Master Color Team Reviews: Pink, Red and Gold (+Alternatives)
Let’s say you responded to an RFP that you were poised to win. You crafted the perfect answers, tweaked your pricing to be competitive, and checked off all of the compliance boxes.
And yet, you still lost.
You may have heard of the mysterious color team reviews that could help in this situation. Maybe you want to try them for your organization. Maybe you used to do them but forgot the meanings. Either way, let me unveil the magic of color team reviews–specifically Pink Team, Red Team, and Gold Team reviews–and share when and why you should use them.
Table of Contents
What are color team reviews?
Before we dive into the specific teams, let’s start with a background. Color team reviews were created by Shipley for winning federal contracts. This approach is still primarily used for large, complex federal opportunities, but it has spread to some larger state, education, and healthcare approaches as well. Color team reviews are key checkpoints throughout the entire sales process that allow you to refine your strategy to increase your win rate. There are seven total color reviews, but today we’re focusing on the three most related to the actual proposal writing: Pink, Red, and Gold.
Pink Team Proposal Review
The official Shipley definition of a Pink Team is one that “reviews proposal storyboards, mockups, or writing plans before text is drafted.” It’s basically the planning meeting for your proposal content to ensure your win themes are refined and well supported throughout your proposal.
When to Hold a Pink Team Review
Pink Teams take place near the beginning of your proposal development. The official recommendation is 20-25% of the way between the RFP and the deadline. These reviews are great for establishing a clear content plan.
What We Recommend Instead
Storyboards, mockups, and entire proposal plans are cumbersome, and often overkill, for RFPs that aren’t highly complex, competitive, or with plenty of time. Most of the clients we work with have between 3 weeks and two months to respond to an RFP, and that’s not enough time for the full Shipley process, especially an in depth Pink Team.
Instead, we recommend having a Strategy Brainstorming session where the team meets and talks through the customer’s goals, the main competitors, and your win themes for this particular project. You can then list out supporting points for each win theme and assign team members to gather any missing information, such as data, visuals, or case studies.
Red Team Proposal Review
Red Team’s are the yin to the Pink Team’s yang. They are two sides of the same idea:
Pink Teams are about brainstorming and creating strategy.
Red Teams review that strategy and evaluate the proposal.
The official Shipley approach for a red team is to “predict how well your near-final proposal would be scored by the customer.”
When to Hold a Red Team Review
Shipley recommends holding a Red Team two-thirds or 75% of the way into the proposal development process. It’s important to allow time for revision after a Red Team because you will often receive a lot of opinions and have to sift through them and update your proposal.
What We Recommend Instead
Red Teams are great (and often fun) but similar to Pink Teams, not every RFP has the time to hold a full Red Team. Instead, we like to hold Review Meetings where we review the proposal and evaluate how well our win themes are performing. This is often very specific and focused, which can cut down on the amount of time spent in the meeting (Red Teams can get sidetracked easily and last for hours). We also don’t recommend reviewing pricing during the Red Team as it has a tendency to dominate the conversation.
Gold Team Proposal Review
A Gold Team Review is a final review of the proposal to confirm changes identified in the Red and Green (pricing) Team reviews have been completed. This review also confirms the final document aligns with brand standards and is of the expected quality.
When to Hold a Gold Team Review
Gold Teams take place right before you submit your proposal, typically a few days to a week before the deadline (depending on how much time you have). It can be helpful if there were a significant amount of changes during the Red Team that need to be reviewed again.
What We Recommend Instead
Holding two review meetings isn’t possible for most RFPs. If you only have 3 weeks to respond, you likely are struggling to pull together all of the content by the deadline, let alone conduct TWO reviews of said content. We recommend instead holding a final Compliance Review before you submit your proposal to confirm you meet all of the RFP’s compliance requirements and ensure your proposal quality meets your company’s standards.
How to Put This Into Practice
If you like our recommendations above, you can discover our complete process in the Bid to Win course, which includes training on competitive research. We also offer Corporate Trainings where we can train your entire team on the process.
Or if you prefer to get started on your own, we bundled all of our templates for the meetings mentioned above. Grab the Key Review Meetings templates here.
