In the current economic climate, people are always telling us we have to do more with less. It's the current mantra of every CEO or COO who wants to make his staff as lean as possible in an attempt to improve the bottom line. Unfortunately, trying to do more marketing with fewer people is a process that progresses from "bad choices," through "cutting corners," ultimately winding up at "submitting inferior proposals."
What's the answer? For me, the simple answer is this:
"Do Less with Less, but DO IT BETTER!"
Make better use of your "Go/No Go" process to identify those pursuits you really have a good chance of winning. Say "no" to those pursuits where you have little or no chance of winning. Eliminate "ego" or "need" totally from your pursuit decision.
If you're pursuing a project which you have no chance of winning, but which a senior manager wants to pursue anyway, that senior manager is ignoring the negative impacts of his/her decision on the firm's bottom line.
If you're pursuing a project which you have no chance of winning simply because a principal's department or program needs the work, someone is ignoring the negative impacts of his/her decision on the firm's bottom line again.
At a time like this, the secret is to make the BEST use of the limited resources you have -- those resources being a marketer's available time, and the firm's applicable history and information resources. Commit the appropriate resources to the pursuit and don't stretch them tight enough to require short cuts.
Make sure your technical folks know that they will be required to help, but that you will only ask them to write sections that require technical knowledge, and that you will keep their involvement to a minimum so they can focus on their billable work.
And finally, remember to save a little "cushion" of time so that, when you get short-listed on a pursuit, both your marketing and technical folks will have time to develop and rehearse a superior presentation without having to cancel some other winnable pursuit.