Many proposal teams spend their time responding to opportunities. The best teams help shape them before the RFP arrives.

Winning starts before writing begin

The challenge

Many proposal teams describe themselves as reactive. They receive opportunities late, face compressed timescales and are expected to create persuasive responses with limited preparation. Several Proposal Benchmarker respondents described their environments as tactical, under-resourced or heavily deadline-driven. This creates pressure and limits the ability to influence outcomes.

Overcoming the challenge

The strongest proposal teams are involved long before the proposal is written.

They engage with capture activities, understand customer priorities and begin planning before formal procurement starts. This early involvement creates more time for solution development, win themes, evidence gathering and proposal writing.

Three practical improvements can help.

1. Connect proposals to the opportunity pipeline

Proposal teams need visibility of future opportunities, not just active bids. This allows resources to be planned and risks to be identified earlier.

2. Engage before the RFP arrives

The proposal function should contribute to win strategy, customer messaging and solution development. Waiting for the RFP reduces the ability to influence outcomes.

3. Prioritise opportunities strategically

Not every opportunity needs the same level of investment. Focus specialist support where it can have the greatest impact.
Proposal writing becomes far more effective when it starts with preparation rather than reaction.

How we can help

Our Strategic Proposals team helps organisations:

  • Improve bid and proposal management
  • Develop stronger proposal planning processes
  • Create compelling win strategies and executive summaries
  • Provide proposal writing support on critical bids
  • Improve resource planning and governance

Want to improve this area?

Visit our Winning Bids services section to learn how our proposal writing, bid management and expert review services help organisations improve win rates.

Our proposal training programmes help teams develop practical proposal writing, review and planning skills that reduce reactivity and improve performance.

Our capability development services help organisations transform bidding maturity across people, process, content and governance.

Assess your current maturity using the complimentary Proposal Benchmarker.

Speak to an expert

If your proposal team constantly feels under pressure and reactive, we'd be happy to share how we've helped organisations build more proactive proposal functions and improve bidding performance.

Read our latest papers, sign up to Winning Ways and follow Strategic Proposals on LinkedIn for practical work-winning advice.


To find out more about the key skills and tools necessary to develop powerful, compelling proposals contact our experts on 0800 0096800 or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.