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This is part 2 of a 16-part blog series designed to help you win government oral presentations. In the first post, we started with the basics – how to analyze the RFP and establish your Rules of Engagement (ROE), the foundation for the entire proposal process. In part 2, we’ll decode the Technical Evaluation Board (TEB).

Understanding the TEB

Winning a government oral presentation comes down to truly understanding the TEB. These are often government employees serving as the evaluators of your team, proposal, and live presentation (Note: Some oral presentations include consultants who sign NDAs and serve on the TEB. The RFP should specify when those other than government employees are on the evaluation board). Understanding their perspective is not a bonus; it’s the key. When you make their job easier, you set yourself up to be the obvious choice.

The central idea of understanding the audience lies in the Busy Grader Principle. Assume your evaluators are thinking: “Don’t make me think, don’t expect me to pay attention for long, and don’t make me do any extra work to evaluate your proposal!!!” (We covered this in the first blog, which you can read here)

Let this principle drive your decisions about everything: slides, narrative, delivery, and handoffs. Your job is to make your solution so clear and easy to assess that giving you a high score is the path of least resistance for the TEB.

Life as a TEB Evaluator: What You Need to Know

Most TEB members are program staff, technical leads, or contracting professionals who’ve had the task of evaluating proposals added to their day jobs. They grade proposals between other meetings and deadlines, and they may not be deep experts on every requirement.

They want presentations that are:

• Simple to follow: The presentation flows in a logical order and matches RFP sections and evaluation factors, so they don’t have to puzzle it out.
• Easy to understand: The language is plain, free of jargon, and explanations are concise, not convoluted.
• Easy to score: Every element maps directly to the evaluation criteria (often found in Section M).

Your oral pitch isn’t just a show; it’s a tool to help the TEB confidently justify recommending you for a contract award. If you make their work easier, you’re halfway to the win.

Map Your Presentation Directly to the Evaluation Criteria (Section M)

The single most effective way to make the evaluator's job easy is to structure your presentation so that the evaluation criteria are easy to find. The evaluation criteria are literally the TEB’s scoring worksheet. Your presentation should walk through this, point by point.

• Mirror the Structure: Organize your presentation in the same order as the evaluation factors in Section M*. If the first criterion is Technical Approach, that should be your first major topic.
• Use Their Language: Lift keywords and phrases directly from the evaluation criteria and incorporate them into your slides and spoken presentation. If the evaluation criteria ask for an "integrated, low-risk solution," your slide title and talking points should feature that exact phrase.
• Make Scoring Obvious: Design your content to address each scoring element explicitly. Guide the evaluators through their checklist, making it simple for them to tick the boxes in your favor.

By aligning your presentation with the evaluation criteria, you are speaking the TEB's language and showing them exactly where to find the information they need to give you points.

We added this * because sometimes the RFP instructions, including Section L, will include a presentation agenda the government wants you to follow. While the general rule of thumb is to follow Section M, ensure you review the Q&A, agenda, down-select instructions, or other guidance from the government as your agenda framework.

Slides: Clarity Over Complexity

Visuals can either help you or hurt you. Aim to make your slides simple, logical, and easy to reference at a glance. Dense, busy, or overloaded slides punish the TEB - and break the Busy Grader Principle.

• One main idea per slide: Never stack multiple concepts – each slide should deliver one clear, supportable message. This will also help your presenters – imagine delivering a high-stakes presentation and momentarily losing your place. You want your speaker to be able to glance at the slide and immediately jump back in.
• Action titles: The title of your slide should be a complete sentence that states the main takeaway. Instead of "Our Process," use "Our 5-Step Process Reduces Risk and Ensures On-Time Delivery." This allows an evaluator who is momentarily distracted to grasp the key point instantly.
• Aim for visual evidence: Use simple graphics, charts, and diagrams to explain complex ideas. A clear visual is often more effective than a block of text. Anchor each of your talking points to a specific part of the slide to help the TEB follow along.

