time feedback and guidance to the authors.
Our proposal development services include the cost/price volume because price is a crucial part of the proposal and is integral to the whole offer. We perform the same formal color reviews on the cost volume in parallel with the non-price volumes.
Other companies only perform a Green Team review or end up having no formal review of the price volume. This approach positions the cost volume as less important than the other volumes, accepts the inevitability of a last-minute rush that may lead to errors, and leads to inconsistencies among volumes.
Baachu’s process results in superior cost/price volumes that convey win themes, graphics, and messages that reinforce your technical volume’s strengths.
We hold regular Just-In-Time training sessions for the entire proposal team to ensure everyone knows how to produce their best work.
We also conduct a Read Aloud review where we finalize and polish the proposal to eliminate any inconsistencies and errors. The result is a proposal you are proud to submit, that represents the value you bring to your government clients.
Proposal Team Members
Our experienced proposal consultants are trained at our Scribble Bid & Proposal Academy. They actively participate in the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP).
Having the right Proposal Manager is key to winning your team’s bid. After the government publishes the formal RFP, the Proposal Manager takes the lead. The Proposal Manager is the single point of accountability for organizing all information and personnel resources to produce a compliant, compelling, and technically accurate proposal delivered by the government’s deadline. Our Proposal Managers take ownership of the content and do whatever it takes to develop an outstanding proposal.
Kickoff, Research and Brainstorming
In preparation for the proposal kickoff, the Proposal Manager ensures the team understands the RFP and other RFP-related material. During this phase, the Proposal Manager develops the annotated outline, compliance matrix, and proposal schedule to ensure management and technical responses are compliant and compelling.
A successful proposal kickoff is critical for presenting a plan and setting expectations for a successful proposal effort. While Just-In-Time training for the proposal team or small groups happens at any time during the process, the Proposal Manager may lead a training session at this stage to help orient and train the team to fill in knowledge gaps in proposal development.
Between the proposal kickoff and Pink Team review, the Proposal Manager facilitates proposal solution and win themes brainstorming and conducts in-process reviews.
Proposal Writing and Management
During the writing phase, our Proposal Manager coordinates with Subject Matter Experts (SME) and/or Technical Writers from your company or teaming partners. The Proposal Manager maintains version and section control through a collaborative SharePoint workspace that ensures productive workflow and real-time access to various sections. Our Proposal Manager also:
- Orients the proposal team on themes, discriminators, hot buttons, and messaging for each proposal section
- Schedules and manages Subject Matter Experts, Proposal Writers, and Solution Leaders for timely delivery
- Schedules and manages proposal reviews (Pink Team, Red Team, Gold Team, and Read Aloud), organizes all review inputs and outputs, and distributes drafts in a timely manner
- Performs ongoing in-process reviews of the proposal content and gives real-time feedback to authors, preventing “writers’ drift”
- Ensures that technical and management volumes are consistent with the cost volume
Proposal Editing, Production, and Submission
Once the writing is done, our Proposal Manager coordinates review and production schedules with the proposal production personnel for timely completion of all required proposal editing, desktop publishing (formatting), graphic design, and other production support to meet internal review schedules and the formal RFP response due date.
The Proposal Manager also oversees completion and delivery of the proposal on schedule. Following submission and delivery, the Proposal Manager participates in post-proposal activities such as the Lessons Learned, discussions, orals, Final Proposal Revision (FPR), and government debrief, if invited.
A Proposal Coordinator focuses on the administration of the proposal process and supports the Proposal Manager. Our Proposal Coordinator’s support is usually necessary on highly technical proposals with larger proposal teams. Our Proposal Coordinators organize and secure all proposal-related information and manage routine tasks, freeing up the Proposal Manager to focus on leadership and developing winning content.
- Develop detailed proposal section outlines and section content plans
- Interview Subject Matter Experts and collect their written inputs
- Write winning proposal sections by distilling complex technical subject matters into hard-hitting, customer-focused value propositions
- Conceptualize or modify proposal graphics for rendering by the Graphic Artist
- Edit proposals and related documents for completeness, compliance, and persuasion
Our Proposal Writers follow OST’s proposal writing standards when they write, rewrite, and edit a proposal, including the executive summary, technical and management volumes, past performance, resumes, and technical plans. They analyze Request for Proposal (RFP) requirements to develop proposal section plans and collaborate with Subject Matter Experts to develop compliant and compelling proposal text and graphics concepts. Our Proposal Writers’ primary responsibilities are to:
- Develop detailed proposal section outlines and section content plans
- Interview Subject Matter Experts and collect their written inputs
- Write winning proposal sections by distilling complex technical subject matters into hard-hitting, customer-focused value propositions
- Conceptualize or modify proposal graphics for rendering by the Graphic Artist
- Edit proposals and related documents for completeness, compliance, and persuasion
Color reviews can be done as a standalone service without having to purchase other proposal support.Our Color Team Reviewers conduct formal proposal quality reviews called Pink Team, Red Team, Gold Team, etc. The colors indicate how “customer ready” the proposal is. Pink Team review should occur when a proposal draft is 60% customer ready, Red Team when the proposal is 90% customer ready, and Gold Team when it is 99% customer ready. Our reviewers provide feedback to the technical writers on how to improve the proposal.
