60% seems good for competitive bids.  Mostly I write proposals for those @%$$^ in Supply Chain Management after I've gotten the job from Engineering and the "proposal" is just to document a PO.  

When I do competitive bids my success rate is no better than 1 in 3 so about half of yours.  Mostly I find that it isn't that I don't get the bid, it is that the bid was a fishing expedition and the company doesn't really want to spend that kind of money of that particular idea.


David

My experience is similar to David's.  We don't do that many competitive proposals.  We work mostly for existing clients and referrals, for which I'm thankful.

60% is extremely good, but there are many factors that go into the win percentage.  The typical aerospace "decent" WP is around 33%.  Again, the number of competitors, and the business climate can drastically affect that.

TTFN

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A colleague of mine who is engineering geologist left me in the dust by getting 90% of his proposals.  Anyhow, we are only 3 years old and referrals are only 25% due to lack of history, therefore we need at least 50% win rate to survive.

I noticed some clients (mostly residential) are price sensitive, others will give you work before the hang up the phone, and yet some will need hand holding for weeks before we get their work.

When I visit the site, I noticed we get higher closing percentage.  Have any of you found something that works all the time? Thank you.

Just a fly in the ointment, but I'm not convinced win rate means anything.  you could win 100% of your proposals, but if you fold in three years from lack of capital by underbidding jobs (even by accident), did you really do a great hob?

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

The old rule of thumb was about 33% - too much higher and you supposedly were not charging enough??

In my many years with a large, international geotechnical and materials engineering firm, we typically would get around 30 percent proposal success.  Then the firm transitioned from an engineering firm run by engineers to an engineering firm in name, run by accountants and marketing types.  That's when suddenly 30% was deplorable and the mandates began that all senior and higher level engineers had to put out more proposals, bill more time, do more marketing, etc.....funny thing though...the company's profitability, viability, and return on investment were never as good under the accountants as under the engineers.  Firm was eventually sold/merged/pilferred to a hollow shell of its former leadership in the profession.  Sad to see.  I left before the final demise.

Given my experience, I agree with McGiverS2000.  Focus on doing good engineering work and developing personal relationships with clients....you'll get plenty of work.  

There are so many variables in this, for example. Are you quoting for a live project that the company has won, a live project that has yet to be placed and is maybe being quoted by four companies that might use you, or is it just someone's "dream"?

All of these will affect your percentage win rate regardless of what you do.

One common practice in automotive is to get in a number of quotes to use to justify getting it designed/ built in a cheaper country, we stopped playing that game, if we quote for three projects and do not win one we stop quoting and explain you obviously do not like our pricing structure so there is no point in us wasting time quoting for you. As a small company it might make no difference but if enough did it this practice would stop and it means we can use our time more constructively.

The upside of this is we probably win around 95% of work for existing customers, who like our work, or pricing structure and know we will go the extra mile when required. The downside is you probably lose potential new customers and your customer base does not increase dramatically.

Owning a small company I do not have to appease shareholders and I have no desire to be the next big thing, it is more a life style choice so it works for me but would not work for others.
 

We're about 40-60% but to be honest, I never know if I am competing, keeping my competitors honest, or just providing file backup for a job I was going to get anyway.  Even if we don't get the job, I use the proposal process as a way of refining our project definition.  Usually when we lose, we can point to a scope misunderstanding - either on our part, the owners part, or the successful bidders.

We try not to bid lump sum unless the scope is perfectly defined - it just leads to massive misunderstanding, frustration, and cost extra's.

40% in general, but digging down:

it's about 80% with return clients,
30% with people cold calling us from ads
about 40% with people calling due to a reference

We also actively choose what to bid on i.e. for the most part we don't waste time on government jobs.