From a saved notice to a proposal draft, step by step

On the saved notice, the requirements checklist gets the solicitation from SAM.gov, or you upload a PDF of it. Firmenza's rules list the sentences that read as requirements, with the page each came from. The AI assistant reads the same text and lists more, each with a quote checked against the page it names. Either can miss or misread one, so check each against the document.

Where the solicitation has them, the AI assistant also sets out Sections L and M in a table. Section L holds the instructions for your proposal and Section M the factors it is evaluated on. You note where your proposal answers each row and mark it done. Instead of reading a long document twice, you work down one list.

A proposal draft uses only your own records: the notice's requirements checklist, your capability statement and your past performance. Keep one past performance record for each piece of work you did: the project, the customer, the dates, the value, the NAICS and PSC codes, where it was, what you did and the results. Write them once, and every draft after that can use them.

You choose which records the AI assistant reads for each draft, so a proposal for hauling work draws on your hauling jobs and nothing else.

Press "Start a proposal draft". The outline comes from the checklist, and you can rename, move, add or remove sections. Press "Draft this section" and the AI assistant writes it, in English, since a proposal goes to a U.S. agency. Under each paragraph it lists its sources: a requirement and its page, a field of your capability statement, or a past performance record.

Where it has no source for a point, it writes a placeholder that begins "Information needed from you", never an invented fact. Forms, certifications and representations, size status, pricing and signatures are marked "You answer this yourself" and are never drafted. You edit any section, and every version is kept.

When you have read it, press "Mark final" and confirm the statement: "I have read this draft, and I am responsible for what I submit." "Download Word" gives you a Word file that opens with a Before you submit page and keeps every placeholder you left in brackets, so nothing unfinished goes out by mistake.

"Download your package" gives you one ZIP file: a cover sheet with the notice's title, number, agency, response date and the contact it names; your requirements checklist and your Section L and M table as spreadsheets; your draft as a Word file once you mark it final; and your capability statement. You submit it yourself, the way the notice says.

In a Sources Sought notice, an agency looks for businesses that could do a project; it is not a request for bids or proposals. On a Sources Sought notice or a Special Notice you saved, "Draft a response" drafts a company overview, relevant experience, capabilities, your identifiers and answers to the notice's questions, the same way, from your own records. A short, clear response is how an agency hears of your business.

Drafting is part of Pro and its trial; the pricing page says what Pro includes. Size and socioeconomic status are yours to answer. The card just below this post lists free counselors who can help with them.