write the winning rfps

Proposal professionals, we operate in a high-stakes, high-pressure environment. Every RFP seems urgent! Every deadline is immovable! Yet, the underlying challenge remains unchanged: Not every opportunity justifies the investment.

I don’t know about you, but I hate that.

So here’s how you stop chasing those time-wasting/losing bids.

✹ The Case for Strategic Resource Allocation 

According to McKinsey, organizations that allocate resources dynamically to their most promising opportunities grow revenue 2.5x faster than peers that spread efforts evenly. The implication for proposal teams is that performance improves when effort is focused.

Are we surprised? Nope.

✹ AI as a Decision Support System 

AI-powered opportunity evaluation means we can now assess bids even more effectively (not just faster). It provides data-driven insights into which RFPs merit pursuit and which should be declined.

✹ What Enables AI to Improve Bid Decisions?

Let's decode the "how" behind smarter decision-making. This isn’t magic, unfortunately. Instead, it’s fairly straightforward mechanics that you’re probably already doing in some way:

• Data-Driven Analysis. AI ingests past win/loss outcomes, RFP structures, buyer behavior, and competitor trends.

• Adaptive Reprioritization. As new data emerges (e.g., competitor involvement, clarification responses from a Q&A), AI updates opportunity scoring in real time.

• Embedded Workflow Integration for the future? Although most tools don’t have this yet, evaluation and scoring will hopefully occur within existing proposal platforms, not as separate, manual steps like they are often now.

✹ How to Reshape Proposal Strategy NOW

This is where it gets tactical, I hope:

• Faster, Data-Driven Go/No-Go Decisions. AI can highlight misalignments and risks early, replacing hours of deliberation in qualification calls.

• Predictive Scoring Models. You can now assess win probability using compliance, competitive differentiation, and historical outcomes.

• Guided Personalization Strategies. We can now assign team effort strategically by identifying which opportunities warrant deeper customization.

✹ Key Capabilities to Look For

If you're evaluating AI tools, these are the things we need to be asking for and demanding in our products:

• Automated Compliance and Fit Check.: Identify disqualifying elements upfront.

• Intelligent Opportunity Scoring. Balance deal size, alignment, and risk to surface highest-impact pursuits.

• Real-Time Prioritization. Dynamically update scoring based on new intel such as competitor activity or requirement changes.

Proposal leaders who embed AI-powered opportunity evaluation into their workflows report measurable gains: higher win rates, faster turnarounds, and improved team morale. Those who continue to pursue every bid risk diminishing returns.

Explore the full strategy at Stargazy.io

✹ Join the conversation in stargazy

AI First Bid Management Process?

Anna Nyblin, Bid Manager at MIAB, asked our advice on how an AI-first bid management process would/should look like. She got some serious responses, but we’d love to see what you think.
Add your perspective →

The Stargazy Lounge: Your Job in 5 Emojis?

Tadé Bola, Senior Pitch and Pursuits Professional at Latham & Watkins, asked a very serious question for our Stargazy Lounge this week: If you had to sum up what you do using only 5 emojis max, which ones would you pick? No surprise, there are a lot of coffee and wine emojis showing up.
What are yours?! →

Choose Your Proposal Fighter Style

This week’s badge drop is all about 1UP, the AI-native RFP platform that has officially won the branding game (and is also just a stand-out product if you work in B2B). Four exclusive Stargazy x 1UP badges are on the line, asking ‘Choose your proposal fighter style 🐱⚔️ with 1up,’ but you only get a badge if you vote. Which one fits you best?
Choose your fighter style →

✹ Interview with Henry Brogan

✹ What Most Proposal and Bid Teams Are Still Missing

Henry Brogan (CEO of BidScript) shared a straightforward view of how proposals are changing, and why most teams are looking in the wrong place for those changes.

The conversation covered:

• Why AI’s biggest ROI isn’t writing; it’s pre-bid intelligence

• How poor CRM habits and sales–bid disconnects kill win rates

• What questions to ask vendors to make sure they’re getting a great software

• The changes in content libraries we need to pay attention to

• How AI-driven post-mortems can fix every future bid

Henry also called out CROs who ignore RFPs (“go find a new one”) and exposed how bloated pricing and bad culture are holding teams back.

🎧 Listen in for a bold, practical blueprint for proposal leaders ready to think, and work, smarter.

✹ The Stargazy Buyer’s Field Guide for Capture and Intelligence Tools

Before the RFP drops, the real work begins. Capture and pursuits is where the smartest proposal teams quietly win long before the first question lands in their inbox.

These tools help teams see opportunities earlier, understand buyer intent, and shape deals before procurement even starts.

Let’s dive in:

✹ Join the stargazy intelligence hub

Proposal leaders from AWS, Google, Deloitte, Mace, and Capita are already inside. Join us, too?

See you under the stars,
✨ Chris

P.S. Follow us on LinkedIn for launches, playbooks, and upcoming AMAs.

P.P.S. You can review your proposal software tool on stargazy. That gives us proposal people a better idea of what tools our peers love…and which ones aren’t for us.

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