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Proposal management is high-stakes, fast-paced, and relentless. Most teams are so focused on meeting deadlines and getting submissions out the door that there’s rarely time to reflect on how the process could be improved, or what tools and strategies could make it easier. But taking a moment to rethink your approach can unlock significant gains: less stress, better collaboration, and a higher chance of winning the work you want.
Even the most experienced teams can fall into survival mode — reusing content that isn’t quite right, juggling formatting at the last minute, and relying on ad hoc coordination just to get things over the line. But with a few intentional shifts, firms can transform how they approach proposal management, moving from firefighting to a more scalable, proactive mindset.
This guide is designed to help you get there.
Whether you’re a bid manager looking to streamline your process, an executive trying to improve win rates, or part of a small team wearing multiple hats, this guide will walk you through:
- What bid and proposal management actually involves
- How to set up the right people, processes, and platforms
- A clear, stage-by-stage walkthrough of the entire bid lifecycle
- Common mistakes to avoid — and how to fix them
- The nuances of working across industries and internal roles
- Practical first steps to improving your proposal processes
We’ve also linked to deeper resources throughout to support each phase of the journey.
Whether you manage five bids a year or fifty, this is your blueprint for a smarter, faster, and more confident proposal process.
Chapter 1: Understanding Bid & Proposal Management
Bid and proposal management is one of the most cross-functional, high-stakes activities in a professional services firm. It’s where business development, delivery, operations, and strategy converge — all in service of a single question: Can we win this project, and can we deliver it successfully?
But despite its importance, bid management is often misunderstood or underestimated. This chapter lays the groundwork for what bid and proposal management really entails — and why getting it right can be the difference between winning predictable revenue and missing out on valuable opportunities.
What is Bid Management vs. Proposal Management?
These terms are often used interchangeably, but they serve different purposes in the overall process:
- Bid Management is the process of identifying, qualifying, planning, and coordinating a response to a potential opportunity — from the moment an RFP (Request for Proposal) arrives to the moment it’s submitted.
- Proposal Management refers specifically to the creation and delivery of the proposal document itself — the written response that outlines your firm's qualifications, experience, pricing, and approach.
In short: bid management is strategic; proposal management is tactical. Both require discipline, structure, and buy-in from across the organization.
Who’s Involved in the Bid Process?
A successful bid isn’t just the responsibility of a bid manager. It’s a team sport. Depending on the size and complexity of the opportunity, contributors may include:
- Sales and Business Development – bringing in the opportunity and maintaining client relationships.
- Bid/Proposal Managers – orchestrating timelines, content, and contributors.
- Marketing and Design Teams – ensuring strong writing, brand consistency and visual polish.
- HR and Resource Managers – managing employee and skills data.
- Legal and Finance – reviewing terms, pricing, and risk.
- IT and Systems - ensuring everyone’s working on the same page, with strong integrated tools.
The more cohesive and coordinated these roles are, the higher the likelihood of delivering a proposal that’s not just compliant — but compelling. We talk about each of these roles in more detail later in this blog.
Types of Bids - RFPs vs RFIs vs EOIs & more
There are several formats firms respond to, each with its own quirks:
- RFPs (Request for Proposals) – These are the most common and typically the most detailed. RFPs include specific requirements around scope, methodology, team structure, commercial terms, and past experience. Responses are often scored against weighted criteria, so clarity, structure, and compliance are critical.
- RFIs (Request for Information) – RFIs are usually issued earlier in the procurement process to assess potential vendors' capabilities and suitability. They don’t always lead to a formal bid but are an opportunity to get on a buyer’s radar, shape their thinking, or secure a place on a shortlist.
- EOIs (Expressions of Interest) – EOIs are used to prequalify firms before inviting full proposals. They often require firms to demonstrate experience, capacity, and alignment with the client’s needs — usually without submitting a full technical or commercial proposal just yet.
- Tenders – Common in public sector and construction-based procurement, tenders often come with highly prescriptive formats and strict compliance requirements. Submission portals, file naming conventions, response structures, and required attachments are often non-negotiable — missing any of them can lead to disqualification.
Each format places different emphasis on sections like case studies, team resumes, commercial structure, and compliance documentation — making content standardization, structure, and reusability a key challenge (and opportunity) for proposal teams.
Anatomy of a Proposal
While structures vary by industry and client, most professional services proposals include:
- Executive Summary – the tailored hook that shows you understand the client’s needs.
- Methodology / Approach – your plan for delivering the project.
- Pricing / Commercials – how much it will cost and how it’s structured.
- Team CVs / Resumes – who’s going to carry out the work, and proof that they’ve had success in similar projects.
- Past Experience / Case Studies – proving your track record in similar work.
- Compliance Information – accreditations, insurances, forms, and checklists.
Each section needs to walk the line between being informative and persuasive — and it needs to be easy to assemble under pressure.
