Why You Should Always Use Win Themes
The win theme is the single most important element of your bid, proposal or tender.
Month: January 2011
Is Your Tender Schizophrenic?
Consider the customer’s reaction if your main tender document is friendly, collaborative and helpful but your cover letter is formal, contractual and inflexible.
Action Titles – Make Your Document Graphics Stand Out
Graphics are a great way to add interest to a proposal document. There are a huge range of options available including graphs, tables, maps, photographs and charts.
Public Sector Procurement
Many companies complain that the public sector procurement process is unduly complex and discriminates against smaller organisations. While parts of it are certainly in need of review, the brutal fact is that a great many companies submit shockingly poor tender responses.
Size is Not Important
The way you plan, structure and write a bid should not vary according to the value of it. It doesn’t matter if your proposal is for £5k or £500m.
Clear and Concise Writing
Many people try too hard when writing proposal documents. Plain English, used in short and simple sentences, is much better than cumbersome language.
Boilerplate Text
Pre-written content is often called “boilerplate” or “template” text. Working from boilerplate is supposed to save you time because editing is assumed to be easier than writing.
Check Your Document Properties
Before you submit any electronic documents, thoroughly check the embedded data fields. Your potential customer will not be impressed to see you have cribbed from a tender which was previously submitted to one of their competitors.
Corporate and Social Responsibility
Community benefit, environment, sustainability and corporate and social responsibility clauses are extremely important. They can contribute up to 10% of the total score (more for public sector contracts).
3 Questions You Should Ask Before You Tender
As soon as an opportunity arises, either through your business development work or as an invitation to tender, you should question it in terms of:
