Every seasoned proposal manager knows the feeling: that creeping suspicion as you read through an RFP that this deal is already spoken for. The requirements feel oddly specific. The timeline seems rushed. Something just feels... off.
You're not imagining it.
We've all been there—pouring weeks into a proposal only to lose to a vendor who seemed to know exactly what the buyer wanted. The truth is, they probably did. In the world of enterprise RFPs, especially in government contracting, "wired" deals are more common than most organizations care to admit.
But here's what separates winning teams from the rest: the ability to spot these predetermined outcomes early and make strategic decisions about where to invest their limited resources.
The Real Cost of Pursuing Unwinnable RFPs
When your team chases a targetted RFP, you're not just losing the deal—you're hemorrhaging resources. Think about it: your best subject matter experts get pulled from billable work, your proposal team burns midnight oil, and morale takes a nosedive when the inevitable rejection arrives.
Our analysis shows companies waste between $15,000 to $50,000 in labor costs on a single unwinnable RFP. Multiply that by the four or five wired deals you unknowingly pursue each year, and you're looking at a quarter-million-dollar mistake.
The real tragedy? Those same resources could have been deployed on genuine opportunities where you actually stood a fighting chance.
5 Early Warning Signals That an RFP is Already Promised to Someone Else
1. Suspiciously Specific Requirements That Match a Competitor's Profile
When an RFP asks for "cloud-based solutions with a minimum of 7.5 years of operation in the Arizona market with at least three community college implementations," you're not looking at requirements—you're reading someone's resume.
Watch for specifications that seem arbitrary or unnecessarily narrow. Legitimate requirements solve business problems. Wired requirements describe existing vendors.
2. Compressed or Impossible Response Timelines
Here's a pattern we consistently observe: An RFP gets released with a five-week response window, but you discover it three weeks late. Why? Because the preferred vendor got a heads-up weeks before the official release.
If procurement tells you "everyone has the same amount of time," but you're finding RFPs halfway through their lifecycle despite having robust discovery processes, someone else is getting advance notice.
3. Relationship Black Holes and Inaccessible Stakeholders
Try this: Call the procurement office and ask clarifying questions about the RFP. Then try to connect with the actual business stakeholders who will use your solution.
In a fair competition, you'll get callbacks, even if they're brief. In a wired deal, you'll hit walls. Your emails go unanswered. Your calls unreturned. Meanwhile, the incumbent is having coffee with the decision-makers.
4. Pre-Written Sections That Echo a Competitor's Marketing
Sometimes it's almost comical—you'll find entire sections that read like marketing copy for your competitor. We once reviewed an RFP that literally included the incumbent's proprietary methodology names in the requirements.
Look for language that feels more like a vendor's proposal than a buyer's needs statement. Check if specific branded terms or unique methodologies appear as "must-haves."
5. Subjective Oral Presentation Scoring Criteria
When the RFP includes an oral presentation or demo phase with mysteriously subjective scoring criteria ("vendor cultural fit" worth 30% of total points), you're often looking at a safety valve for selecting the predetermined winner.
These subjective components allow evaluators to justify almost any decision, regardless of your written proposal's quality.
How to Make Smart Go/No-Go Decisions on Suspicious RFPs
So you've spotted the signals. Now what?
High-performing proposal teams don't just walk away—they make calculated decisions. Here's the framework we recommend:
The Three-Question Test for Wired RFPs
1. Do we have any existing relationships with this organization?If you have zero connections to the buying organization, and the signals suggest it's wired, your probability of winning drops below 5%. That's not pessimism; that's math.
2. Is this opportunity a strategic must-win?Sometimes you bid knowing you'll lose because you need to establish presence, learn about the buyer, or position for the recompete. That's fine—just don't kid yourself about the outcome.
3. Can we afford the opportunity cost?Every hour spent on a wired deal is an hour not spent on winnable work. If you have three genuine opportunities in the pipeline, why chase ghosts?
The Minimal Viable Proposal Strategy for Rigged Competitions
If you decide to proceed despite the warning signs (maybe it's strategic, maybe you need the practice), don't go all-in. We've seen teams successfully use what we call the "MVP approach":
Submit a compliant but basic proposal
Invest maybe 20% of normal effort
Use it as a training exercise for junior staff
Treat it as intelligence gathering for the recompete
This way, you stay on the buyer's radar without burning out your A-team.
Creating an Early Warning System for Your Proposal Team
The best defense against wired deals isn't paranoia—it's process. Here's how winning organizations protect themselves:
Map the relationship landscape early. Start building connections at target agencies months or years before RFPs drop. When you know the players, you can read the game.
Create a go/no-go scorecard. Document your warning signals and weight them. When three or more flags appear, trigger a leadership review before proceeding.
Track your assumptions. Keep a record of deals you walked away from. When awards are announced, validate whether your instincts were correct. This feedback loop sharpens your radar over time.
Share intelligence across your team. That procurement officer who never returns calls? That agency that always awards to the same three vendors? This institutional knowledge is gold—don't let it live in one person's head.
Improving Your Win Rate by Choosing the Right Battles
Here's what nobody wants to say out loud: The organizations winning the most RFPs aren't necessarily writing the best proposals. They're picking the right battles.
They understand that RFP success isn't about response rate—it's about win rate. They'd rather respond to five genuine opportunities than fifteen mixed bags.
They've learned to read the tea leaves, and more importantly, they've given their teams permission to walk away when the signs point to a predetermined outcome.
Making Smarter Proposal Investments
The next time an RFP lands on your desk, before you mobilize the troops, ask yourself: Are we competing, or are we just providing cover for a done deal?
Train your team to spot these signals. Build the discipline to walk away. Focus your finite resources on genuine opportunities where your expertise, pricing, and solution actually matter.
Because in the end, the deals you don't pursue might be the smartest decisions you make.
The question isn't whether wired deals exist—they absolutely do. The question is whether you'll keep falling for them, or whether you'll build the wisdom to see them coming and the courage to walk away.
Make the decision visible. You need fast structure, a shared scorecard, and a way to run a minimal, compliant bid without burning hours.
Trampoline helps teams do that:
It turns any RFP into a Kanban board in minutes. Every requirement becomes a card with section, priority, and deadline. You see scope, gaps, and effort early.
You can add a go/no-go scorecard to the board. Tag wiring signals, weight them, and trigger a leadership review when thresholds are met.
The AI side panel pulls relevant past answers so you can draft a compliant MVP quickly. SMEs review instead of rewriting.
Relationship notes and assumptions live on cards. After award, you record the outcome and sharpen your playbook.
If you proceed, the Writer extension compiles validated cards into a clean proposal in your needed format.
The goal is simple: spend effort where it matters, avoid sunk cost on bad bets, and learn from every cycle. Trampoline is built for that.