The proposal takes six hours to write. It wins one time in four.

Bid effort rarely appears in any budget or any margin calculation, which is how the most expensive work in a service business becomes the work that never gets won.

By Steve 5 min read
Abstract bridge artwork for The proposal takes six hours to write. It wins one time in four.

A six-hour proposal that converts one time in four carries twenty-four hours of senior effort into every win. That cost is real, it is almost always incurred by the most expensive people in the business, and in most service firms it appears nowhere: not in cost of sale, not in the margin on the job, not in anybody’s capacity plan. The hours simply vanish into evenings and weekends, which is precisely why nobody notices when the number doubles. The interesting question is not how to write proposals faster. It is…

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