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RFPs Are a Numbers Game. But Most Firms Don’t Know the Score.
Jonathan Gardner • August 11, 2025
If you’re offering services like disaster recovery, you’re in demand. Hurricanes, wildfires, infrastructure failures — when disaster strikes, your team shows up.
But when contracts drop? Most teams are nowhere near the scoreboard.
Welcome to The Value Chain Advantage. Each week, I share hard-earned strategies to help ambitious companies unlock clarity, protect margin, and scale without chaos. From sourcing to sales, procurement to planning, this newsletter is for founders, revenue leaders, and operators working to strengthen every link in their value chain.
Here's the Problem
Every week, our team at J Gardner monitors hundreds of RFPs — federal, state, and local.
Most midsized firms only respond to a few, if any.
You’ve got the track record, the equipment, and the readiness. But you’re losing bids to firms with better internal systems, not better services.
Why? Because:
- No one owns the proposal calendar
- There’s no centralized tracking for opportunities
- Key documents like W9s, COIs, and past performance are scattered
- Your team is already working at full capacity
So bids get missed, rushed, or dropped completely. And the contract goes to someone else.
Winning Isn't About Heroics.
It's About Systems.
Top performers submit more bids, but they also submit smarter. They’ve built:
- A routine for scanning opportunities
- A simple go/no-go filter
- A lean bid desk with clear accountability
- A process for approvals, compliance, and delivery
It’s not about working harder — it’s about creating a system that runs under pressure.
If You're Not Submitting, You're Not Growing.
Public contracts are everywhere, but they won’t land in your lap. The firms that win have consistent systems. The ones that stall rely on ad hoc effort.
From Insight to Action.
Ready to make RFPs a real growth lever instead of a recurring frustration? Start here this week:
Pull three RFPs you skipped, delayed, or lost in the last 90 days. Then ask yourself:
- Who was responsible for moving it forward?
- Where did we get stuck — approvals, documents, or decisions?
- Did we have a clear way to decide whether to pursue it?
Next, build a simple one-page checklist. Outline who owns each step, how decisions are made, and how you'll track results.
Remember, the next contract is already out there. The only question is whether your team is ready to win it. What’s the biggest time-waster in your current RFP process?
At J Gardner, we built a robust RFP system for teams like yours — so you can focus on the work, not the paperwork. Shoot me a note if you want a second set of eyes on your pipeline.
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