Our proposal review experts work individually or in conjunction with other reviewers who may be Subject Matter Experts, company management, teaming partners’ representatives, or authors of other proposal sections.
Our Color Team Reviewers organize and facilitate the reviews and comment on their assigned sections. They evaluate a proposal from the government’s perspective, including strengths, weaknesses, and recommendations for improvement.
During this process, reviewers identify inconsistencies, errors, or compliance gaps in the technical approach, management section, and past performance. Color Team Reviewers may recommend additional win themes or enhance messages to the customer while also conducting a compliance check on the proposal.
During the process, our reviewers:
- Comment on the structure and outline of the proposal
- Check for tone, accuracy, and customer-focused messaging
- Recommend additions or deletions to the sections, if necessary
- Brainstorm in collaboration with other reviewers to develop missing or inadequate approaches in the technical and management sections
- Recommend alternatives for past performance examples that are more relevant to the RFP, or identify areas where the current past performance examples are irrelevant or insufficiently tied to the Statement of Work (SOW)
- Check personnel candidate resumes and bios for compliance, accuracy, and consistency, and provide recommendations on how to better relate personnel’s experience to the SOW
At the end of the review, our reviewers provide verbal and written feedback to proposal authors in a constructive, professional manner.
Oral proposals are different from regular briefings. Our Orals Coaches help with two aspects of oral proposal development: slides and coaching.
Oral Slides
Our Orals Coaches and other orals specialists help create engaging slides that showcase win themes and customer messaging while ensuring all information is compliant and compelling. Although the goal is to appear unscripted, in some cases our Coaches develop scripts for struggling speakers to help them overcome performance anxiety and fear of public speaking.
Orals Coaching
Beyond the slides, our Coaches prepare the presenters to appear natural and polished, communicate competence, and portray team cohesiveness non-verbally. Our Orals Coaches offer group and individual coaching sessions to highlight evaluated strengths, ensure completeness of message, and rehearse timing to stay within rigid presentation time limits.
Coaches run drills to prepare presenters for answering difficult evaluator questions and solving sample tasks. Our Orals Coaches give feedback and build presenters’ confidence through video-filmed rehearsals and in-person coaching.
Our Orals Coaches prepare presenters for the “big” oral presentation day, including dress rehearsal, logistics, and presentation day instructions. Our Orals Coach may even attend an oral presentation with the team if the RFP allows. Our Coach may also work with the videographer to videotape the orals for video proposals, which have recently become more popular.
Our Proposal Editors provide in-depth editing and proofreading of proposal sections and graphics to ensure accuracy, compliance, and clarity. Our Proposal Editors improve the proposal by making it more accessible and readable for an evaluator, while fixing all grammar and syntax errors. Depending on the level of editing required, our Proposal Editor’s responsibilities include:
- Editing proposal sections and graphics to ensure consistency, clarity, completeness, conciseness, and correctness
- Rewriting and “one voicing,” so the proposal reads as if a single author wrote the whole proposal
- Fixing typos, spelling mistakes, grammar, tense, tone, rhythm, syntax, and changing passive voice to active voice
- Conducting a compliance check and adding compliance language into key sections for ease of evaluation and maximum score
- Adding figure and tables references, titles, and action captions
- Running the Read Aloud Review session
Our Desktop Publishers produce a polished proposal through clean layout, page design, and consistent presentation. Whether the proposal is developed in Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign, our Desktop Publishers ensure that the document is both compliant with RFP requirements and aesthetically pleasing. Our Desktop Publisher’s main responsibilities include:
- Setting up a clean template in Microsoft Word that matches the color palette of the company or the customer
- Inserting the cover, table of contents, table of figures, acronym glossaries and other proposal front matter
- Labeling all exhibits (tables and figures) and ensuring they are referenced in text
- Formatting all document sections to ensure consistent numbering, font, and styles
- Inserting graphics to ensure font and brand compliance
- Correcting minor grammar errors and ensuring acronyms are spelled out on first reference
- Preparing the final proposal document for review and inspecting document for customer submission
Our Graphic Designers have specialized skills in government proposals. They conceptualize and design graphics based on the proposal content and requirements, working closely with Proposal Manager, writers, and Subject Matter Experts. In complex proposals, our Graphic Designers oversee other graphic artists to maintain consistency and accuracy among graphics developed by multiple designers. Our Graphic Designers’ responsibilities include:
- Using professional graphic design principles and resources to make your proposal graphics look attractive
- Rendering sketched concepts into professional graphics using software such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop
- Creating the cover, spine, back cover, and CD covers (if applicable) for every volume of your proposal
Get in touch with us through ros@baachu.com and lock our bid and proposal consulting services. We follow a first come first served basis so contact us right now.
Our Support Options
1. Bid & Proposal Support
By taking advantage of Baachu’s professional bid and proposal resources, your bid submission will be standardised, benchmarked and competitive, giving you a much greater chance of winning the contracts your business needs.
Pricing an effective ITT or RFP can take time and is a specialist job.
