Starting a Bid With a Team You've Never Worked With

Updated September 2026: in 2018 I wrote about moving to a new proposal with a team I had never worked with, after two months with a difficult subject expert, and finding the new bid went the opposite way to what I expected. I have rewritten it into advice for the first days with an unfamiliar bid team.

For more than two months I had worked only with one subject expert who had ego issues and was rude to other teams. When that line of opportunities stopped coming to my team, I was free for a few days before my manager assigned me a bid from a complicated account, with a team I had never worked with. It looked easy at first. I had standard content, the delivery contact could customise it, and the early discussions went smoothly. Then the support I was counting on did not arrive, and the bid became much harder than it looked.

Why do "easy" bids turn difficult?

Because the easy part comes first. Standard content covers the opening calls, and the real work starts when the client's specific questions arrive. If the delivery team has not committed time by then, the presales person is left filling gaps alone.

What should you set up in the first week with a new team?

• Named owners: who answers solution, pricing and staffing questions.
• A calendar of dates: client questions due, internal review, submission.
• A shared tracker: open questions, owner and due date, visible to everyone.
• A short kick-off note: scope, assumptions and what you need from each person.

How do you learn a new team's working style quickly?

Ask the account manager or a colleague who has worked with them. Watch how they respond to the first small request: speed and detail then usually predict the rest of the bid. Adjust your approach early instead of waiting for a crisis.

Is it better to have a difficult expert you know?

Sometimes. A known difficult person is predictable, and you can plan around them. An unknown team can be better or worse. Either way, clear owners and dates protect you more than good relationships alone.

What should you tell your manager?

When support is slipping, say so early, with specifics: which inputs are late and what that does to the submission date. Managers can usually fix a resourcing problem if they hear about it in time.

Keep reading

• Starting Work on a Difficult Account: First Call Tips
• Asked to Work Before the Client Replies? What to Do
• A Proposal Deck in One Week: Start With the Storyline