You're losing RFPs because you're treating them like a side hustle. There's no middle ground in proposal management—and that lukewarm approach is costing you millions.
We see it constantly across industries from enterprise SaaS to professional services: teams dabble in RFPs when they're slow, panic-submit proposals with three-day turnarounds, and wonder why their win rate hovers around 5%. The uncomfortable truth? The middle path is where good pipelines go to die.
After analyzing thousands of RFP pursuits from companies in financial services, technology, and consulting, one pattern emerges with brutal clarity: the organizations winning consistently aren't the ones with the prettiest proposals. They're the ones who've made a conscious, binary choice about their RFP strategy—they're either all in or strategically all out.
The Half-Committed RFP Death Spiral
Here's what half-hearted RFP pursuit actually looks like in the real world:
Your bid team submits one proposal this month because "it looked promising." Nothing next month because you're busy closing other deals. Two the following month when cash flow tightens and executives demand more pipeline. Each proposal takes 30-40 hours because you're starting from scratch every time. You have no process, no templates, no systematic approach. Your SMEs dread your emails. Your win rate stays flat at 7% while your team burns out.
This isn't strategy. It's expensive gambling with your company's resources.
The data from over 5,000 RFP submissions tells a stark story: organizations pursuing RFPs sporadically see win rates below 7%. Those with disciplined, intentional approaches to proposal management? They're hitting 25-35% consistently. That's not a marginal improvement—it's the difference between RFPs being a profit center versus a resource-draining distraction.
Strategy One: All In on RFP Automation
Going all in means treating RFPs as a core growth lever, not an afterthought. It means investing in proper proposal management software and building systematic processes.
Set a non-negotiable target: one RFP submission per week for six months minimum. Yes, that's 26 proposals. Yes, that's roughly 500 hours of work. But here's what happens when you commit at this level:
Your first month: Every proposal is painful. You're building templates, finding your voice, learning evaluation patterns, creating your answer library.
Month three: You've developed muscle memory. What took 40 hours now takes 20. You're recycling proven content, recognizing patterns in requirements, and building relationships with procurement teams. Your SMEs know exactly what to expect.
Month six: You're a proposal-generating machine. Your win rate has tripled. You've built a knowledge base of answers that can be reused. You know which RFPs to avoid by page two of the requirements. Most importantly, you've created a predictable pipeline that compounds—contracts from January submissions are hitting in June while you're already working July's pipeline.
But all in means all in. Track everything: win rates, feedback patterns, which sections get you to interviews, which answers kill deals. Build relationships before RFPs drop. Show up to every pre-bid meeting. Follow up when award dates pass.
One financial services team we tracked went from 0 RFP wins to $2.3M in contracted revenue over eight months using this approach. They didn't get better at writing. They got disciplined about the proposal management process.
Strategy Two: All Out (With Surgical Exceptions)
The alternative is equally valid: reject RFPs entirely as a growth mechanism.
This doesn't mean never responding to RFPs. It means you only engage when:
You're personally invited by the buyer
The opportunity exists within your immediate network
You have inside intelligence that tilts the field in your favor
Even then, you vet ruthlessly. Budget disclosed? No? Pass. Ridiculously tight turnaround? Pass. Procurement running the process with no access to actual users? Hard pass.
This strategy works because you're not splitting focus. You're doubling down on relationship selling, content marketing, strategic partnerships—whatever actually drives your growth. You're not maintaining proposal templates or RFP tracking systems. You're not training teams on response processes.
When you do engage, it's with full force on pre-wired opportunities where your win rate approaches 60-70%.
Why the Middle Fails in Proposal Management
The lukewarm middle fails because RFPs are a volume game disguised as a quality game.
You need volume to build the infrastructure (templates, answer libraries, process workflows) that makes each subsequent proposal faster and better. You need volume to develop pattern recognition—knowing which requirements actually matter, which answers differentiate, which clients pay on time.
But if you're only doing one RFP per quarter, you never build that infrastructure. Each proposal remains a heroic effort. Your team treats it as a disruption, not a discipline. Your subject matter experts dread the "emergency" emails. You never develop the institutional knowledge that compounds into competitive advantage.
Worse, you get the downsides of both strategies: the time investment of RFP pursuit without the volume for optimization, and the opportunity cost of unfocused business development without the clarity of complete rejection.
Making the RFP Strategy Choice
Pick your path based on three factors:
Your deal size: RFPs make more sense for $100K+ contracts where the 30-hour investment has ROI. Below that, the math rarely works unless you're extremely efficient with your proposal automation.
Your differentiation: If you're competing on specialized expertise rather than price, the all-out strategy often wins. If you're in a commoditized space, RFPs might be your only scaled acquisition channel.
Your growth timeline: RFPs are a 6-12 month investment before meaningful returns. If you need revenue in 60 days, this isn't your path.
The Discipline Behind the Decision
Whatever you choose, build systems that enforce your choice:
If you're all in:
Block dedicated RFP time weekly
Create a qualification scorecard and stick to it
Build your knowledge base with every proposal
Track metrics religiously
Assign clear ownership—RFPs can't be "everyone's job"
Invest in proposal management software that reuses your best answers
If you're all out:
Document your exception criteria
Create a quick-decline template
Redirect that time to activities with higher ROI
Build relationships that generate invited opportunities
The Bottom Line: Consistent Processes Beat Talent
Your RFP strategy is killing your win rate because it's not a strategy at all—it's opportunistic reaction.
The companies winning 30%+ of their proposals aren't smarter or better writers. They've simply chosen a lane and built systems to stay in it. They've accepted that discipline beats talent, that consistency beats perfection, and that binary choices beat hedged bets.
Stop living in the lukewarm middle where your win rate stays stuck at 5-7%. Make the choice. Build the systems. Execute with conviction.
We built Trampoline for teams that choose a lane.
If you are all in, Trampoline turns each RFP into a Kanban board, auto-assigns cards to the right SMEs, surfaces reusable answers, and tracks reviews to done. You can ask the AI for a compliance matrix, auto draft sections, and compile a final proposal from validated cards in your preferred format.
If you are all out, you still benefit from fast qualification. Upload the RFP, see every requirement, blockers, and gaps in minutes, and make a go or no-go with facts. No more heroic reads across emails and PDFs.
In both cases, your knowledge stays centralized and searchable. Your team spends less time chasing information and more time on work that moves the deal.