Adding Value as Part of Your Tender Procedure

‘We want to win the bid, but don’t want to give away the farm!’ The fine art of adding value. When you’re putting together a tender it can often feel as if your arm is being twisted to offer too many extras, add-ons and other ‘freebies’ to sweeten the deal and get your company picked. … Read more..

‘Why do they always choose the cheapest, when we’re the best?’ The importance of a strong win theme.

All too often companies lose tenders to competitors that undercut them on price, even though they offer a superior product or service. If you’ve experience this frustration, then it could be because your bid contained no obvious reason for the client to choose you over your cheaper rival – even though you knew that you … Read more..

Interpreting Questions for a Tender Document

‘I just don’t know what they’re looking for!’ The challenge of reading between the lines. Far too often, the questions in a tender document can be poorly worded or vague. Even more frustrating are those questions that are open-ended or which seem to be asking you to ‘read between the lines’. This means that it … Read more..

Bid Writing: Different Evaluators

Not sure what details to include when writing your bid? Think about your different audiences. Bid writing is an exercise in persuasion. You have to give the people you’re talking to a good reason to hire you. But it’s difficult to know what to write – what level and scope of detail to include – … Read more..

Running out of time again? – how to beat tender deadline-itis

If you find yourself racing to meet a tender deadline, then you’re not alone. Most companies are incredibly busy, resources are often stretched and it can be easy to put things off as ‘real work’ pressures take over. Getting input for a tender, especially when it’s technically complex, can take ages. And, of course, many … Read more..

The CV problem – and how to fix it

Updating your own CV is a hassle at the best of times, but the problem gets a whole lot worse when you have to pull together multiple CVs for a tender submission. All too often, they’re out of date, don’t contain relevant information or just aren’t up to the job. So what should you do? … Read more..

‘Why aren’t all our bids equally good?’ – How to get consistency and better results

One of the most frequent frustrations of the bid process, particularly for larger companies, is that all tenders don’t reach the same quality level and therefore have wildly different success rates. This is often due to an inconsistency in the approaches taken by different sections of an organisation or by different teams within sections. It … Read more..