Meryl Angelicola’s 5 Tactical Strategies to Increase Bid Quality
Thousands of compliant bids are submitted to federal agencies each year. Most of them never stand a chance. Your team may deliver a solid proposal on time, but if the execution doesn’t resonate with the evaluators, the result is a lost opportunity.
Government contractors know the stakes of every submission. A single loss can represent hundreds of hours of sunk time, missed revenue, and a demoralized team. The answer isn't to bid more, it’s to bid better.
That’s where bid quality comes in. But how do you improve bid quality without overhauling your entire process?
It’s safe to say that Meryl Angelicola, VP of Industry Solutions at GovDash, knows a thing or two about bid quality. With over 20 years in the federal contracting space, including leading capture and proposal operations at top-performing contractors, Meryl has a laser focus on strategy, execution, and what it takes to win.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through Meryl’s five field-tested strategies for improving your bid quality. These strategies reduce rework, unify internal teams, and increase your likelihood of success.
Defining Bid Quality: What It Really Means
When federal contractors lose bids, it's rarely due to a lack of core competencies. Typically, it’s because the bid wasn’t compelling or targeted enough. Bid teams are under constant pressure to hit deadlines, interpret government requirements, and coordinate workflows, but if quality isn't prioritized at every step, the bid can fall short.
In the context of federal contracting, bid quality refers to your proposal's strength, clarity, and competitiveness. A high-quality bid:
Addresses the agency’s mission, pain points, and evaluation criteria.
Communicates your solution’s compatibility and benefits.
Demonstrates your understanding of the customer and procurement context.
Minimizes boilerplate and maximizes tailored, persuasive content.
Reflects a coordinated effort across business development, capture, and proposal teams.
Bid quality isn’t about perfection. It’s about strategic alignment. Federal buyers aren’t just evaluating technical compliance. They’re looking for confidence in delivery, value for money, and a partner they trust.
“The difference between a winning and losing proposal is not necessarily what the writing sounds like, but how solid the strategy is and how much it is based on the customer’s needs.”
Why Bid Quality Is Your Competitive Advantage
With automated tools and AI-driven proposal writing becoming more widespread, anyone can submit bids faster. But that creates a new challenge: how do you stand out in a flood of responses?
The answer is quality over quantity.
Proposal automation is table stakes now. Strategy, stories, and customer understanding are what move the needle.
Smart contractors are shifting resources away from reactive bidding toward proactive pursuit. They’re also investing in tools and processes that improve quality at every stage of the proposal lifecycle, from opportunity identification to final polish.
“When you’re investing time and resources into a bid, you want to be sure that it’s the right opportunity with the highest chance of winning.”
Top Five Strategies to Increase Bid Quality
Winning federal contracts isn’t just about submitting compliant proposals. It’s about crafting compelling, insight-driven bids that resonate with evaluators and reflect a deep understanding of the agency’s needs. Consistent delivery of high-quality proposals takes more than good writing. It requires strategy, foresight, and cross-functional coordination.
Here are Meryl’s top five tactical strategies for dramatically increasing your bid quality. From early engagement to leveraging past feedback and breaking down internal silos, each approach is designed to help your team work smarter, write stronger, and win more.
Strategy #1: Get Involved Before the RFP Drops
The number one factor that separates high-quality bids from also-rans? Pre-RFP engagement.
The best proposals don’t start when the RFP drops. They start months earlier. That early stage is known as the capture phase, and it’s your window to shape requirements, build relationships, and position your team before the formal rules kick in.
By the time an RFP hits SAM.gov, the window to shape requirements is already closed. “Once an RFP is live, bidders can no longer legally talk to the government. That means no more clarifying questions, no more influencing the scope, and no more insight into the client’s priorities,” says Meryl.
To shape your strategy and ensure you’re well-positioned to bid, she recommends:
Attend industry days and pre-solicitation briefings.
Monitor agency forecasts and strategic plans.
Engage with stakeholders and end users where appropriate.
Document pain points, language patterns, and success indicators.
Tip: With GovDash, you can centralize early opportunity intel, letting BD and capture teams collaborate and build pursuit strategies before the RFP arrives. That early groundwork sets the stage for higher-quality proposals down the line.
Strategy #2: Write the Executive Summary Multiple Times
The executive summary isn’t just the first page. It’s your elevator pitch, value proposition, and story distilled into one succinct narrative.
Yet many teams either leave it too late or treat it as a formality. A better approach? Write it early. Then write it again. And again.
Meryl recommends a phased approach:
Draft 1 (Pre-RFP): Focus on customer pain points and your big-picture differentiators. This gets everyone thinking about the best parts of your proposal and how you’re positioned to meet the client’s needs.
Draft 2 (Post-RFP): Meet the final requirements and establish win themes.
Draft 3 (Final): Polish for tone, readability, and evaluator clarity.
