Tender Writers – tips for best practice from our tender writing experts
Writing winning bids can often be difficult and time consuming for any business looking to expand via public sector tendering. With tenders ranging from often-smaller PQQs to larger ITTs and RFPs, tenders can sometimes be in excess of 10,000 words. Writing tenders that are compelling, specific and technical enough to showcase your business in the best possible light can often be difficult when trying to balance other key aspects of your organisation. With that in mind, here are some tips to set you on the right track towards becoming successful tender writers:
Digest The Specification:
Buyers are looking for exceptionally written responses which showcase a tender writer’s ability to accurately reflect their specified requirements. Having the necessary experience in place to deliver a contract is not enough if you haven’t fully read the specification and broken down its requirements. Top tips for shredding the specification are:
- Break down what technical requirements the buyer is looking for. Outlining that you can fulfil what they are looking for will showcase that you’ve spent the time and effort to read over the specification.
- Look at what questions are being asked. By doing this, you can break down what each question is requiring with reference to the specification. Successful tender writers have the ability to respond to question in a specific manner and avoid including unnecessary information.
- Look to mirror key aims from the specification. Breaking down what the key aims are of a project will allow you to mirror this in your responses, showing a willingness to buyers that you want to fulfil their aims.
Assess The Work Involved:
Although this sounds simple, this is vital to ensuring success as tender writers and cannot be overlooked. Ensuring you breakdown precisely what is needed will ensure that the opportunity is right for you or your business and will ensure you can deliver to the requirements specified. The way in which you can break down opportunities are as follows:
- Log into the relevant portal and register interest in the opportunity you wish to go for.
- Download all of the documents. This is key to ensuring that you do not miss anything. Sometimes, key information can be located in small print in documents you wouldn’t expect and missing this can lead to you being excluded from the selection process.
- Go through every document carefully. The information you will be looking for is as follows:
- Contract value, this is vital to ensure you are financially capable of delivering to the buyer’s requirements.
- Key dates: Often tender documents will state dates for thing such as site visits and attending these can be crucial to becoming successful tender writers.
- Tender questions: You need to ensure that you read the questions carefully and know exactly what is required from you. Making note of what the buyer is asking you from the outset will ensure you hit the ground running from the get-go.
- Specific policies that you will need to attach: This is key – buyers will specifically request you attach certain policies or certificates/accreditations and if you either miss this or do not have the necessary documents you will be excluded from the tender process, regardless of how well you respond to questions.
- Turnover requirements: No matter how detailed and specific your responses are if you simply do not meet the turnover requirements for the contract you will not proceed further. Making a note of this at the outset will save your business time, effort and ultimately money moving forward.
Creating In-Depth Tender Plans
Success as a tender writer is heavily dependent on how detailed and in-depth you plan your time and responses. If you develop your tender responses in-house, finding the necessary time to develop responses can often be tricky when working in a busy environment. Key tips to becoming successful tender writers and planning carefully are:
- Plan ahead: Leaving things to the last minute will mean your responses have not had the time or effort put into them that the buyer will ultimately be looking for.
- Plan your responses: Having your responses set in place from the outset will mean you are fully prepared to develop detailed and intricate responses that stand out from the crowd.
- Factor in time for editing: Your responses are not going to be perfect straight away. Some tenders can be in excess of 10,000 words and leaving no time for reviewing/editing your work is a sure-fire way to make mistakes. Leave enough time in your plan to have a colleague proofread your work, allowing you enough time to make sufficient edits to your responses.
- Take account of all key dates: This is essential and will come down to how carefully you break down the opportunity. Successful tender writers always take account of clarification deadlines and will ensure they have extracted as much information from the buyer as possible.
- Assess your workloads: Do you have a heavy workload the week that this tender is due in? If so, it is advisable to make sure you plan ahead and have your responses completed ready for submission prior to this time period. Failing that, outsourcing your tender writing could be a solution. Read our blog outlining the benefits this will have for you and your business.
Going Above And Beyond
Becoming a successful tender writer is not simply about demonstrating how the buyer’s requirements will be fulfilled, (although this is a good start). Going above and beyond what the buyer is requesting will ensure you stand out from the crowd. Of course, this has to be within reason, it is no good offering the buyer the world when you are incapable of delivering this. Key tips for creating added value that will remain within your company’s reach are:
- Being environmentally friendly: Businesses like to see that a company takes measures to ensure they are operating in an environmentally friendly manner. Let’s say you have recycling schemes at your business, or use environmentally friendly company cars, or only source products from sustainable suppliers – all of this will add to your response and show to the buyer that you are the right type of company to work with.
- Helping local economies: Businesses are always looking for suppliers who are willing to show eagerness to help the local economies that they work with. This doesn’t have to be much, simple acts such as sourcing from local suppliers or hiring local employees is enough to show you are willing to provide value to local economies. If you are capable of doing so, showing that you are willing to take on local apprentices is always a good way of showcasing added value.
Creating Detailed And Specific Responses
Successful tender writers will always ensure that their responses are detailed, specific and to the point. Developing vague and ‘fluffy’ content is a sure-fire way to be off-putting to buyers. Top tips for remaining specific are as follows:
- Sometimes less is more: Tender questions can often have no word limit; however, suppliers should not take this as a reason to write as much as they possibly can. Of course, you need to cover off all key points and this may take up a lot of words but going over the top and writing 1,000 words of additional content to make your response look more detailed is not a good tactic. Keep it concise and increase its readability factor.
- Read over the specification again and again: If a question is asking you something technical and specific, read over the corresponding information in the specification and make sure you are mirroring this. Addressing irrelevant information will show to the buyer that you haven’t spent the time needed to look over the tender documents.
- Detail your experience: If a question is asking you about specific experience, make sure you are going into sufficient detail about how that experience is similar to what the buyer is looking for and what benefits it will bring to the contract.
- Have someone proofread your content. Two pairs of eyes are always better than one when it comes to being specific. A colleague may know more about a certain aspect of the industry or processes than you and may be able to go into greater detail than what you can.
Further Information
If you would like further information on how to become successful tender writers, then get in contact with our Bid Writing Consultants today. Alternatively, take a look at our free virtual learning environment, Tender VLE, the first of its kind to provide hints and tips for tender success.
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