“We lost on price.”
I’ve heard that sentence from a hundred companies. Having sat on the government side of award decisions for years, I’ll tell you what it usually means.
It means you tied.
In a best-value tradeoff — which is how most negotiated federal awards are decided — price only becomes the deciding factor when the non-price factors come out even. The government is explicitly allowed to pay more for a better proposal. It does so constantly. When two proposals look the same on technical merit and confidence, the source selection authority has no defensible reason to pay more. So the cheaper one wins, and the debrief politely tells you price was the discriminator.
The real finding isn’t that you were expensive. It’s that you were interchangeable.
How evaluators separate proposals
Evaluators document strengths, weaknesses, and risks against the criteria in Section M. An award decision is built out of those written findings. Which means your job is simple to state and hard to do: give the evaluator strengths they can write down.
- A strength is specific. “Reduces maintenance turnaround” is a claim. “Reduced C-130 component turnaround 41% across 14 months at two depots, documented in CPARS” is a strength.
- A strength maps to their mission. Evaluators reward benefits to the requirement, not features of the product.
- A strength lowers perceived risk. Transition plans, staffing realism, supply-chain depth. Confidence is a factor. Treat it like one.
I never once saw a source selection pick a proposal because the writing was beautiful. I saw plenty get picked because the evaluator could defend the decision in the award file without breaking a sweat. Write for the file.
And when it really is price
Sometimes the solicitation is LPTA — lowest price, technically acceptable. Fine. Then the strategy conversation should have happened at bid/no-bid, not at debrief. If your offering wins on differentiation, an LPTA competition was never your competition. Pursuing it anyway isn’t aggressive. It’s expensive.
Three questions before your next pursuit. Does Section M reward what makes us different. Can we evidence every claim with numbers an evaluator can quote. Did we shape the requirement early enough that “different” matters.
If any answer is no — that’s the work. We don’t cut your price. We build the case that makes price the footnote. Let’s talk.
