A 20 percent cut in poor-fit work is hours returned, not a slogan.

Qualification ROI is poor-fit share, times the cut you make in it, times the cost of a pursuit: at the defaults, a 20 percent cut returns hours, not a slogan. It is the model under the economics of bidding and the working behind the 40 hours on the home page. It is not a client result.

Published: 2 September 2026 · By Andre · Reviewed by Bill · selrob

Takeaways

Avoided pursuits = volume × poor-fit % × cut %.
Hours returned = avoided × hours per pursuit. Dollars follow.
Defaults: 20 pursuits, 40 percent poor-fit, 40 hours, $8,520, a 20 percent cut.
Twenty percent is conservative. The first noes are the obvious ones.

What is the model?

You already know some of last year’s bids should not have started. This page costs a cut in that share, not a fantasy in which every inbound fits. Poor-fit is the work that fails an axis, or that you would not start again today. Be honest. If you cannot name any, you do not have a gate. You have a writing habit.

Defaults: 20 pursuits a year, 40 percent poor-fit (8), a 20 percent cut (1.6 avoided), 40 hours and $8,520 each. Hours returned: 64. Dollars: about $13,600. Stopping all eight poor-fit pursuits is 320 hours and about $68,000. The page shows the conservative cut because that is the one a partner will believe on a first pass.

The 40 hours and $8,520 are the published floor from the cost-of-pursuit calculator. They are the working behind “40+ hours saved on every tender you don’t chase.” Replace them with your diary. Do not replace them with a number you wish were true.

This is not selrob’s ROI. It is a model of a gate, with or without software. Software makes the gate cheap enough to run on every pack. The hours come from the no-bids. A licence without a no-bid is a subscription to the same week.

Model it

Volume, poor-fit, a cut.

Defaults are filled. Poor-fit and the cut are percentages. Print or save as PDF when you are done.

What the model cannot do

It cannot invent wins. Cutting poor-fit work does not raise win rate by magic. It raises cost per win by not paying for the nos you already knew. Wins still have to be won on the work that fits.

It cannot price delivery risk. A thin-margin contract you should not have taken is a second cost, after the pursuit. Put that on the risk axis, not in this calculator.

Run last year through it, honestly. If the hours returned would have covered a principal’s quarter, you already know what the gate is for. The next inbound is the test.

Keep reading

Elsewhere in this guide.

Questions

Worth answering before you close the tab.

What does a 20 percent cut in poor-fit pursuits return?

At the published defaults, 1.6 pursuits avoided, 64 hours, about $13,600. Stopping all poor-fit work is a larger number. Neither is a client result.

Where does the 40 hours come from?

The same floor as the cost-of-pursuit calculator. It is the working behind 40+ hours saved on every tender you do not chase. Replace it with your diary.

Is this selrob’s ROI?

No. It is a model of a gate, with or without software. Software makes the gate cheap enough to run. The hours come from the no-bids, not from the licence.

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