Understanding the government reporting process after a bid loss can be invaluable to a business if approached from the right perspective. Most companies request a report with two things in mind. First, they hope to magically persuade the hiring officer through a face-to-face meeting that they have the wrong company in mind, and second; they want to fish for information to determine if they should protest. I’m here to tell you that BOTH, in most situations, are a bad idea. In fact, requesting a formal briefing and then using that briefing as ammunition to protest can often hurt your chances of doing business with an organization simply because it can be seen as a pest. Instead, I suggest you focus on the following five goals:

1. Find out the significant weaknesses and shortcomings of your proposal. Companies often miss an opportunity because they don’t clearly communicate the value of what they’re selling and, more importantly, don’t map their capabilities directly to what was asked for in the RFP. But that is only one aspect of what you should be looking for. A hiring officer can also discuss how you rank/rank compared to other companies, where you were strong on the proposal and where they felt it lacked clarity, past performance, and/or how you adequately addressed their specific requirements.

2. Gather competitive information. One of the most important and often overlooked aspects of a report is that a report gives you a great opportunity to discover competitive information such as price, product information, past performance, etc. of the winning company. The value of this information is being able to adjust your price and margins to be competitive NEXT time. This will give you valuable information that will allow you to determine if you can really be competitive next time or if it doesn’t make sense for you to pursue this type of work and therefore stop wasting valuable time searching for contracts that you can’t. gain. For example, you may learn from the report that your overhead costs are too high and you need to address these issues to offer competitive pricing.

3. Build a stronger relationship with the hiring officer. How you request a report is very important. Remember that hiring officers are overworked and don’t have time for their daily duties, let alone handle your report. More importantly, whether informal or formal, you are ALWAYS being evaluated. How you handle a win is one thing and you’ll be graded on that, but how you handle a loss is also important. A bad attitude and subpoenaing the FAR will eventually get you the report you requested, but it can cost you dearly in the long run. Instead, use this time to build a friendly and respectable relationship with the hiring officer.

4. Ask questions. You want to ask reasonable and relevant questions. It’s okay to play dumb and fish like Colombo, but be courteous and respectful and keep it related to this specific opportunity. A simple technique is to start by saying something like, “Sorry if this is a silly question, but…” or “Sorry if this question seems obvious, but I’m doing my best to learn.” of each loss and you could use a better understanding of…” Using simple opening sentences like that will give you the opportunity to ask additional questions and build rapport with the hiring officer. Also be sure to use my favorite keywords personal, “Please”, “Thank you” and “Could you help me?” Those words will give you much more information than quoting the FAR.

5. Learn from this loss. How do you capture the lessons learned and how do you ensure that these lessons are taken into account in the next proposal? You start a process, that’s how. Because, after all, gathering the intelligence you need is only the first part of the battle. If you truly want to win the next battle and ultimately the war, you MUST have concrete processes in place that allow you to incorporate these lessons learned into every future proposal process. The systems are repeatable and once you set the correct system, the gains become repeatable.

It takes a lot to understand the debriefing process, when you can and can’t ask for one, how to prepare for the debriefing, how to behave during the debriefing, how to collect lessons learned, and most importantly; how to implement the lessons learned into a repeatable winning system. Do yourself and your business a favor by understanding the nuances of the debriefing process so you can get the most out of it.