Preparing Winning Multiple Award and Task Order Proposals

Nearly 1,200 MACs comprise more than 25 percent of all government contracts, and are awarded to limited groups of suppliers that bid against each other for orders. Once awarded, MACs enable companies to grow quickly because they can win task orders on them within weeks, as opposed to single-award contracts that can take months or years. Not every company, however, knows how to benefit from these MACs, even if they happen to win these contracts. Companies run into difficulties in making money on these vehicles without the proper knowledge of how to dominate their better-educated competition. According to Bloomberg Government analysts, here are some MAC facts to ponder:

• Total MAC spending has been steadily increasing despite a decrease in total procurement spending. Additionally, a 2008 law requires all contracts with a potential value of at least $100 million to be awarded through MACs. In other words, more work is going to be awarded under MACs, and if you don't hold the right MACs, you won't able to compete for the perfect contracts for your company.
• Only about 3,600 companies out of hundreds of thousands of government contractors participate in non-schedule MACs, and this number has stayed flat in the past few years. This means that all the MAC money goes to a small fraction of companies who are in the know. Isn't it the time to join their ranks or even dominate that relatively small pool? 
• Agencies keep selecting the same companies while they increase the number of competitors on their MACs. It means that the companies who have learned "the system" for winning on these vehicles will continue winning and growing their MAC footprint. Until you understand how they do it, you won't be able to catch up —which is why you should take this course.
• The Feds are awarding more and more work to small businesses under MACs, with double-digit annual percentage increases. If you are a small business, or a large business teaming with good small businesses, this is your time to master MACs to benefit from the current trend. 

Many companies don ’t know how to win MACs against dozens, if not hundreds of competitors, because the requirements are broad, and make it hard to shine. Many small businesses are at a loss as to how to price a MAC. They don't know what strategies exist to make themselves more competitive while being able to execute after award. This course will teach you how. It doesn’t get any easier after winning a MAC as most companies have trouble winning task orders.

The deadlines and the proposal page count keep shrinking and the competition gets even tougher, making it harder to win proposals even when you are the most qualified bidder. Responses barely make the deadline because proposal managers learn about many task order requests for proposal only as they are released. The lack of pre-proposal planning leads to throwing boilerplate over the wall and hoping to win on price. We will show you a different way to maximize your task order win rate.

The class is 50% lecture, 30% exercises, and 20% discussion. This course will teach you how to crack the MACs' code and turn them from expensive boondoggles into a force multiplier for your company.

Learning objectives: The participants will learn and practice skills in:

• Understand the MAC trends in government procurement.
• Determining what IDIQ portfolio a company should have considering its core competencies and target agencies.
• Qualifying an IDIQ for fit and conducting a capture effort to best position to win an IDIQ contract.
• Contributing to a MAC win not only as a prime but also as a subcontractor.
• Developing the IDIQ proposal content with the right answers to win the competition.
• Applying the IDIQ pricing strategies.
• Understanding why many companies fail to compete effectively and make good money on an IDIQ.
• Cracking the "code" of an IDIQ to determine task order patterns and win strategies.
• Positioning the right resources to help write persuasive and compliant task order proposals.
• Adding more face value as a proposal manager on fast-turnaround task order pursuits.
• Running mini-capture and creating an IDIQ specific Customer Map.
• Establishing an infrastructure and environment necessary to maximize the task order win rate.
• Developing a MAC-specific process for winning task orders.
• Developing a reusable toolset for implementing a task order process.
• Enacting a comprehensive marketing plan for the MAC.
• Getting the entire company involved in winning more task orders.
• Building a proposal library for winning fast turnaround task orders.
• Preparing a concise text and information-packed graphics to convey your competitive advantages in an extremely page-limited proposal format.