The RFP comes in. A first draft is ready for your Sales Engineer.
Three of the four jobs on Coltrane's careers page are Sales Engineer roles, so this starts where their hours go: reading a bid package and turning it into a scope, a BOM, an RFI list and a cover letter. The Sales Engineer still makes every call. They start from a draft instead of a blank page.
1 workflow
RFP to draft proposal
4 drafts
Scope, BOM, RFIs, cover letter
30–60 days
Pilot length
5 proposals
Real bids in the pilot
01
How a bid moves today, and with this
Typical today
How a mid-size integrator usually runs it
1
Read the bid package
RFP, spec sections 27 and 28, the plan set, the room data schedule, addenda.
2
Build the scope room by room
What's in, what's out, what's unclear. Easy to miss a line buried in the security spec.
most of a day
3
Build the BOM
Pick gear from the standard lineup, price it, check lead times.
4
Write the RFIs
Questions to the GC, often written once the cutoff is already close.
found late
5
Write the cover letter
Dig up a past proposal that's close, find the right project references, rewrite.
RFP to submitted proposal: a day or two of Sales Engineer time
With an AI assistant behind the Sales Engineer
Same people, same judgment, less typing
1
Drop in the bid package
The assistant reads all of it, including the sections nobody has time to read twice.
2
Scope drafted, in and out of scope
Room by room, every service line, with the bid dates and alternates pulled out.
nothing buried
3
BOM drafted from your standard gear
Your lineup and your pricing. Anything over four weeks lead time is flagged.
4
RFIs drafted on day one
The open questions are listed before the walk-through, not the night before the cutoff.
asked early
5
Cover letter drafted, SE edits and sends
References pulled from your past projects. Nothing goes out without the SE's sign-off.
Pilot goal: cut Sales Engineer hours per proposal in half, measured on real bids
02
Try it on a sample bid
A made-up bid shaped like Coltrane work: a 14,000 sq ft healthcare training center with AV, security, cabling and sound masking under one contract. The RFP is on the left. Press a button on the right to see the draft, then see what happens when an addendum lands.
The RFP (excerpt)Issued Oct 30
Riverbend Health Training Center AV, Security & Structured Cabling Systems · St. Louis, MO GC: McGrath Construction Group
Pre-bid walk-through Nov 12 (mandatory) · RFI cutoff Nov 19 · Bids due Dec 3, 2:00 PM via BuildingConnected
§2.1 Audio visual
Multi-Purpose Training Room 110: 2,400 sq ft, divisible by operable partition; combined and split modes. Dual front displays, ceiling-array mics, PTZ camera, audio reinforcement, dimming integration with the Owner's lighting control. Teams Rooms capable.
Large conference 115, 117: 85" display, conference audio bar, 360° tabletop mic. BYOM primary; Teams Rooms secondary.
Small conference 119, 121: 65" display, USB conference bar.
Clinical-adjacent 130, 132, 134: paging tie-in; nurse-call extension (platform to be identified at walk-through).
Owner prefers Crestron control; will accept Q-SYS Reflect with similar prior deployments.
§2.2 Security
Access control, 12 doors, on the Owner's existing S2 platform (version identified at walk-through).
Video surveillance, an estimated 16 cameras, on the Owner's campus VMS.
Video intercom at 2 lobby entries.
§2.3 Structured cabling
Cat 6A throughout, about 280 drops.
Six OM4 risers to the main hospital MDF. Underground conduit by GC.
§2.4 Sound masking
Lencore Spectra i.Net or equal, about 7,200 sq ft.
§5 Alternates
#1: LED wall at 1.2 mm instead of 1.5 mm.
#2: 16 hours of Owner training instead of 4.
Pick a button above to see the draft.
Sample data only. The project, owner and GC are invented, and the prices are placeholders. The project references in the cover letter come from the case studies on coltranesystems.com. In a real setup the drafts use Coltrane's own past proposals, standard equipment and pricing.
03
What it could free up for your team
Move these to Coltrane's real numbers. The starting values are guesses. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
Sales Engineer hours back each month if the pilot hits its goal of half the time per proposal
04
What a pilot looks like
First weeks: learn how you bid
We sit with a Sales Engineer on how a proposal really gets built, collect a handful of past proposals, the standard equipment list and pricing, and set the assistant up to write the way Coltrane writes.
Then: five real bids
The next five proposals run through it. We measure Sales Engineer hours per proposal, and the SE marks up every draft so the next one comes out better.
Your data stays yours
Past proposals, pricing and client details stay in Coltrane's own accounts, not ours.
Next step: a 20-minute call to walk through how one of your proposals actually gets built, and whether this fits it.