Presales and Bid Management

Presales involves generating leads and following up with potential clients, preparing solutions, creating final proposals, providing product demonstrations, establishing proof-of-concepts (POCs), and many other marketing-related activities—a cycle that is not completed until the customer is acquired. Bid management is a vital presales support service that provides copywriting, administrative, and technical resources to the salespeople to ensure the quality of proposal documentation and presentations.

Usually working in conjunction with field sales reps who get wind of an opportunity, a bid manager's role is to present a proposal to a client that meets that client's business and cost objectives, while minimizing business risks and maximizing profit margins. The bid manager is the owner of the proposal-making process. That person studies the request for proposal (RFP) documents from the client, which can be very comprehensive and legal in nature. The bid manager plans the proposal-making effort like any other project and is solely responsible for maintaining quality, watching costs, and overseeing the schedule for the whole bidding process.