Masterclass series roundup: How to take your bid from opportunity to submission
Ahead of our ‘Better Bidding’ webinar on 22nd June, we’ve been sharing a series of in-depth Masterclass articles on our LinkedIn page, teaching you the essential – and often overlooked – steps to turning out an exemplary bid response.
This piece rounds them all up into one, easy-to-read article, with links to the originals should you want more detail on any particular topic.
Step 1: Read the tender documents
If we had a pound for every time somebody told us they’d kicked off their bid process without taking the time to read the documents thoroughly…
Our business development director, Sam Nimmo, points out: “this is shortsighted, and you risk leaving money on the table”.
Your ITT documents are equivalent to having an in-person sales conversation. Your Buyer is telling you in extraordinary depth and detail what they need, how they would like it to work, and what they’d like you to offer. This presents bidders with an invaluable opportunity to present a solution which is precisely tailored to the client’s requirements, and, in fact, even exceed their specifications.
However, without reading the ITT documents first, you’ll never know what they want, and you’ll be left making generic statements and proposing the solution you want to offer, not the one you’ve been asked for. (Incidentally, our webinar on 22nd June with our lead trainer, Dr Joel Found, will be on precisely this topic. You can find out more and sign up here ).
Tender documents also offer subtle insight into Buyer needs that they might not mention so explicitly. For instance, noticing their choice of language and emphasis on particular themes are certain to give an attentive reader an advantage over their less alert peers, since they will be able to match their tone and emphasis to the Buyer’s, demonstrating a superior understanding of project and end user needs.
To find out more about how to approach reading the tender documents, view the full article here .
Step 2: Structure your response properly
There are few things more daunting than staring at a blank piece of paper, knowing you have to turn it into a submission that could potentially win your organisation millions of pounds.
But, as our writer Minette Brink points out , the structure of your response is already hidden in the question wording.
The Buyer’s question should be broken down into subheadings that signpost the body of your response. Even within the introduction, you can identify these subsections (i.e., the various elements of their requirements) and acknowledge how you are going to address them.
Although the Buyer may not ask the question in a way you consider most efficient or logical, we almost always advise our clients to follow their lead since it will make marking much easier for the evaluator. Your goal with a bid is to make it as easy as possible for the reader to feel assured that you have addressed all requirements sufficiently, so never risk them missing a valuable point because you’ve ‘hidden’ it somewhere they may not think to look!
The only scenario in which we may take a different approach is likely to be when there’s an extremely tight word count, in which case repeating various requirements is likely to be wasteful, and where it also won’t risk getting lost like it may in a more sprawling response.
For the ultimate guide to structuring your response, click here.
Step 3: Integrate the scope requirements
Integrating the scope within the bid isn’t as complicated as it might sound. Kittle bid writer Minette recommends thinking of it like a natural conversation: you repeat phrases back to your conversation partner to demonstrate that you’re engaged and paying attention.
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The same is true for scope requirements. You can do this not just by mirroring their language, but also building off their ideas – taking on board what they say, but then making suggestions which may improve the solution.
This might be straightforward enough as a concept, but how do you ensure you methodically put this into practice? Our article on ‘How to integrate the procurement requirements into a bid ’ suggests that you keep the specification documents open during the following stages:
See the full article here .
Step 4: Conduct a proper review
Of course, a bid isn’t finished until it’s been reviewed thoroughly. As our full article sets out, this isn’t a passive, tick-box exercise. Instead, you need to see it as a valuable opportunity to put the final touches to your bid.
To help you stay focused, here are the four key review stages we recommend:
1.?Overall bid review. Check how well your responses speak to the question and the evaluation criteria. Ensure you’re using enough evidence, too.
2.?Compliance review. As detailed above, this is your opportunity to ensure you’re meeting all the requirements of the scope.
3. Technical review. Ask your subject matter experts to review the solution to ensure it is accurate, logical, realistic and robust.
4. Language review. Proofreading is the final polish of your submission. Poor spelling or grammar reflects badly on your organisation and its credibility, as well as its attention to detail. Don’t let small mistakes have big consequences.
Remember, a bid review is only as useful as the effort you put into resolving any issues you find! Don’t let comments go unactioned; make sure that you have a clearly designated person responsible for finalising each aspect of the review.
To read about bid reviews in detail, you can see the full article here .
If you’d like to improve your bidding and win more work, why not join us for our webinar on Thursday 22nd June? You’ll learn how to get clear on what the Buyer is asking, so that you can laser target your response.
Alternatively, drop us a line at: [email protected] to discuss your needs further.