Ask for the debrief every time
Most public clients will offer a debriefing if you ask, and many private clients will give you ten minutes on the phone. Ask after wins too: a client who chose you can tell you what tipped the decision, which is just as useful as hearing why you lost.
Have someone other than the proposal author run the call when you can. People explain a loss more candidly to someone who did not write the proposal, and the author is more likely to argue than listen.
Questions to ask the client
Keep it to about six questions and ask them in the same order every time, so answers can be compared across pursuits.
- How did our proposal rank, and how close was it?
- What were the strongest and weakest parts of our submission?
- How did our team and project manager compare with the selected firm?
- Was our understanding of the project and approach on target?
- If fee was a factor, how did ours compare?
- What would have made the difference for you?
Use a fixed loss-reason taxonomy
Free-text notes cannot be counted. Record one primary reason from a fixed list, plus an optional secondary reason, and keep the client's own words in a notes field.
- Relationship or incumbent: the client preferred a firm it already knew
- Relevant experience: the winner had closer past projects
- Team: the proposed project manager or key staff were rated lower
- Approach: the technical approach or understanding of the project was weaker
- Fee: price was too high, or the scope assumptions differed
- Schedule: the proposed schedule or availability did not fit
- Compliance or presentation: a missing item, page limit, or an unclear submission
- No award: the project was canceled, deferred, or rebid
Feed it into the next go/no-go
Each quarter, count results by client type and by loss reason. Suppose a firm submitted 12 proposals to municipal clients in a year and won 5. That is a hit rate of 5 divided by 12, about 42 percent. Of the 7 losses, 4 had "relationship or incumbent" as the primary reason.
That pattern says two things. First, the relationship criterion on the go/no-go scorecard deserves more weight for this client type, or a pursuit with no relationship should need a higher total to go. Second, the firm should start client contact earlier, before the RFP is published, rather than relying on the proposal to do that work.
Close the loop with the team
Share a short summary with everyone who worked on the proposal within a week of the debrief: the result, the main reason, and one thing to do differently. Store the debrief notes with the pursuit so the next proposal to that client starts with them.
Where Hubity fits
Hubity keeps pursuits, their outcomes, and the related proposals in the pipeline, so a debrief can be recorded with the deal and found again when the same client issues its next RFP.