What Is Your Win Rate Telling You?

Start with the numbers. Pull your RFP activity from January through June and calculate your win rate. How many proposals did your firm submit? Of those, how many came back as a win? If your win rate is sitting below 30 percent, that is a flag that something in your process, your content, or your follow-through needs attention.

Before you dig into the breakdown, check how many of these submissions were cold RFPs, meaning your firm had no prior relationship with the prospect and was simply one name on a distribution list. This distinction shapes how you should read the rest of your numbers. Industry benchmarks show that cold or unsolicited RFPs typically convert in the 10 to 20 percent range, sometimes lower, while relationship-based or invited submissions often win at 60 percent or higher when a firm already has a relationship, prior work history, or an internal champion pushing the RFP forward. If a large share of your first-half pipeline came from cold, no-relationship sources, a lower aggregate win rate may say less about your proposal quality and more about the quality of the opportunities you are chasing. That points to a business development targeting problem rather than a content problem. The fix is tighter qualification criteria before a proposal team invests time in a submission with no relationship behind it.

Win rate analysis should go deeper than a simple count. Break it down by practice area, by geography, by deal size, and by RFP source, cold versus relationship-driven being the most important cut. Are you winning more frequently in certain practice areas than others? Are your largest opportunities consistently going to competitors? These patterns reveal where your firm’s narrative is landing and where it is falling flat. A mid-year review gives you enough runway to course-correct before Q4 opportunities arrive.

If you have not been tracking wins and losses systematically, now is the time to build that discipline into your process. Every submission should be logged with outcome notes, including whether it originated from a relationship or a cold distribution. Every loss and every win should trigger a debrief, whether formal or informal, to understand why the prospect went another direction.

Have You Followed Up on Earlier Submissions?

Follow up is one of the most overlooked elements of a strong RFP program. Many firms invest significant time in crafting a proposal and then go silent once it is in the prospect’s hands. That silence is costly.

Review every RFP from the first half of the year and ask whether your team made contact after submission. If a prospect has not yet made a decision, a thoughtful, timely touchpoint from a relationship partner or business development professional can keep your firm top of mind and demonstrate real interest. If you lost a pitch, a follow-up conversation with the prospect can surface useful outreach cues for the next opportunity, even if the core “why we lost” analysis already happened during the internal debrief.

Follow-up is stewardship of the relationships your firm worked hard to build, treat it that way. Establish a rhythm, whether it is 30 days post-submission or tied to a specific client milestone, and make sure someone on the team owns that outreach.

“Firms often think the RFP process ends when they receive the decision. In reality, that’s where some of the most valuable relationship-building begins,” said Beau Karch, Senior Proposal Manager at Venable LLP. “If you win, take the opportunity to debrief with the client, reinforce your enthusiasm for the engagement, and learn what resonated in your proposal so you can replicate that success. If you don’t win, a polite and prompt follow-up can provide feedback and keep the relationship alive for future opportunities. Either way, the post-award conversation is an investment in the next opportunity.”

Are Your Credentials Current and Compelling?

Your credentials are the backbone of every proposal. Client results, team bios, firm differentiators, and matter descriptions need to show the work your attorneys or professionals are doing right now. Highlights from two or three years ago no longer carry the same weight.

Mid-year is the ideal moment to audit your credentials library. Do your representative matters show recent wins? Have significant new engagements concluded that should be added? More importantly, are your write-ups framed for a prospective client, leading with the result and the relevance rather than a procedural summary of the work performed?

Stale credentials are a quiet competitive disadvantage. When a prospect reads a matter list that references work from 2021 or 2022 without anything more recent, it raises questions about your current activity and momentum. Refresh the library now so your second-half proposals show the full strength of your practice.

Is Your RFP Database Reflecting Your Full Team?

Lateral hiring continues at a strong pace across professional services. If your firm has welcomed new partners, principals, or senior hires in the past six months, their experience and relationships must be integrated into your RFP database immediately.

A new partner who joined in February and whose bio, practice highlights, and matters are not yet in your pitch system represents a missed opportunity on every submission since their arrival. Run a lateral audit now. Work with your human resources and professional development teams to confirm that all new hires have complete profiles in the system, that their prior experience has been captured appropriately, and that they are being matched to relevant opportunities.

“After a busy first half of the year, updating credentials and proposal content can slip down the priority list. But firms that invest the time to keep their RFP database current are far better positioned when new opportunities emerge, or when a prospective client decides it’s time to look beyond its current legal provider. Being ready is the difference between reacting to an opportunity and winning it,” Karch said.

The Second Half Starts Now

The strongest win rates at year-end belong to the most disciplined firms, regardless of team size or client list length. This checkpoint is your opportunity to sharpen that discipline, shore up the weak points, and position your firm to finish strong. We have provided a sample template below for tracking your RFP statistics.

Mid-Year RFP Win-Rate Dashboard | Jan-Jun 2026

Poston CMBDO Tracking Template

KPI Summary

Metric	Value
Total Submissions (Jan-Jun)	6
Total Won	2
Total Lost	2
Total Pending	2
Overall Win Rate %	50%
Follow-Up Completion Rate %	67%

RFP Submission Log

Submission ID

Submission Date

Client/Prospect

Practice Area

Geography

Deal Size

RFP Source

Submitted By

Follow-Up Date

Follow-Up Complete?

Outcome

Loss Reason

Notes

RFP-001

RFP-002

RFP-003

RFP-004

RFP-005

RFP-006

Win Rate by Practice Area

Practice Area	Submitted	Won	Lost	Pending	Win Rate %
Corporate
Healthcare
Litigation
Real Estate
Tax
Employment

Win Rate by Geography

Geography	Submitted	Won	Lost	Pending	Win Rate %
Northeast
Southeast
Midwest
West
Southwest
International

Win Rate by Deal Size

Deal Size	Submitted	Won	Lost	Pending	Win Rate %
<$50K
$50K-$150K
$150K-$500K
$500K+

Win Rate by RFP Source

Source	Submitted	Won	Lost	Pending	Win Rate %
Referral
Directory/Listing
Existing Client
Cold Outreach
Event/Conference

Formula Reference

Formula	Definition
Win Rate %	Won / (Won + Lost) x 100 — excludes Pending and No Decision
Follow-Up Rate %	Count(Follow-Up = Yes) / Total Submissions x 100
Loss by Reason %	Count(Loss Reason = X) / Total Lost x 100
Avg Deal Size	Sum of deal values / Total Submissions

Loss Reason Summary

Loss Reason	Count	% of Total Lost
Price
Experience/Credentials
Relationship
Conflict
Other