Re: Know of courses on writing RFP responses?

[Al Geist <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>]

If it's a Federal government solicitation, the require format and 
deliverables for your response are listed in the solicitation.  (Don't 
get creative here, unless you want to get your response tossed out in 
the first round.)  As for how to write the response...the best "course" 
I ever took on writing RFP responses was to work with a former Wing 
Commander on a large facility maintenance proposal for the Federal 
Government.  The key is to think like the soliciting organization and 
even better, get to know what the Contracting Officer likes.  Just as 
Andrew Plato said, most of those Federal solicitations are already 
geared toward a specific company.  This doesn't mean you can't compete.  
It just means the playing field, regardless of what the funding agency 
says, is skewed.

Next, according to the Wing Commander (who used to review proposals for 
the Air Force), don't ever fall into the trap of "search and replace" 
solicitation response.  Many company, especially those that use the 
shotgun approach to RFP response, simply change all the "vendor shall" 
to "vendor will".  You can pump out a lot of responses in a short period 
of time this way, but your won/loss ratio won't be stellar.   Also, 
remember that the text you put in your company's response is the 
foundation for the actual contract.  The clearer your response, the 
fewer problems you will have executing the project.  After writing 
several large proposals and winning a few of them, I found that everyone 
that we won followed the same concepts the Commander promoted.

So....read the RFP (better yet, have a couple of people read it). 
Determine what the solicitation is asking and decide if it's worth it to 
respond.  Draft your response, including a pro forma budget.  Get 
several individuals to review it (marketing, administration, staff, 
etc.).  Incorporate their comments and send it off.  Do a bunch of them 
and you will have had a better education than you could ever get from 
any formal course. 

Al