How many bids do we have to submit to win one?

Count the responses you actually submitted in the last twelve months and the ones you won. Exclude opportunities you decided not to bid — those belong in a separate qualification metric, not in your win rate.

If you cannot produce those two numbers, that is the first finding. A bidding program without a recorded submission log is a program that cannot be improved, only repeated.

Multiply your average response hours by the number of submissions required per win. That gives you the true cost of a win in capacity, which is the currency small firms are actually short of.

Compare that against the gross margin of a typical contract. If the hours cost more than the margin, no amount of additional bidding fixes it — the mix has to change.

You can raise the rate by qualifying harder — bidding fewer, better-fit opportunities — or raise the volume by adding capacity. Adding volume at an unchanged rate multiplies both wins and wasted hours in the same proportion.

For most small firms, the first lever is where the return is. Cutting the bottom third of your pursuits and redirecting those hours into the top third generally moves the rate more than any writing improvement.

Split the log by buyer type, contract size, and whether you were an incumbent. A blended rate hides the useful signal: usually a category where you win regularly and a category where you never have.

The second category is where the savings are. Stopping is a legitimate strategy and it is measurable.