Your slides should support your speakers, not replace them. They are signposts that guide the evaluators’ attention and reinforce your core messages.

A key point about the deck – sometimes the RFP will state that the deck will be evaluated before the oral presentation. When presented with this scenario, ensure your deck can be viewed as a standalone product. If the TEB reviews your deck without the talk track, can they still ascertain your main points?

Speaker Delivery: Guide the Grader

How you deliver your content is as important as the content itself. Your presenters must always be “narrating the scorecard” – actively making it easy for the TEB to know what’s important. There are two techniques to help you do this: transitions and bracketing. Using these techniques means the TEB won’t ever wonder where they are in the presentation. Here’s how they work:

For transitions, you’re going to make it crystal-clear that you’ve finished one topic and are moving on to the next by saying something like: “Now that we’ve covered our technical approach, let’s move to staffing, as required in Section M, Factor 2.”

You’ll combine transitions with the advanced technique of bracketing, which follows this flow:

• Tell them what you are going to tell them: Preview the topics you are about to cover.
• Tell them: Deliver the content.
• Tell them what you told them: Summarize the key points you just made.

Bracketing frames your message, reinforces retention, and feeds the TEB exactly what they need to hear.

Proof and Examples

Every claim, process, or assertion must be instantly backed up with a proof story. The purpose here is two-fold: first, it provides evidence that reinforces the claim that your process, method, tool, or approach is real and effective. Second, sharing a short, relevant story will help the TEB understand how your solution relates to their challenge and what it will help them achieve. Using the phrase “so you can” at the end of your story will supercharge the impact of your example by highlighting its applicability. Use the framework below to structure your story:

• Relevance: Why this example matters to their problem.
• Results: The quantifiable outcome you achieved.
• Who Did the Work: Give credit to the team, reinforcing their expertise.
• Direct Benefit: Use the phrase "so you can..." to connect your past success to their future benefit.

Keep these stories short but punchy – and always assign credit: “The same process, a team of experienced experts, and proven tool would be available to your application development initiatives so that you can develop new applications at half the cost and twice the speed.”

Final TEB Do’s and Don’ts

Do:

• Introduce and reintroduce speakers, making expertise clear.
• Pause after main ideas – let TEBs catch up, take notes, and process.
• Give credit – show team humility and teamwork.
• Stay calm, make eye contact, and control the tempo.

Don’t:

• Rely on scripts – speak to the TEB, not at them.
• Use fuzzy claims or promise “hope.” Be direct.
• Use qualifier/weaker words (“hopefully,” “maybe,” “kinda”).
• Promise things you can’t back up instantly.

Keep the Busy Grader Principle as your mantra. If you make things simple for the evaluators, are confident in your proof, and clear in your delivery, you’ll be the easy favorite for the award.

Turn TEB Insight into Winning Results

Decoding the evaluator’s perspective is step one. Next, execute a seamless presentation that shows you “get” how government decisions are really made. The right orals coach can upgrade your techniques and unlock higher win rates.

Our expert team coaches help you align with the evaluation criteria, sharpen your team’s delivery, and install proven methods for TEB engagement.

• Explore our Oral Presentation Coaching services.

• Contact Us to drive more wins in your next government presentation.

 Look for Part 3 of this series: Choosing a Presentation Coach: A Guide for Government Contractors

Original Content by Jeff Everage* and edited by Trident Staff
*Disclaimer
This blog post was created using original content from Jeff and run through AI for condensation. The original content used to form the prompt comes from Jeff’s orals coaching eBook.

Jeff is the President and Founder of Trident Proposal Management. As a GovCon Oral Presentation Coach for more than 15 years, Jeff has coached more than 100 teams to success. His insights into oral coaching, gained from the trenches of coaching, are designed to support you and your team in your efforts. As a Navy veteran, Jeff resides in Southern California and provides support to clients worldwide as part of our globally dispersed team.