Think of the executive summary as a living document that evolves alongside your proposal. Don’t just write it once and forget about it. Refine it as you go.
Strategy #3: Ask Non-Experts to Review the Proposal
Your technical team might be brilliant, but they’re often too deep in the weeds to see what outsiders do. That’s why one of the simplest ways to boost bid quality is to bring in someone unfamiliar with the content to look over it.
Meryl advises asking a colleague outside the proposal team (this could even be someone in HR, finance, or legal) to review your draft and answer these three questions:
What story are we telling?
Why should the government choose us?
What’s confusing, redundant, or unclear?
This type of outsider review identifies jargon, weak claims, and unclear logic before the evaluator does.
Tip: With GovDash’s collaborative workspace, reviewers can leave targeted comments without the chaos of email chains or version control issues. You get real-time, structured feedback from across your organization.
Strategy #4: Break Down Silos Between Teams
It’s no secret that BD, capture, technical, and proposal teams aren’t always on the same page. Different priorities, timelines, and working styles often lead to misalignment, which can affect proposal quality.
“Our solution is intentional integration,” explains Meryl. “This means ensuring all bid elements are unified and coherent, working together seamlessly to achieve the desired outcome.”
Here’s the framework Meryl uses to achieve intentional integration:
Create shared templates and style guides.
Use visual storyboards to create win themes.
Run weekly cross-functional standups during proposal sprints.
Assign “integration leads” to ensure narrative, solution, and pricing alignment.
Tip: GovDash breaks down silos with centralized proposal workspaces. Everyone works within a single platform with shared access to calendars, deadlines, content libraries, and tracked tasks. No more siloed spreadsheets or rogue SharePoint folders.
Strategy #5: Use Feedback from Past Bids to Inform Improvements
Most teams underutilize their win/loss feedback. Whether it’s evaluator debriefs, internal retros, or scoring breakdowns, past performance is one of the most valuable assets for future success.
Past performance drives GovCon evaluation because it reduces risk for government agencies handling public funds. It’s a reliable indicator that contractors can meet compliance standards, maintain audits, and deliver quality work. Contractors with relevant experience are seen as safer choices, which is why the Federal Acquisition Regulation 15.305(a)(2) requires past performance to be a key factor in contractor selection.
All too often, win/loss feedback gets lost in inboxes or forgotten entirely. To fix that, Meryl suggests:
Creating a searchable archive of past bids and outcomes.
Tagging proposals by agency, type, theme, and win/loss status.
Analyzing common feedback and scoring patterns.
Using insights to update boilerplate, refine solution areas, or adjust pricing strategy.
Analyze your past performance deeply and use that to influence what type of bid opportunities to pursue. This streamlines the capture process, enabling you to focus on bids that present the best opportunity for success.
Once you have those resources in place and you’ve identified new opportunities to target, use AI to assist with proposal automation by:
Auto-generating first drafts.
Building compliance matrices.
Identifying gaps in RFP responses.
Suggesting improved language based on past wins.
“By automating the tedious parts, such as formatting, compliance checking, and version control, your team can focus on what really matters: win strategy, messaging, and meeting customer requirements,” says Meryl.
Tip: GovDash acts as your institutional memory. Every proposal, piece of feedback, and post-mortem is captured and tagged—so when a similar opportunity appears, your team can hit the ground running with insights that matter.
How GovDash Helps You Implement These Strategies
GovDash is built to help proposal teams consistently deliver higher-quality bids that not only meet requirements but also stand out from the competition. By embedding AI into every stage of the proposal lifecycle, GovDash makes it easier to raise the standard of each submission without adding complexity or extra workload.
Instead of juggling disconnected tools or relying on generic content, teams can use GovDash to surface the most relevant past performance, offer solutions that are directly applicable to the agency’s needs, and fine-tune messaging for maximum impact. GovDash pulls critical evidence (like contract references, client metrics, and case studies) into view quickly, ensuring every claim is substantiated and every section is as persuasive as it is compliant.
When it comes to structure and presentation, GovDash helps teams build bids that are organized, evaluator-friendly, and in lockstep with RFP instructions. AI-powered drafting assistance allows teams to maintain full control over the content while improving clarity, consistency, and professional polish.
GovDash also eliminates the manual burden of compliance checks, formatting, and document management, freeing teams to spend more time on strategic storytelling and delivering the appropriate solutions. These are the key ingredients of a high-quality, competitive bid. Instead of rushing to meet deadlines, teams can focus on what matters most: submitting stronger proposals that drive better outcomes every time.
Whether pursuing a $500k task order or a $50m IDIQ, GovDash gives you the structure, insight, and speed you need to compete and win.
Ready to Elevate Your Bid Quality?
Winning more work starts with submitting better proposals. If you’re ready to level up your bid strategy, GovDash is your unfair advantage. Book a demo today to see how GovDash can slash your proposal timeline with automated compliance checks, real-time content collaboration, and built-in quality scoring.