Client: RTA Fleet
Industry: Fleet Management Software · SLED
Service used: RFP Success® Mastery Audit
RTA Fleet RFP Case Study: Raising the Finalist Rate from 50% to 80%
"One engagement that changed how we think about every proposal. We're submitting the same number. We're winning a lot more."
AT A GLANCE
80%
Finalist Rate (up from 50%)
+30
POINTS GAINED
2 to 3x
REVENUE PACE
1
ENGAGEMENT CYCLE
FROM THE FOUNDER · WIN STRATEGIST SERVICES
Founder · The RFP Success® Company
Author of 11 books · Lisa’s 30+ years across responding to, developing, and evaluating RFPs.
Lisa Rehurek founded The RFP Success® Company and built its methodology across 30+ years responding to, developing, and evaluating RFPs. The Win Strategist team ran the audit.
“You’re not losing because you’re unqualified. You’re losing because you’re undisciplined.”
SIGNED
01 / THE SITUATION
Good, Not Great. And the Gap Was Costing Them Contracts.
RTA Fleet sells fleet management software to state and local transportation agencies, and it competes for that work the hard way, through formal RFPs, at volume. Demand is steady. The pipeline was never the problem.
The finalist rate was. It sat around 50%. On paper that looks fine. Plenty of teams would take making the shortlist on half their pursuits. But measured against the hours each response swallowed, the math turned uncomfortable. RTA Fleet was pouring writing and review time into proposals that reached the finalist round and then went the other way.
This is the Almost Winner pattern, and Kevin Burdick's team had it cold. The technical content was solid. Compliance was clean. They were demonstrably qualified. Yet evaluators kept scoring them just behind the winner. Without a way to see what the evaluators were seeing, the team could not fix what it could not name.
"The proposals were not broken. The win was just buried inside them."
02 / THE AUDIT
Three Past Proposals. One Clear Roadmap.
Three proposals from RTA Fleet, marked up with evaluator eye annotations.
RTA Fleet engaged the RFP Success® Mastery Audit, the entry level Win Strategist service, to review past proposals through the evaluator's lens and surface the pattern its own writers could not see.
RTA Fleet’s first paid engagement was the RFP Success® Mastery Audit, the entry-level diagnostic within the Win Strategist services at The RFP Success® Company. The scope was deliberately contained: review three of RTA Fleet’s recent submissions through the evaluator’s lens, document what was working and what was leaking points, and hand back a prioritized roadmap for the next pursuit cycle.
The audit was run by the in-house team, led by Win Strategist Kevin Cleary, using the D.A.R.E. Method, the writing system that lives inside the 4×4 Framework™. The method reads a proposal against two things at once: the explicit items on the evaluator’s scorecard that must be answered, and the silent evaluation items the RFP never spells out.
HOW WE DID IT
INSIDE AN RFP SUCCESS® MASTERY AUDIT.
The pattern surfaced quickly across three proposals: RTA Fleet's competence was never in question, but win themes sat buried.
Four steps. One engagement cycle. Repeatable on every SLED pursuit.
BUILT ON THE D.A.R.E. METHOD
01
Distinction:
Did the proposal make RTA Fleet the obvious lowest risk, highest value choice, or just another qualified vendor?
02
Answer the Questions for Impact:
Did every response address what the RFP actually asked, in the order asked, at the depth an evaluator needs to score it well?
03
Readability:
Could an evaluator reading their 30th proposal of the week find RTA Fleet's key points fast, or did the formatting bury them?
04
Evidence & Authority:
Did every claim carry specific, credible, relevant proof, or was some of it riding on generic boilerplate?
"You answered every question. You just never made it easy to score you as the winner."
Audit finding, RTA Fleet engagement
03 / Why It Worked
The Audit Surfaced What the Writers Couldn't See From Inside.
The team kept writing its own proposals. What changed was that the D.A.R.E. dimensions became a pre submission checklist, so the positioning gaps got caught before a proposal went out instead of after it lost.
Nothing about who wrote the proposals changed. RTA Fleet’s team still owned every word. After the audit, they simply knew what to look for, and they ran four questions over every draft before it shipped:
- Is the distinction visible, or is it buried under requirements language?
- Are the answers addressing the evaluation criteria directly, or drifting into general capability claims?
- Will an evaluator scanning at speed find the win themes, or have to dig for them?
- Does every claim carry specific evidence, or is some of it leaning on company boilerplate?
You can’t see the picture when you’re inside the frame. That is the gap the audit closes. It does not teach a team to write better. It teaches a team to read its own writing the way an evaluator does. That is the whole job of the RFP Success® Mastery Audit: diagnostic clarity a team can apply on its own, with no ongoing engagement required.