Internal and External Drivers of Proposal Success
Externally, your proposal is being judged on how well it fits the client’s needs, how clearly it’s written, and how credible it appears. But internally, several invisible forces shape the outcome long before the submission date. Some of these include:
- How easily can we find relevant project experience?
- Are our team CVs up-to-date and aligned with the opportunity?
- Do we have standardized templates to reduce formatting stress?
- Do we have clear processes to qualify bids before we start writing?
These internal enablers often determine whether you can respond quickly, respond well — or not at all.
Chapter 2: Setting Up a Winning Bid Function
Most firms start with ad hoc bid processes. One person takes the lead, deadlines are met (barely), and content is pulled together from old files, inboxes, and memory. It works — until it doesn’t. As the volume and complexity of bids increase, firms need to move from a reactive approach to a structured bid function that can scale.
This chapter explores what a high-functioning bid operation looks like — and how to build one, step by step.
Core Capabilities Every Firm Needs
To manage bids efficiently and consistently, you need more than just good intentions. A winning bid function is built on three pillars:
- People – The right mix of roles and responsibilities.
- Processes – Repeatable workflows that reduce chaos.
- Platforms – Tools that support speed, structure, and collaboration.
Let’s break these down.
1. People: Establishing Clear Ownership
The right people can make or break a bid — but more important than who’s involved is who owns what. As firms grow or pursue more complex bids, blurred lines between roles lead to bottlenecks, duplicated work, or last-minute scrambles.
The key is defining responsibilities clearly — and documenting them so everyone knows their role at each stage of the process.
You might use a RACI matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) to clarify expectations across:
- Bid/Proposal Managers – Own the end-to-end process, set timelines, and coordinate contributors.
- Sales or BD Leads – Provide context on the client’s needs, decision-makers, and competitive landscape.
- Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) – Deliver the technical or delivery-specific input needed to respond with credibility.
- Marketing & Design – Bring consistency, polish, and brand alignment to the final document.
- Leadership / Commercial Approvers – Weigh in on pricing strategy, risk, and final sign-off.
In smaller firms, these responsibilities may sit with just one or two people. In larger organizations, clarity is even more important — especially when deadlines are tight and stakes are high.
Action to take:
Create a visual RACI for your most common bid types. You can always adjust it later, but even a simple version brings structure and accountability to what can otherwise be a chaotic process.
2. Processes: Build for Repeatability
Even if each bid is different, your process shouldn’t be reinvented every time. The most effective bid teams work from a clearly defined framework that includes:
- Bid qualification (go/no-go) criteria
- Kickoff meeting checklists
- Content request templates
- Standard formatting and file naming
- Review stages (pink/red team reviews)
- Approval workflows
- Submission checklists
Good processes reduce errors, speed up responses, and make collaboration easier — especially under tight deadlines.
Action to take:
Document your current bid process. Identify common bottlenecks and miscommunications. Build a playbook that anyone in your team can follow.
To help you kick off this process, we’ve created a go/no-go guide. While it was written for Construction firms, the core principals apply across all Professional Services firms.
3. Platforms: Get the Right Tools in Place
Even with responsibilities mapped out, and processes defined, manual bid management quickly becomes unmanageable. As volume grows, you’ll need technology to:
- Store and reuse content, such as boilerplate sections, resumes, case studies, pricing tables, and more
- Search for relevant experience and people across the firm to find your winning teams and case studies fast.
- Tailor content easily to match specific requirements.
- Export proposals into branded or client-mandated formats.
- Track performance over time.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution — the right mix depends on your firm’s structure and needs. We delve into the specific tools and what to look out for later in this blog.
Action to take:
Audit your current tools. Are you duplicating effort across platforms? Are your systems integrated? Are people still storing important data in Excel sheets or Word docs?
Centralizing Experience Data: The Often-Overlooked Foundation
One of the biggest sources of inefficiency, and one of the biggest missed opportunities in the proposal processe lies in how firms handle experience data. Often, resumes and case studies are thought of merely as supporting materials. However, in many bids, especially in professional services, they are the proposal. Clients often evaluate submissions based on whether the proposed team has done similar work, in a similar context, with measurable results. Case studies show proof. Resumes show credibility. Together, they build trust.
Therefore, managing this data efficiently is half the battle of creating a strong proposal. Yet despite their importance, this content is often the hardest to manage. It's buried in old folders, scattered across teams, or saved in inconsistent formats. As a result, bid teams spend hours chasing down bios, rewriting project summaries, or trying to figure out if a consultant’s “relevant experience” is actually up to date.
By centralizing experience data — and making it searchable and structured — firms can:
- Quickly identify the most relevant team members and past projects
- Tailor content to the client’s needs with far less manual effort
- Avoid errors, inconsistencies, and outdated information
- Reuse and repackage high-quality content across bids
Action to take:
If you’re still managing resumes and project data in folders and spreadsheets, it’s time to rethink. Look for a solution, such as Flowcase, that makes this data reusable and accessible across your team.
