You know the work.We know theMidwest owners.
midwestrfp.com is the regional proposal shop for architecture, engineering, and construction firms chasing public and private work across the Midwest. We’re BD-AEC, a business development practice based in Florence, KY, and the seven-state Midwest is our home turf. We already know how ODOT, KYTC, INDOT, and the region’s counties, cities, and water districts evaluate, so your proposal reads like it came from a firm that’s answered their solicitations before. That local fluency is the difference between a compliant submission and a shortlisted one.
A BD-AEC service · Proposal development inside a business development practice
Where AEC pursuits go wrong
Midwest public owners buy design and construction from firms they recognize, on terms they set. Chase that work with a generic, out-of-region proposal and you’re already behind the firms the agency has trusted for years. These are the gaps that cost Midwest AEC firms the shortlist.
No read on the owner
You’re bidding into an agency like ODOT or INDOT with no sense of how they score or which firms they already trust.
Missed local prequalification
Many Midwest DOTs and cities want you prequalified or on an approved list before you can submit, and that clock starts months out.
Generic, out-of-region proposals
A national template lands flat against a regional firm the owner has worked with for a decade.
DOT requirements missed
KYTC, ODOT, and INDOT each format, weight, and submit differently, and a wrong assumption gets you tossed on compliance.
No capture runway
You find the solicitation the day it posts, with no positioning done and no relationship in place.
Principals writing at midnight
Your most billable engineers lose a week to narrative instead of the projects that fund the firm.
No line on the competition
You don’t know which regional firms always chase this owner, so you can’t position against them.
A proposal is never free
A professional AEC proposal commonly consumes 50 to 100 hours across leadership, technical, marketing, design, and administrative resources. That time bills to overhead instead of a client, and it comes out of exactly the people you most need on projects.
Per pursuit, produced in house
A proposal is never free when it is produced internally.
| Resource | Hours | Burdened rate | Illustrative cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Principal / seller-doer | 8 to 15 | $225 to $350 | $1,800 to $5,250 |
| Project manager / technical lead | 10 to 20 | $125 to $175 | $1,250 to $3,500 |
| Marketing / proposal coordinator | 20 to 35 | $75 to $110 | $1,500 to $3,850 |
| Graphic design and production | 6 to 15 | $80 to $125 | $480 to $1,875 |
| Executive review and admin support | 6 to 13 | $50 to $400 | $700 to $2,560 |
| Total | 50 to 98 | — | $5,730 to $17,035 |
Illustrative fully burdened cost, including compensation, benefits, payroll expense, overhead, software, and indirect resources. Actual hours vary by pursuit.
In the Midwest, public work is won long before the RFP posts, on the relationships and the track record the owner already knows. The document has to be sharp, but the firm that understands how ODOT or INDOT actually selects starts every pursuit a step ahead.
What a winning submission actually needs
A compliance matrix maps every requirement to a response. This is the one that decides most selections: the gap between how a firm usually submits and how a pursuit should be run.
Knows your state DOT’s process
Watches Midwest state portals
Reads the local competition
Handles regional prequalification
A dedicated proposal manager
Independent red-team review
On-time, to-spec submission
The full scope, one shop
One shop for the whole pursuit, tuned to how Midwest owners buy. Bring us in for the full submission or the single piece your team can’t reach, on public and private work across the region.
Opportunity Evaluation & Go/No-Go
A scored go/no-go before you commit a dollar, weighing fit, the incumbent, and your real odds with that specific Midwest owner. We watch the state portals, from OhioBuys to MissouriBUYS, so the right solicitations reach you early.
Capture Strategy
Positioning set before the RFP drops. We build the win themes and discriminators around what the owner, whether that’s INDOT or a county water district, actually rewards.
RFP / RFQ Responses
Complete responses to Midwest public and private solicitations, mapped line by line to every evaluation factor the agency published.
SOQ / SF330
Statements of qualifications and SF330s built the way ODOT, KYTC, and INDOT shortlist, with project sheets and resumes aimed straight at the selection criteria.