Our professional estimators and commercial managers are trained to:
- Clarify precisely what your client is looking for
- Help you define your win themes, USPs and differentiators
- Identify additional information needed to build all parts of proposal quality and pricing submission
- Ask the right clarification questions of the client
- Draft a detailed bottom up Hard FM (labour load) and Soft FM submissions
While nobody knows your business better than you do, we will gather from you the standard costs and templates improvise it to make your solution and pricing stand out. And of course, you’ll have final pricing sign-off on submission, so you’ll be 100% satisfied that what the client sees is your business at its very best.
2. Retained Service
By booking dedicated Bid, Proposals, Estimating and Pricing specialists every month you can use our expertise on specific tender opportunities or on everyday best practice tasks, such as strengthening your value proposition, building your bid library, improving your market understanding, benchmarking your costs, building standard cost/financial models, budgets, supply chain analysis etc. Importantly, this time can be booked flexibly, meaning if you are waiting for a strategic tender or proposal to be published you can be sure we’ll be available to work on it with you.
By reserving a minimum number of days or hours with Baachu each month, you’ll be able to plan strategically and be fully prepared for when the next important opportunity lands. And from there, we’ll work hand in glove with you to ensure you have the best chance of winning.
Retained Service is for businesses serious about growing through tender and proposal wins; you will gain priority access to our estimators, commercial managers and financial analysts and their work.
3. Fully Outsourced
Outsourcing parts or all of your bid (proposal writing, reviews or pricing) is a long-established approach whereby you hire a specialist business like Baachu to deliver their service.
Numerous awards, qualifications and client testimonials, as well as a win rate topping 80%, suggest that Baachu is the best integrated strategy to business winning outsourced bid support option in the FM market today.
We can take on all or part of your process, from conducting pre-bid activity such as competitor intelligence right through to ensuring that lessons learned are acted on for future opportunities. While you are the experts in your business, we are the experts when it comes to bidding and commercials, and with our pool of talented proposal managers, writers, estimators and commercial managers having worked across 11+ FM public and private sectors you can rest assured we’ll build the right team for your organisation.
4. Review Support
If you’ve already drafted your pricing response but want to know how it stacks up, then our Proposal Review, Model Audit and Commercial Support is exactly what you need.
Going well beyond a spelling, grammar, formula and assumptions (although that is included, of course), our experts will check that all your client’s quality responses, pricing template fields have been calculated correctly and all their requirements followed. Crucially, we flag up any discrepancies in good time before submission, so you get as much time as possible to reprice and improve your response.
We will also advise on where to include case studies or testimonials and also ensure your win themes, differentiators and USPs are clearly and compellingly explained throughout with margin improvements, cost benchmarking and critique pricing risks, sensitivities and USPs as well
As with our Standard Bid Consulting services, we will also provide a full Review Report to help you prepare for your future opportunities.
5. Interim Bid & Proposal Resources
Staff vacancies, absences and a high volume of bids are unfortunately part and parcel of running a business. Consequently, the option of short-term cover can make a real difference, particularly when you’re faced with must win tenders and bids.
Baachu can step in to keep your business development running smoothly. Whether you need someone to manage your full proposal submission, or write your proposals or simply support the SFG labour load or Soft FM cost build or deliver bid commercial leadership and management for your bid , we provide in-house professionals who can fill the void.
Part of the service means we can use our outside perspective to assess your pricing cost build processes, strengths and weaknesses and create an action plan to implement improvements so that your bids are at optimal industry price point.
Your team members can also benefit from one-to-one coaching and mentoring, proving that you invest in them, increasing staff retention and all the while upskilling them.
6. Recruitment
Building your bid team with the right people, brimming with potential and intelligence, who hold the right skills to win you more business, is a business-critical task.
Baachu can provide expert assistance so you select the right individuals for your organisation – estimators, commercial managers, proposal writers and managers who can help you win bid after bid in a professional and reliable manner. By choosing our Recruitment Support you’ll get a service that tests the skills, traits and competencies of your candidates.
The Recruit and Learn Assessment Centre will include:
- A clear understanding of your bidding and commercial culture and the expertise required to thrive in it
- A timed estimating exercise relevant to FM industry
- A custom roleplay scenario simulating part of your bidding process
- A member of our team joining your interview panel
7. Training
Responding successfully to bids and tenders is a skill – one that can be taught. If your bid team needs to improve in a specific area, or indeed, in all areas of bidding, then Baachu Scribble can give them the tools, templates to succeed.
Inside Scribble, we have 250 hours bid and proposal learning including APMP Certification Training. Your training requirements are unique, which is why we will work with you to create a curriculum that is completely bespoke resulting in improved bid performance for all your bid writers and managers.
We’ll give an honest and accurate assessment of your current bidding performance, to identify shortfalls and opportunities before we work together through questions from recent – or even live – bids, so your colleagues can take what they learn into their everyday work.
There is a huge shortage of bid talent in the FM industry, Drop us a line hello@baachu.com to discuss your interim, permanent, retained and fully outsourced bid support. Our resourcing team will be in touch immediately to support your needs.