Customize Without Losing the Original
Tailoring should be fast and controlled—not a formatting mess or a versioning nightmare. That’s why Flowcase allows you to clone master case studies and adapt them for each proposal without altering the original. You can:
- Edit specific sections to emphasize relevance
- Swap in more appropriate outcome metrics
- Reframe the narrative without rewriting from scratch
The result? Content that feels like it was written just for this client—without starting from zero every time.
Showcase: Format and Export with Consistency and Confidence
Once your past performance content is written, managed, found, and tailored—it still needs to be presented professionally. While formatting past performance content is the last mile, it’s often the most frustrating. Copying content into the wrong template, dealing with inconsistent layouts, or wrestling with tables and design elements can eat up valuable hours and introduce costly errors.
That’s why having the right tools to showcase your content—quickly and consistently—is essential.
Templates: From Content to Proposal-Ready
Proposal formatting requirements vary. Some clients ask for tabular past performance summaries, others want narrative case studies, and some provide strict layouts that must be followed to the letter.
Flowcase helps you handle all of these without manual rework. With custom templates and export tools, you can:
- Instantly drop tailored content into your branded templates or client-specific formats
- Export as Word Doc, PDF, InDesign, or PowerPoint depending on submission requirements
- Ensure consistency across proposals, even when multiple team members are involved
- Eliminate time spent on manual layout, formatting, and duplication
Reduce Risk and Increase Professionalism
Formatting errors can damage first impressions—or worse, lead to non-compliance in tightly controlled RFP processes. Automating this step reduces human error, ensures you meet all formatting requirements, and allows your team to focus on refining the content, not wrestling with Word files.
With the right system in place, showcasing your past performance becomes seamless, scalable, and consistent—no matter how many proposals you're producing each month.
Here's how Templates work in practice - using the tricky SF330 as an example:
Conclusion: Streamlining Construction Past Performance
In construction proposals, past performance isn’t just a supporting section—it’s often the deciding factor. It’s how you prove that you don’t just have the capabilities—you’ve already delivered. But turning your firm’s project history into a consistent, compelling, and scalable proposal asset takes more than good writing.
To win work consistently, you need to:
- Write past performance narratives that clearly communicate challenges, solutions, and outcomes
- Manage your project data in a structured, centralized way
- Find relevant examples quickly based on what matters to each bid
- Tailor them to each opportunity so they feel specific and persuasive
- Showcase them professionally and consistently across every submission
Flowcase was built to support exactly this. It helps construction firms transform their project experience into a competitive advantage—streamlining everything from content management to final formatting, all while maintaining quality and consistency.
If you’d like to learn more about Flowcase, book a personalized demo here.
FAQs About Past Performance for Construction Proposals
What is the best framework for writing a past performance section?
The most effective framework is the Challenge–Solution–Outcome (CSO) structure. It helps you clearly explain the context of the project (Challenge), the actions your team took (Solution), and the measurable or qualitative impact you delivered (Outcome). This format is widely used in construction proposals because it allows evaluators to quickly assess your experience—even if they’re not technical experts.
How can I quickly find our most relevant past performance for a construction project?
The best way to do this is by using a proposal management platform like Flowcase, which lets you search and filter your past projects by location, contract value, project type, delivery method, team members, and more. This helps you quickly locate the most relevant case studies for each construction RFP without sifting through folders or outdated documents.
How do I know which projects are most relevant for my upcoming RFP?
Start by analyzing the RFP’s priorities. Look for keywords like “schedule certainty,” “LEED certification,” or “design-build experience.” Then match these themes against your past performance database. The most relevant examples will align with the project’s size, scope, delivery method, and unique constraints—whether that’s urban logistics, public engagement, or fast-track delivery.
How can I tailor project data without overriding the master version?
Using a system like Flowcase, you can clone your master past performance and make tailored edits for each proposal without affecting the original. This ensures consistency while giving you the flexibility to emphasize specific results or reframe your content in the client's language.
How can I get my past performance into the right format for the proposal?
Formatting can vary widely between construction proposals, so it’s important to have flexible export tools. Flowcase lets you instantly format past performance sections into branded templates or client-specified formats (like Word, PDF, InDesign, or SF 330 layouts), so you’re always ready—no reformatting required.
How can I complete the SF 330 past performance section efficiently?
The SF 330 requires detailed information about relevant projects, structured in a specific format. With Flowcase, you can store all required data points—project title, location, key personnel, completion dates, and outcomes—and export them directly into the SF 330 format. This cuts down manual effort and ensures compliance with federal proposal standards.
What are some tips for writing strong past performance for construction RFPs?
- Use the CSO structure to tell a clear story
- Include metrics like budget, timeline, and safety performance
- Mirror the language and priorities of the RFP
- Focus on relevance to the project at hand
- Eliminate fluff—every sentence should reinforce credibility
- Highlight roles, delivery methods, and innovations
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