Productising Proposals.
The compound bid intelligence playbook.
By Jon Horvath and Etienne Olsina, with contributions from Martin Eriksson, Matt LeMay and Martin Gould. The method RealFast is built on, written down for teams who want to run it with or without the software.
Bids are a system, and most teams run them as a scramble
Most teams treat every proposal as a one-off sprint. Gather the same evidence, rewrite the same answers, lose the same lessons. The cost compounds, and so does the missed opportunity.
This playbook shows how to run bids as a product. A living library of proof, a scoring discipline for what you chase, and a feedback loop that makes every submission sharper than the last. Ask a bid team where last quarter's best answers live and you will usually get a shrug. The work was done and the asset was thrown away. Compound bid intelligence starts from one rule. Nothing you write for a bid gets written twice.
What compounds
- Win rate up. Every answer, every reviewer comment and every loss feeds the system that drafts the next bid.
- Cost down. The library does the mechanical half, so the team keeps the half that decides the result.
- Bid rate up. Because responding gets cheaper, you can afford to bid on more of the right work. Each turn of the loop funds the next.
What you take away
- A bid or no-bid scorecard you can run in twenty minutes, calibrated to your actual win data
- The evidence-library structure that turns past answers into a drafting engine
- A review protocol where every claim is sourced and reviewers stop rewriting
- The rewin playbook for turning losses into next quarter's wins
Six chapters, one loop
The compound loop
Why win rates drift, and how a bid system gets stronger with every submission, win or lose.
Qualify like a fund
Bid or no bid as a discipline, scored against your own win data rather than the loudest voice in the room.
The evidence library
Proof as an asset. Nothing written for a bid gets written twice.
Drafting at speed
Days rather than weeks, without the quality floor dropping.
Trust and review
Every claim sourced, so reviewers stop rewriting and start deciding.
The rewin engine
Losses into the next quarter's wins. The scoring sheet as the most valuable document you receive.
Pre-order it free.
Pre-orders are free. Leave an email and the book comes to you the day it is out. If you would rather see the method running as software first, walk a live bid through RealFast.