AOC Key Solutions Blog

People often confuse proposal win themes and section themes. Win themes are those high-level features and benefits that transcend the entire proposal.

It is becoming common knowledge that proposals are scored, not read. But as a writer, you may be compelled to tell the story in your proposal narrative. You may even get internal reviewers who lament over the fact that your proposal just isn’t telling the story well.

So much about developing proposals to win a government contract, is the scaffolding, the process.

That's where large primes have a decided advantage. They often have "proposal factories" of their own with well defined proposal processes and trained dedicated resources such as capture and proposal managers, technical writers, and graphics artists who can churn out proposals like Willy Wonka churns out Wonka bars.

The holidays are fast approaching and Christmas is almost here! 

As a proposal writer who has just completed a long and hard proposal, I got to thinking about what proposal professionals like me might like to receive this holiday season, just in case someone out there with a beard and a red suit wants to know.

We've all heard the phrase there is no such thing as a dumb question. The fact is, even a seemingly obvious question can elicit a helpful and sometimes surprising response by the Government.

As someone who’s rewritten hundreds of resumes for federal proposals, you start to notice patterns in the way people construct their resumes that often make it difficult for evaluators to assess the quality of the candidates.

Resumes are the first chance the Government gets to meet (virtually speaking) your team, especially your key personnel.

According to many contracting officers, there is no such thing as over communicating when it comes to bidding on a contract. The most successful government contractors will ask the contracting officer intelligent and thoughtful questions to gain the most information possible about the Request for Proposal (RFP).

This strategy will help you create a well scored proposal.

Remember 5^th grade English Class? Learning to write essays meant being handed a topic you didn't like, being given an impossible deadline, being forced to write, edit and revise multiple times, and getting irrational comments from the teacher who clearly hated you.

Since it's St. Patrick’s Day, I got to thinking about some of the Irish legends, and the first one that came to mind was the legend of the Blarney Stone.

In Government Proposals, experienced Proposal Managers develop a Proposal Plan to guide them through the proposal effort.