Advice for DIY Bid Writing

DIY bid writing and the submission of tenders can be a cost effective way to save money and lets face it who knows your organisation better than yourselves! But if you are going to write a bid, submit a PQQ/ITT/RFQ or EOI then you need to be on top of a few things;

1) Establish that the bid is right for your organisation

It may sound silly but there are many times when we have won bids for clients who then regret ever submitting a bid. One client had not costed the bid properly and didn't understand the working capital commitments. (Sub point : Develop a fully costed business model for the project). Another wrote lots of "Winning statements" but didn't realise they would be held to account for them by the commissioners. (Sub point: Be factually accurate and only promise what you can deliver).

2) Give yourself time

Bid writing takes a lot longer than you think it does, and there is a lot more involved to writing a winning submission than just throwing the requisite number of words at the page. Plan the write, writing needs focus so identify quality time, and protect writing time, most busy business professionals allow fire-fighting of unplanned emergent issues to take away the time. Sub point: If you are easily distracted work away from the business, turn off the phone and close outlook otherwise your mind will look for things to do to avoid writing (Sub point: Remember school essays - if you were Mr or Ms last minute.com you might want to quite before you start chances are your practices have not changed).

3) Plan the submission

Think about what you need to do, read the specification fully! Let me say that again. Read the instructions to tenderers. Be very clear on a) How the bid is submitted - email/web-portal. b) What format word doc, pdf, zip file, online response template and pay attention to word limits, font guides & sizes). Read that 100+ page ITT specification document.

4) Check what attachments are required

Do this early, it may be they want a Gantt chart mobilisation plan, they could want organograms, or copies of accounts, equally it could be a comprehensive process or a reference you need to get from a customer or a written commitment from a partner/ subcontractor. In any event get on these things early, it is surprising how many people don't consider these till the day of submission and then miss the deadline or upload without vital evidence.

5) Read the specification

Read the specification sounds obvious, so I will say it again, read the specification I know this is 100+ pages of Blah Blah Blah, but it directs your responses, it tells you what you should be writing about and more importantly what you shouldn't. Bids needs to be targeted at the specification the closer the fit the better the chance of a win. (Sub point: Copy and paste is a bid writers enemy - you need to answer the question asked in the ITT not the you wanted to be asked for your perfect answer).

6) Competitor analysis

Who will be bidding against you, what will they be saying, how will that be received, understand your own USP's and those of your competitors. While you need to play to your strengths, you additionally need to minimise competitor advantages, use wording that demonstrates you cover off those aspects too.

7) Make every word count

Writing should be efficient get to the point, don't waffle on and don't repeat points unless they are a critical USP and make sure you include every scoring element in every question, questions may be marked by different people so if you rely on content from one question as part of your answer to a second question then take care. (Sub point: Think about how a commissioner might score the bid). Use images to convey complex models (if allowed).

8) Word counts for questions

If the bid calls for 3000 words then you can take it as read that the response to the question they ask requires 3000 words of detail. Sometimes however, you might need to get down to tight word count, so you may need to spend time editing (Sub point: Editing can be more painful than writing and take longer).

9) Articulate clearly and writer for the reader

Don't forget you are an expert in your field and a big danger of DIY writing is that you can miss saying something important because its your normal, worse you can assume a level of knowledge in the reader, or finally we can use jargon or acronyms assuming the reader gets it. Sub point: You should also have the final draft sense checked and proofed by someone who has not been involved. As you write you get to close to it and can no longer see sentence fragments, nonsense sentences, changes of tense, spelling mistakes (my own favourite blind spot is the word 'Form' instead of 'From'.

10) How much time should you allow?

Always a difficult question but as a rule of thumb a good bid writer will write a 1000 words a day, obviously larger tenders this may increase a little and small submissions will possibly decrease somewhat. Of course I'm not just talking about the writing here, as a writer you will be reading documents, conducting research, speaking to stakeholders, gathering attachments, drafting responses, editing responses and proof reading etc. then add time for any missing attachments that need to be created.