Skip to content

State & local proposal writing

We write the response. You sign it.

Almost every proposal firm in this country writes for the big federal agencies: schedules, cost volumes, audit compliance. Bidding a school district or a county is a different job, with different ways to lose. That's the one we do.

Book a 20-minute call What you get

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.

A response takes about 33 hours

That's the industry benchmark, across roughly seven people. It's why most companies bid twice a year instead of twice a month. There just aren't the hours in the week.

We absorb that. You supply pricing and approval.

Why state and local is a different job

State and local bids get thrown out for different reasons

A writer who lives in cost volumes and past-performance questionnaires knows a great deal. None of it is what gets a bid thrown out at a county courthouse.

  • Responsiveness versus responsibility. Whether your bid followed every instruction, versus whether your company is able to do the work. The first decides whether your bid is even opened, and most bidders have never heard of it.
  • Sealed-bid mechanics. Public openings, copy counts, envelope marking, wet signatures, notarization.
  • Addenda acknowledgment. Addenda are the buyer's changes after posting. Miss signing for one and it does not matter how good the rest is.
  • Mandatory pre-bid meetings. Frequently disqualifying, and never in the listing.
  • Certificates due with the bid, not on award. Your broker needs days you will not have.
  • Protest windows measured in days, and they vary by state.

What you get

What you get

A finished response you read, price, sign, and watch go in ahead of the deadline.

  1. One team, and one point of contact

    The team that reads your documents is the team you talk to. Same point of contact every month, and you can call them.

  2. Nothing you could bid goes past us

    Every day, whether or not anything turns up. Including the buyers who never email anybody and award to whoever showed up.

  3. Every document read cover to cover

    The attachments, the addenda, the general conditions. The disqualifying requirement is always on page sixty-one, and it has to be found before you commit a week to the bid.

  4. A written verdict on each one

    “Why this fits”, or why it doesn’t. The clause, the scoring weight, the certification, what the incumbent held. A paragraph you can act on in a minute.

  5. The full response

    Compliance matrix, narrative, forms, certificates, references, formatting. Built to how that particular buyer scores.

  6. Submission on your instruction. You sign.

    Uploaded to the portal ahead of the deadline, once you have priced it and approved it. Every certification in a public bid is yours to make, so you are always the signatory.

  7. Tracking to award, and a debrief request on every loss

    Most public agencies must debrief you if you ask. We ask every time, and what the evaluators weighted and where the price landed goes straight into the next one.

  8. A private portal where all of it lives

    The matches, the verdicts, the source documents, your profile and certificates, and the live status of anything we are writing. One place, yours.

    See the portal →

Inside the response

What's actually in a submission

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 tracked and acknowledged
  • Format, copy counts and file naming to spec
  • Uploaded to the portal on your instruction, ahead of the deadline

The narrative work

  • A statement of understanding that proves we read it
  • Approach mapped to their actual scoring weights
  • Your past jobs lined up against what they're scoring
  • References with full contact details, never "on request"
  • Everything quantified: hours, deliverables, timelines

You are always the signatory. Every certification and representation in a response is made by you and signed by you. We prepare it, you sign it. That's the only way it can work, and it's what keeps you clean. See our process in full.

Before any of that

The first thing we write is often "don't bid this."

A response is expensive. The verdict comes first, and when the answer is no, it says why.

Landscaping & grounds Florida Pass

Housing authority: grounds maintenance, eleven properties

Estimated $180,000–$240,000 / yr · Closes this week · 3 documents

Why we’re passing

Section 3 of the scope requires the contractor to hold a state pest-control license and self-perform all fertilization and pesticide application; addendum 1 expressly prohibits subcontracting it. You don’t hold that license and there isn’t time to get one before the deadline. Priced perfectly, this would still be found non-responsive at opening. We have flagged the re-bid in three years and what to have in place by then.

  • Pesticide license required
  • Subcontracting prohibited
  • Re-bid flagged

Sample entries, written the way real ones reach you. Real entries carry the buyer, the documents and the exact deadline.

How we work

Who does the work

You are buying people who have read thousands of these, know how a particular evaluation committee scores, and will tell you when to walk away from one.

Public procurement is a closed world with its own vocabulary, its own calendar and its own unwritten rules. Responsiveness is not responsibility. A missed addendum acknowledgment ends a bid that would otherwise have won. The certificate that has to arrive with the submission, not on award, takes your broker four days you did not budget. None of that is written down anywhere a newcomer will find it. You learn it by doing it over and over, and by asking for the debrief every single time you lose.

That's what we bring: the judgment about which ones you can win, and a team that treats your submission the way you would if you had the time for it.

Every response is written and reviewed by our team, and signed by you. You get one point of contact. And we'll tell you not to bid when that's the right answer.

How to think about this

This is a sales channel you aren't working yet.

Treat it the way you'd treat a new rep or a new territory. It's where the next contract comes from.

Public buyers award multi-year contracts that renew, and they award them to the same handful of vendors who already know how to reach them. Most companies never bid at all. They could do the work. It's just that nobody in the building has the job of finding it, sizing it up and getting a response out the door before the deadline. That's the job we do: we bring you the bids worth having, we write the submissions, and we follow them all the way to award.

Measure us the way you'd measure a salesperson. Opportunities surfaced, bids submitted, win rate, contract value, renewals.

Who we do this for

Contractors and service firms selling to public buyers

Construction & renovation · Electrical · Plumbing · HVAC & mechanical · Roofing · Painting & coatings · Flooring · Fire protection · Low voltage & AV · Elevator maintenance · Demolition · Environmental abatement · Landscaping & grounds · Paving & asphalt · Tree care · Snow removal · Excavation & utilities · Traffic control & pavement marking · Janitorial & custodial · Pest control · Waste & recycling · Security services · Food service · Laundry & uniforms · Fleet maintenance · Student transportation · IT & managed services · Professional, marketing & design · Engineering & surveying · Staffing · Printing & mail · Insurance & employee benefits. Read how each one is bought →

Every response is built from your business: your references, your approach, your pricing. It is never reused for anyone else. Typically three million or more in annual revenue, with at least two referenceable completed contracts.

How responding actually works What it costs to bid in-house

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.

Book a 20-minute call Contact us