Proposal Management
A dedicated manager owns the schedule, the compliance matrix, and every deadline, so your engineers stay on billable work instead of chasing the submission.
Technical Writing
Clear engineering narrative drawn from interviews with your team, written in your firm’s voice and readable by a non-technical evaluator on the panel.
Compliance Review
A line-by-line check against the solicitation, because each Midwest DOT formats and submits differently and one missed form ends a strong pursuit before scoring.
Proposal Graphics
Org charts, project schedules, and infographics that make your Midwest experience obvious to an evaluator working through a stack of look-alike proposals.
Interview Preparation
Shortlist coaching, presentation build, and Q&A rehearsal for the interview that usually decides a QBS selection in front of a Midwest owner.
Midwest Procurement Navigation
The registrations, prequalifications, and portal accounts that gate the work, from state consultant prequalification to Wisconsin’s VendorNet and Illinois BidBuy, handled before the deadline instead of during it.
Not on the list?
If it touches a pursuit, it's in scope. Tell us what the solicitation needs.
One strategic standard. Two levels of finish.
Every engagement is built around responsiveness, persuasive content, and a submission-ready final document. What changes between the two is how far the production goes.
Professional
Word-based production
- Best fit
- Straightforward SOQs, on-call selections, qualifications packages, and time-sensitive pursuits.
- Production
- A polished Microsoft Word layout, delivered as a submission-ready PDF.
- Compliance matrix and pursuit strategy
- Writing, editing, and QA/QC
- Resumes and project descriptions
- Photographs, tables, and basic graphics
Timing
Available at every schedule tier, subject to capacity.
Reviews
Two review cycles
Signature
Creative production
- Best fit
- High-value, highly competitive, brand-defining, or shortlist-critical pursuits.
- Production
- Custom Adobe InDesign production by our creative team.
- Everything in Professional
- Custom visual concept and information design
- Infographics, diagrams, and image treatment
- Agency-level production quality
Timing
Best with 30 or more days. Generally available at 15 or more days.
Reviews
Content and design reviews
The production level changes. The strategic discipline does not.
Engage early
The best time to prepare for a proposal is before the opportunity is released.
Options and cost both reflect the time available to do the work responsibly. Engaging early preserves every production format, a full review cycle, and the most flexible footing. It is also why a reusable foundation, a case study library, current resumes, and a project image library built before the RFP posts, pays for itself across every pursuit that follows.
What a foundation builds
- Case study library
- Resume development
- Personnel and project image library
- Reusable marketing materials
How a pursuit runs
A repeatable production process run to the solicitation’s calendar. You always know what’s due, who owns it, and where the submission stands against the deadline.
- 1
Opportunity Evaluation
A real go/no-go. We track the state portals, from OhioBuys and BidBuy to MissouriBUYS and VendorNet, then score fit and win probability before you chase a solicitation you can’t win.
- 2
Capture Strategy
This is where knowing the owner pays. We shape win themes around how that specific agency, whether ODOT, KYTC, INDOT, or a local district, actually evaluates and who they already trust.
- 3
Proposal Planning
Compliance matrix, annotated outline, schedule, and assignments, with every requirement in the solicitation mapped to a section and an owner.
- 4
Technical Content
We draft the approach, resumes, and project descriptions, interviewing your team so the narrative reads like your firm and speaks to this Midwest project.
- 5
Graphics & Design
Org charts, schedules, and project sheets designed so a Midwest evaluator sees your relevant regional experience without hunting for it.
- 6
Quality Review
A compliance check, an independent red-team read, and a final pass against the published evaluation criteria before anything ships.
- 7
Submission Support
Formatting, production, and on-time delivery, physical or electronic, to the letter of each agency’s submission instructions.
Owners we write for
We write for the full Midwest design and construction market, and we know how each of these owners buys. The engineering disciplines below link through to BD-AEC’s market pages.
More than a proposal writer
A proposal writer edits your words. BD-AEC runs the pursuit, and it does that from inside the Midwest market you’re competing in. Proposal work here sits in a business development practice that already knows the region’s owners.
