Take into consideration the final contract you misplaced to an incumbent. At what level do you know you have been behind? The trustworthy reply is normally earlier than the shopper releases the RFP. Incumbents don’t win on proposal high quality alone—they win as a result of challengers allow them to management the shopper relationship, the necessities, and the aggressive narrative.
Survey Says…
To learn the way incumbents can unseat challengers, we surveyed enterprise improvement, seize, and proposal professionals throughout LinkedIn and requested: What’s a very powerful think about displacing an incumbent? The responses broke throughout 4 methods, with no single issue dominating.
- Affect necessities early: 42%
- Robust buyer ties: 22%
- Strengths tied to all analysis standards: 20%
- Robust aggressive intelligence: 16%
Learn the listing as a rating, and also you would possibly conclude that influencing necessities early is all that issues. However that interpretation misses the purpose solely. Every of those components permits and amplifies the others. Handled in isolation, none of them is sufficient to unseat an incumbent with robust previous efficiency and entrenched buyer relationships.
4 Components, One Built-in Technique
Incumbents maintain actual benefits. They know the shopper, they perceive the work, they usually have years of efficiency knowledge to level to of their proposals. A challenger who focuses on just one displacement technique palms the incumbent a simple win; the contractors who unseat incumbents persistently are those who work all 4 levers concurrently. Right here, we discover how the 4 components join and reinforce one another.
- Affect Necessities Early
Early affect is the muse on which every thing else is constructed; partaking with the shopper earlier than market analysis closes is how challengers stage the taking part in discipline. Shaping necessities means your differentiators grow to be analysis standards, and your rivals are responding to a solicitation that was partly written round your strengths.
Nonetheless, early affect solely works for those who present up with one thing helpful to supply. Meaning realizing the shopper’s mission priorities, ache factors, and dissatisfaction with the present contractor, which brings you on to the second issue.
Robust buyer relationships should not a tender benefit—they’re a aggressive intelligence asset. Common contact with the shopper brings to the floor the knowledge that makes early affect doable: what’s working, what isn’t, the place the incumbent is falling quick, and what the shopper needs they may change. With out that intelligence, your pre-RFP outreach is generic and forgettable.
Buyer ties additionally inform your proposal at a granular stage. Once you perceive what the analysis staff values, you’ll be able to construct and place your strengths to match. That direct connection is what hyperlinks the second issue to the third.
- Tie Each Energy to Analysis Standards
Evaluators rating what’s in entrance of them; a proposal that describes capabilities with out explicitly linking them to analysis components provides evaluators no motive to award full credit score. Energy-Based mostly Profitable® implies that each declare in your proposal is anchored to a selected criterion, backed by proof, and written so the evaluator can rating it with out effort.
This stage of precision requires a deep understanding of the analysis weighting and scoring methodology, in addition to what excellence seems like in every space. This comes from the shopper relationships and aggressive intelligence you constructed lengthy earlier than the RFP dropped.
- Drive with Aggressive Intelligence
Aggressive intelligence is the connective tissue that sharpens the opposite three components. Realizing the incumbent’s efficiency gaps tells you the place to focus your pre-RFP conversations, understanding a competitor’s pricing patterns shapes your price technique, and figuring out the place the incumbent is overextended or understaffed tells you which of them strengths to guide with in your proposal.
16% of respondents citing aggressive intelligence as their prime displacement issue could seem low in comparison with early affect, however aggressive intelligence isn’t a standalone lever—it informs each stage of the seize and proposal improvement course of. Contractors who skip it are flying blind, even when they’ve robust buyer relationships and a well-structured proposal.
The Displacement System
Displacing an incumbent isn’t an issue of proposal; it’s a seize drawback that the proposal displays. By the point the RFP drops, the contractors who invested in all 4 components are already forward. They formed necessities that favor their method, they know precisely what the shopper wants; they’ve constructed a proposal technique round actual analysis intelligence; they usually’ve used aggressive evaluation to shut each hole the incumbent would attempt to exploit.
Contractors who concentrate on just one or two components should win, however they’re betting on partial info. In distinction, contractors who execute all 4 are working a full-spectrum seize technique, which is what it takes to persistently take enterprise away from entrenched incumbents within the GovCon market.
Is Your Workforce Able to Seize the Recompete?
Lohfeld Consulting Group helps contractors construct the seize methods, buyer engagement plans, aggressive intelligence practices, and proposal processes wanted to displace incumbents. Our consultants have helped groups win towards entrenched rivals throughout a variety of companies and contract automobiles.
In case your staff has a recompete or a high-priority displacement alternative on the horizon, contact Lohfeld Consulting to develop the built-in technique that offers you the very best probability to win.
Related Data
- The State of Seize in 2026: What’s Modified Now? Seize Administration is altering, and contractors who don’t evolve—those that are capturing too late within the acquisition lifecycle or should not set as much as reply shortly—are going to see declines in win charges. Be taught what we should always do in another way.
- Easy methods to Seize a Bid with Self-discipline and Authority: Capturing a bid requires self-discipline and authority lengthy earlier than the RFP is launched. Organizations that win persistently don’t report pipeline exercise; they management outcomes by means of structured seize execution.
- Easy methods to Win Challenged-Based mostly Procurements Now: The recognition of challenged-based procurements and multi-step down selects point out that prospects are not glad with written proposal descriptions. Be taught how one can efficiently navigate challenge-based proposals.
By Brenda Crist, Vice President at Lohfeld Consulting Group, MPA, CPP APMP Fellow
Lohfeld Consulting Group has confirmed outcomes specializing in serving to corporations create successful captures and proposals. Because the premier seize and proposal providers consulting agency centered completely on authorities markets, we offer knowledgeable help to authorities contractors in Seize Planning and Technique, Proposal Administration and Writing, Seize and Proposal Course of and Infrastructure, and Coaching. Within the final 3 years, we’ve supported over 550 proposals successful greater than $170B for our purchasers—together with the High 10 authorities contractors. Lohfeld Consulting Group is your “go-to” seize and proposal supply! Begin successful by contacting us at www.lohfeldconsulting.com and be a part of us on LinkedIn, Fb, and YouTube(TM).