Bid less. Win more.
Win the Bids
You Choose
A capture playbook for small federal contractors without a big business development team. Stop chasing every notice. Pick the bids you can win, and win them.
Bid less. Win more.
A capture playbook for small federal contractors without a big business development team. Stop chasing every notice. Pick the bids you can win, and win them.
The problem
They chase every notice on SAM.gov, write proposals at night and on weekends, and lose to companies that knew about the contract a year before the RFP dropped.
The answer isn't a bigger proposal team. It's deciding early which bids are worth your time, getting close to the customer while you still can, and walking away from the rest.
Every chapter ends with three things to do on Monday.
Win the Bids You Choose takes the capture method the large primes use and sizes it for a firm with two or three people doing business development. The lessons come from real bids on Navy base operations contracts from Guam to Jacksonville, checked against the public record.
The method
Each phase ends at a gate where you decide, in writing, whether to keep going.
Spot the right opportunities early and score them honestly.
Know the customer, the field and your win strategy before the RFP.
Lock the solution, the team and a price that can win.
Write a proposal evaluators can actually score.
Survive the award and protest, deliver, and learn for next time.
Free download
Every template from Appendix A of the book, as Word documents you can edit. The scorecard, issue map, competitive scorecard and price-to-win worksheet also come as Excel workbooks that do the math for you.
If it doesn't start, click here to download the templates.
The link works for 7 days.
Work with BidForge
BidForge is a veteran-owned capture firm for small federal contractors. We bring the method in the book and an AI proposal engine that does the counting, tracing and checking that used to take a floor full of people.
An honest Pursuit Scorecard on the opportunities you're considering, so you bid the ones you can win.
Customer and competitor research from the public record, Black Hat reviews and win strategy.
A target set before pricing begins, and a traceable model behind your number.
Compliance matrices, outlines, first drafts and color reviews, with people owning every word.
Gate reviews and pipeline support until you're ready to hire your own team.
Tell us about the bid in front of you. We'll tell you honestly whether it's worth chasing.
About the author
Garry is a service-disabled Navy veteran whose Navy specialty was the GE LM2500 gas turbine. After the Navy he spent years inside one of the country's largest federal contractors, working on base operations support bids for the Navy around the world, and then running utilities and contracts on one of the contracts he helped win. He later consulted on the Army's LOGCAP V competition.
He has also done it the hard way, as a small business owner bidding federal work on his own. Today he owns BidForge, a veteran-owned capture firm that helps small businesses find, shape and win federal work.
Contact
Send a note with the solicitation or forecast number and what you're trying to decide. Garry reads every message.
garry@ninesforge.com