Lindi Nguyen is a dynamic professional taking the industry by storm.

May 13, 2021

Beyond spending, certified firms need more support because there are clear disparities in the system–
access to capital, We need to invest in funds that address these proven disparities and get to the root of the problems.

Lindi Nguyen came to The Monroe Group, LLC fresh from Duke with a Public Policy Masters degree, full of theoretical knowledge, little understanding of how everything she learned was applied in the real world. Lindi got referred to the position from a friend who had told her Desmonde was a procurement genius. On her very first day, she walked straight into the chaos of putting together a multi-million dollar bid. Stacks of resumes were piled on three different desks, packets of different versions of org charts and budgets were taped to the walls of a conference room.

Late nights ensued, and cartons of Chinese take-out later, Lindi and her team submitted a beautiful 250-page bid that they ended up winning a part of. It was a crash course in government procurement, strategic teaming and partnering, and capacity stretching. The next bid, Lindi wrote solo. After a month, she was writing them all. I sit here reflecting on this now, dozens of bids later, tens of millions in contracts secured.

You don’t need a degree to write effective bids. But it helps to have a mentor who can guide you through what agencies are looking for. Because agencies ask for a lot in RFPs. And you need to deliver even more in your proposal. That’s what Desmonde taught me to do and offers in The Monroe Accelerator. Here are the top three practical tips that Lindi has taken away from her time on-the-job writing winning RFPs:

Know your agency. Whether the bid is for a non-profit that cares about your mission, an agency looking for more diverse contractors, or simply the lowest price wins, respond emphasizing their need throughout your response. Beyond your written response, your pictures, graphs, visual pop-outs can convey the themes you are trying to hit on too. The RFP or the agency website will lend hints to priorities the procurement officers will be looking for. If they have a laundry list of experience requirements in the RFP, make a chart highlighting the experience of your staff that responds to their list directly. If they have community pictures all over their website, throw community pictures all over your bid. If they’re an agency that has experienced a recent controversy, subtly throw in how you know how to navigate similar types of controversies. Make it clear you know the agency and are the firm they have been looking for.

Make it clean. Lindi cannot emphasize enough how important clean graphic design plays a part in communicating to an agency that you are professional and can do the job. Even if they are looking for the lowest price firm, a tight proposal that is easy on the eye subtly communicates that you will be pleasant to work with, that you are polished and prepared. And when I say tight, I mean everything lines up right, fonts and colors all match, zero typos. It will also put the procurement analysts rating your proposals in a better mood with a proposal that is easy to read and appealing to the eye. Visuals, pictures, graphs, and charts help in this a lot. Rely on visual representations of information where possible. You know, if you were working through a large stack of proposals, you would prefer this too. Never forget, you want your procurement analyst reviewing your firm in the best mood possible.

Your approach matters. Procurement officers are really reading your approach to see if it matches agency standards and protocol. Do not just reiterate that you will do the scope of work asked. If you are at a loss to how to articulate an approach, ask around and take notes. Say a scope of work item on an RFP is risk analysis. Ask your firm’s engineer how they would carry out a risk analysis program for an agency. Write down their method and hit those points in your RFP proposal. Tap the resources you have in-house ask your staff how they would approach some work items requested in the proposal. Write down as they answer your question and integrate the best responses with your existing approach for your proposal. If you’re stuck, you can also schedule calls with experts in your network to pick their brains, bounce some ideas off them. People prefer to respond verbally most often. It is less work on their end.

Lindi states that "there’s a learning curve to government procurement, and while agencies tell you what they’re looking for in RFPs, there’s a lot that they want to leave unsaid as well." If you think tips like these are helpful, we will be discussing more practical tips like these in The Monroe Acceleratorcourse and on the Accelerator monthly coaching calls. Hope to see you there!

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