Business Development
We think in pipeline and positioning across the Midwest, not just the one document in front of us.
Proposal Strategy
Win themes and discriminators are set to how the specific state or local owner scores, before a section is drafted.
Technical Writing
Engineering narrative pulled from your team and written for the evaluator sitting on a Midwest selection panel.
Industry Experience
AEC only, and Midwest-focused. We know how ODOT, KYTC, INDOT, and the region’s cities and districts shortlist.
Capture Planning
The positioning that happens before the RFP posts, so you’re already known to the owner when it does.
Relationship Development
Proposals land better when the owner recognizes your firm. Building that regional presence is BD-AEC’s core job.
Most of the score is qualitative. We build the proposal to win the parts that are not price.
Straight answers
How much does Midwest proposal support cost?
It depends on scope and deadline. A single SOQ is a fixed, modest fee; a full RFP response with graphics and interview prep is priced by effort. We scope it in writing before you commit, so there’s no surprise on the invoice.
Which states do you cover?
We work the seven-state Midwest: Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri. We’re based in Florence, KY, right on the I-75 corridor, so Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana are our closest turf, but we support pursuits across all seven.
Do you know our state DOT?
Yes. We work ODOT, KYTC, INDOT, MDOT, IDOT, WisDOT, and MoDOT solicitations, and we know each one prequalifies, formats, and scores differently. Tell us the agency and the solicitation number and we’ll tell you what it takes to be competitive.
Can you manage an entire Midwest proposal?
Yes, and it’s the most common way firms use us. We run the whole pursuit as your proposal manager: compliance matrix, schedule, assignments, writing, graphics, review, and submission to the agency’s exact instructions. Your team supplies the technical substance and stays on the projects.
Do you write SOQs and SF330s for state agencies?
Yes. Statements of qualifications and SF330s are core work, built to how public owners like ODOT and INDOT actually shortlist, with project sheets, resumes, and org charts aimed at the selection criteria.
Can you handle local prequalification?
Yes. Most Midwest DOTs and many cities and districts want you prequalified or registered before you can submit, whether that’s state consultant prequalification, MissouriBUYS, or Wisconsin’s VendorNet. We handle the registrations and keep them current so they never block a deadline.
Can you review a proposal we already drafted?
Yes. We do compliance reviews and red-team reads on drafts your team has already written. You get a marked-up copy against the published evaluation criteria and a punch list of what to fix before it reaches the owner.
Tools we bring to every pursuit
The field tools we bring to every Midwest pursuit. Ask for any of them on a call and we’ll walk you through it against a live solicitation.
State DOT Prequalification Tracker
Where each Midwest DOT, from ODOT to MoDOT, sets its consultant prequalification bar, and what you need on file to bid.
Midwest Procurement Portal List
The one place your team registers: OhioBuys, BidBuy, MissouriBUYS, VendorNet, and the rest, with what each posts and how often.
Go / No-Go Scorecard
The scoring model we use to decide which Midwest solicitations are worth chasing and which quietly are not.
Compliance Matrix Template
Map every requirement in the solicitation to a section and an owner before the first word gets written.
Capture Plan Worksheet
Turn what you know about the owner into positioning, weeks before the RFP goes public.
Agency Contact Map
Who selects, who scores, and who signs at the Midwest owners you pursue most, kept current from one pursuit to the next.
Ask for any of these on a discovery call. Request one →
§ Contact
Have a pursuit on the clock?
Send us the solicitation and your deadline. Scott Mann responds within one business day with a straight read on the pursuit, a go/no-go take, and what a winning submission needs.
Discovery call
A straight read on the pursuit and whether we should chase it.
Proposal assessment
A compliance and win-strategy review of a draft you already have.
Opportunity review
A go/no-go on a specific solicitation, scored before you commit.
Request a proposal assessment
AEC firms only. We'll never share your details.
One shop, seven front doors
midwestrfp.com is the Midwest front door to the BD-AEC proposal network. Each sibling site below goes deep on one kind of pursuit, and every one of them runs through the same shop in Florence, KY.