Read Section M before Section C

Most losing proposals answer the requirement. The requirement is in Section C. Nobody scores Section C.

The score comes from Section M, and the instructions for earning it are in Section L. A response that covers every word of the statement of work and ignores the evaluation factors is a compliant document that loses to a worse company with a better-organised volume.

The order to read them in

Read the solicitation backwards.

1. Section M first. What are the evaluation factors, in what order of importance, and is the award going to the lowest price technically acceptable or to the best value? Those two words change everything about what you should spend the next three weeks writing.
2. Section L second. Page limits, volume structure, font size, the format they want the past performance references in. Section L is the shape of the container. Write to a shape you invented and you will be cutting text at midnight the day before.
3. Section C last, and only then. By that point you already know which parts of it are worth expanding and which get a paragraph.

What this catches

The gap between Sections L and M is where most bids are decided. A factor weighted “significantly more important than cost” that appears nowhere in the instructions is telling you the evaluators expect you to volunteer something. A subfactor with no page allocation is telling you it is a check, not a narrative.

You will also find requirements that are impossible to score well against — an evaluation factor built on a track record you do not have. That is a Gate 2 signal, and it belongs in the bid/no-bid decision rather than in a heroic writing effort.

Where this fits

If the bid decision is not settled, the opportunity assessment is the engagement that reads Sections L and M against each other and returns a written verdict. If it is settled and the response is live, proposal support builds the compliance matrix and scores the draft the way the board will.