How we do it
How a public bid actually gets done.
The short version is five simple steps. Below is what each one involves: what we ask you for, what comes out of the documents, and the two things only you can do. Done for you by Stuart and his team. You never log in and run anything yourself.
Twenty minutes. You'll see what's open right now for a business like yours, and you'll know whether it's worth chasing. No obligation either way. Not for you? It's all good.
Step one
We learn your business
Before we look at a single solicitation (a buyer's bid document), we build the picture that everything else filters through. What you do, where you're licensed, what you're bonded for, your insurance limits, your certifications and set-aside status. The contract sizes you can absorb, and the references you can actually put in front of an evaluator.
This is also where we find the gaps. Plenty of companies discover here that one missing certificate has been quietly disqualifying them for years.
What goes in the profile
- Licenses, registrations, EIN and UEI
- Insurance limits and bonding capacity
- Certifications and set-aside status
- Past performance you can reference
- Geography you can genuinely service
- Contract sizes that fit your capacity
Step two
We find what's out there for you
There is no single place public work gets posted. 90,837 public bodies buy independently, most of them will never email you, and the good ones are usually the quiet ones.
Every day, not when someone remembers
It happens whether or not anything turns up, which is the only way a deadline three weeks out doesn't become a deadline three days out.
The quiet buyers too
Plenty of public bodies post, wait, and award to whoever showed up. Fewer bidders, better odds, and almost nobody is watching for them.
You operate nothing
No logins, no saved searches, no alerts to keep tuned. The work arrives already read and already judged.
Step three
We read every document
Anyone can send you a list. The hard part is the ninety-page PDF, and the requirement on page sixty-one that makes the whole thing a waste of your afternoon.
Every page of it gets read, including the attachments and the addenda. That is where the disqualifying requirement always is: a certification, a mandatory pre-bid meeting, a named product, a form that has to be notarized.
What we pull out
- Every mandatory element, and which ones you'd fail
- How the scoring is actually weighted
- Certifications, licensing and bonding required
- Insurance limits and whether certificates are due with the bid
- Who holds it now, and how long they've held it
- Submission method, format and copy counts
Step three, continued
We vet them, and you only see what passes
A paragraph you can act on in a minute, with the reason spelled out.
What a "no" looks like
"This one requires a manufacturer's certification you don't hold, and the spec names two acceptable products. Even priced perfectly you'd be found non-responsive at opening."
What a "yes" looks like
"Qualifications-scored, not low bid. Your three district references map directly to their evaluation criteria, and the incumbent has held it nine years without a rebid."
We say no more often than yes. Companies that bid everything win about 12% of the time; companies with a real go/no-go process average around 28%. Telling you to walk away is worth more than telling you to bid.
Win-rate figures are industry benchmarks from published proposal-management research; your own numbers will vary with your market and the work you chase.
This is where the time goes.
Finding the work and deciding what's worth chasing is where the time goes. We'll show you what that looks like for your business in twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes. You'll see what's open right now for a business like yours, and you'll know whether it's worth chasing. No obligation either way. Not for you? It's all good.
Step four
You say go. We write it.
The compliance work
- A compliance matrix: a requirement-by-requirement checklist showing where each one is met
- Every mandatory form, filled and ready for signature
- Certificates, licenses and insurance evidence assembled
- Addenda (the buyer's changes after posting) tracked and acknowledged
- Formatting, copy counts and file naming to spec
- Submitted to the portal, ahead of the deadline
The narrative work
- A statement of understanding that proves we read it
- Approach and methodology mapped to their scoring
- Team and past performance positioned against the criteria
- References with full contact details, never "on request"
- Everything quantified: hours, deliverables, timelines
You supply pricing and final approval. That's the part only you can do, and it's the part that should have your attention instead of the paperwork.
Step five
You approve, submit and win, then we track it
If you ask, most public agencies have to give you a debrief: their explanation of how the bids were scored. It's free. Almost nobody asks.
We request one on every loss, and it tells us what the evaluators actually weighted, where the pricing landed, and what the winner did differently. That goes straight back into the next response. After a year of that you know how the buyers in your market actually decide, which is not something you can buy.
Before you book
The six questions everyone asks first
Who signs and submits?
You do, always. Every certification and representation in a public bid is yours to make, so you are the signatory on every page that needs one. We prepare the submission, you approve it and sign it, and we submit it when you say so. We never sign anything on your behalf.
Who sets the price?
You do. Pricing is the one part of a bid that genuinely has to come from you. What we do is make it an informed number. We tell you what the current contractor was paid. Where the buyer attached the last award tabulation (its record of every bid received), we tell you what it showed. And we tell you how heavily this particular buyer weights price against everything else.
What if we lose?
We request the debrief: the buyer’s explanation of how the bids were scored. Most public agencies must give you one if you ask, and almost nobody asks. It tells us what the evaluators actually weighted, where the pricing landed and what the winner did differently. That goes straight into the next response. Over a year it becomes a record of how the buyers in your market decide.
How soon is the first bid?
Your profile is built in the first week: licenses, insurance, bonding, certifications, references, the contract sizes you can absorb. From there it depends on your trade and your states. The first qualified match typically turns up within the first month. We would rather wait for one you can win than send you something to keep busy. We will tell you on the call what the volume looks like in your market.
Do you work with our competitors?
Sometimes more than one company in a trade works with us. What never happens is the same proposal going out twice. Every response is built from your business: your references, your approach, your pricing. No client ever sees another client’s matches, documents or profile.
What does it cost?
$1,000 a month to find and read everything that fits, month to month with no setup fee. $500 per written response, and no single response ever costs more than $3,000. It is less than the person you would otherwise have to hire, and if there isn’t enough real work in your trade and states to justify it, we will say so, and you will have lost twenty minutes.
Want to talk today?
Book twenty minutes and you’ll see what’s open right now for a business like yours. Or just email us. Our team answers within one business day.