Corporate experience summaries show the core capabilities of a company. Like resumes, in many companies they are not as well documented as they should be.

Project summaries should be updated on a quarterly basis and clearly describe the tasks and requirements associated with existing contracts. Inherently, project summaries become out dated as work progresses on a contract.

Companies with more than 10 to 20 projects should create a simple, straightforward corporate experience database. New summaries should be added as contracts are started.

Like resumes, corporate experience summaries should be tailored specifically to fit the requirements of the RFP. Not tailoring corporate experience information is a grievous error. Tailoring can result in additional evaluation points and more points can be the difference between winning and losing.

A typical proposal writing scenario is: "Through them in the way they are, we have to get this thing out the door. You will never know how many points you lost from "throwing them in".

Unless specifically requested in the RFP, it doesn't matter what format you use (table, double columns, headers and text) but a professional look and feel does. Like resumes, relevance and perception rule.

Don't provide more project descriptions than asked for in the RFP. They will not gain you any evaluation points and evaluators hate to read information that was not requested. When they ask for three give them three and spend your time in tailoring them to make them relevant in every way you can.