Once they saw their proposal through an evaluator’s eyes, they couldn’t unsee it.
04 / THE RESULT
80% Finalist Rate. 2 to 3x Revenue Pace. One Cycle.
After applying the audit recommendations across their next proposal cycle, RTA Fleet’s finalist rate climbed from 50% to 80%. That wasn’t a quarterly blip. The pattern held as they continued submitting at volume, their writing team was now catching the positioning gaps the audit had surfaced before proposals went out.
RTA Fleet applied the roadmap across its next round of pursuits. The finalist rate moved from 50% to 80%. That was not a one quarter blip. The pattern held as the team kept submitting at volume, because it was now catching the positioning gaps before proposals went out rather than reading about them in a loss debrief.
The revenue followed. Revenue is on pace to 2 to 3x the prior year, and the reason matters: RTA Fleet did not start submitting more proposals. It submitted the same volume, and more of those proposals reached the finalist round, and more of those finalist positions converted into wins.
BEFORE AUDIT
AFTER AUDIT
50%
80%
FINALIST RATE
A 30 percentage point lift in one engagement cycle.
Evaluation Score | Baseline | +30 points
REVENUE TRAJECTORY
Steady to On pace 2 to 3x annually
ANNUAL PROPOSAL VOLUME
71 to 71 (quality shift, not volume)
TIME TO IMPACT
Observable within one proposal cycle
BY THE NUMBERS
RTA Fleet's finalist rate jumped from 50% to 80% after one RFP Success® Mastery Audit by The RFP Success® Company.
+30 PTS
FINALIST RATE LIFT
2 to 3x
REVENUE TRAJECTORY
1
ENGAGEMENT CYCLE
05 / THE QUOTE
“
KEVIN BURDICK · FLEET MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR · RTA FLEET
Explore the Service
Interested in an RFP Success® Mastery Audit for Your Team?
Stop guessing how your proposals read to decision makers. Our comprehensive audit reviews your recent submissions through the exact lens of a procurement evaluator, identifying critical gaps, compliance risks, and hidden weaknesses before you hit submit.
Investment
From kickoff to debrief
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FREQUENTLY ASKED · EVALUATOR-AWARE ANSWERS
COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT REPLICATING THIS OUTCOME.
Real questions from SLED service businesses considering a Mastery Audit to improve future proposal performance.
01
What service did RTA Fleet use to improve its finalist rate?
RTA Fleet used the RFP Success® Mastery Audit, the entry level Win Strategist service from The RFP Success® Company. The team reviewed 3 of RTA Fleet's past proposals through the evaluator's lens and delivered a prioritized roadmap for the next pursuit cycle. The audit reviews past proposals only. It does not write or rewrite proposals.
02
How much did RTA Fleet's finalist rate improve?
It moved from 50% to 80% after the team applied the audit findings across its next proposal cycle. Revenue is on pace to 2 to 3x the prior year. These are RTA Fleet's documented results from one engagement cycle, not a guaranteed outcome for every client.
03
Does The RFP Success® Company write proposals for clients?
No. RTA Fleet's team wrote its proposals before the engagement and kept writing them after. The audit gives a team the evaluator's view of its own writing so it can find and fix scoring gaps on its own.
04
How long does an RFP Success® Mastery Audit take, and what does it cost?
It runs 2 to 3 weeks from kickoff to debrief and is $3,500 flat for up to three previously submitted RFP responses and up to 300 total proposal pages. It is designed for established service-based businesses pursuing state, local, education, or corporate opportunities.
05
Could a company like ours get a similar result?
RTA Fleet's gain came from a clear pattern: a qualified team with strong technical content, but win themes buried under required response structure. If your team makes shortlists yet loses on points it cannot name, the audit is built to surface that gap. We don't guarantee wins. We tell you honestly whether an audit is the right fit before you commit.
Question not on the list?
Email support@rfpsuccess.com and the team will get you an answer.
Email support@rfpsuccess.comInc. 5000
(2023 to 2024)
76%+
Win Rate
$500M+
Client Wins
10+
Documented Case Studies
30+
Lisa's RFP Experience
READY TO WIN · MAKE YOURS THE NEXT CASE STUDY
Want Results Like This?
Tell us about your business. We'll honestly recommend the Win Strategist service that fits your situation, or tell you if we're not the right fit.
Cheers to your success.
Lisa Rehurek
Lisa Rehurek · Founder, The RFP Success® Company · 30+ years responding to, developing, and evaluating RFPs
