Tendering Top Tips

Motivating subject matter experts to write responses can be tricky but it is essential to get their contribution.

You can make it easier for them by breaking the question into its constituent parts and simply capturing what is required.  Another option is to ask them to contribute verbally to an outline planning session.

Finally, you could link the value of their section to the contract value as a way of demonstrating the importance of the task.

When trying to achieve a tight word count limit, it is false economy to cut narrative which explains the benefits of your solution or shows previous experience.

There is always a danger that you will end up with a generic, factual response which can only ever be marked as ‘average’.

You must balance the requirement for technical detail with the need to appeal to different reader types, all of whom can award you marks.

My colleague gave to me:

Twelve apostrophes that possess

Eleven proper hyphens

Ten unsplit infinitives

Nine Oxford commas

Eight proofread pages

Seven corrected typos

Six unneeded words deleted

Five style books!

Four participles that don’t dangle

Three grammar rules

Two subject/verb agreements

And the proper use of “I” versus “me.”

(credit Stern + Associates)

We’ll begin with a box; the plural is boxes,

But the plural of ox is oxen, not oxes,

One fowl is a goose, and two are called geese,

Yet the plural of moose is never called meese.

You many find a lone mouse or a house full of mice,

But the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If I speak of a foot and you show me two feet,

And I give you a book, would a pair be a beek?

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,

But though we say mother, we never say methern.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him;

But imagine the feminine…she, shis and shim!

(credit – anonymous)

Dearest creature in creation, study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse, sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy, make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I!  Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard and heard, dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain, (mind the latter, how it’s written).

Now I surely will not plague you, with such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak: say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low, script, receipt, poem and toe.

(credit Grammarly, Facebook)

It can be frustrating to be asked slightly different versions of similar questions by different clients in different tenders.

While the temptation is to use a standard response which covers all aspects of a topic, you should approach each question as if it is the first time it has been written.

Ask yourself what has been  requested, why it has been requested and what  information you have to give before selecting the text you have which might be suitable.

Writing bids and tenders is a skill which does not come naturally to most people, particularly those who come from technical disciplines.

An in-house training course is a cost-effective way of improving the quality of bids and increasing win rates, without engaging additional resources.

Once trained, staff are confident and skilled at producing highly relevant responses in a time-efficient way.  This also means more people are willing to contribute to the documents.

At interview, the client is looking for evidence of a cohesive team which will work together and not a group of individuals who are only interested in their own area of expertise.

When preparing for a tender interview, make sure everyone in the presentation team is familiar with all aspects of the tender document.

This approach will help the team to direct questions confidently among themselves.  It also avoids one person’s answer conflicting with another person’s.

ISO certification such as 9001 (quality management), 14001 (environmental management) and 27001 (information security management) used to be seen as an added value item when tendering and gained additional marks.

As more companies gain these certificates, many clients now expect them and deduct marks from those which do not have them.

To maximise the impact of your ISO certification, describe the benefits that implementation of the various standards has brought to your clients.

Where a client asks for certain capabilities or qualifications, it is foolish to submit a response which lacks these.

If necessary, ask the client to confirm that they are essential and also make suggestions about alternative resources before submitting the document.

If this is not acceptable, consider outsourcing one or two elements of the work or engaging a consultant advisor as part of the project team to ensure you comply.

It is normal to include staff photographs on CVs which are submitted with bid, proposal and tender documents.

A good head and shoulders shot is all that is required but you should ensure these are up-to-date and look professional.

If you present an assortment of selfies and outdated images, the client will probably form an undesirable opinion about your delivery team.

Many people think they have been unfairly evaluated because they were not awarded high marks, despite being able to do the job.

Being able to do a job is not enough to score well.  You must write down everything that is needed to convey the right information.

Analyse your responses critically and compare them to others before making a judgement.