You may be new to tendering, or you may be reviewing your bid strategy to increase your win rate. Either way, it’s important to have all your reusable content ready to go. This is the first big step in making sustainable growth in your organisation by responding to tenders.
The Bid Writer’s Tender Ready Service helps you to start building your bid library with content that you need to have available and up-to-date in an easily accessible place.
Many clients just don’t have the right information prepared, or they have the information but can’t easily put their hands on it when it’s needed.
Responding to tenders can be extremely time consuming and you can cut down that time by being able to put your hands on important information quickly. Being prepared also ensures that you can ‘put your best foot forward’ every time when winning new business.
Some of the information can be specific to your industry, and The Bid Writer can offer advice on that, but there are also many specific pieces of information that are relevant to all organisations.
To get my free download click on this link: Getting Tender Ready
The purpose of The Bid Writer’s Tender Ready Service is to help you to build the start of your bid library with all the common content that is asked for by tenderers. This is information that can be extremely time consuming to build as you write bids – and some of it you need to think about.
Some information is simple data, but we make sure all this data is stored in a way that you can put your hands on it quickly and easily.
Other content is more complex and requires building and reviewing. Sometimes clients have policies and procedures, but they just need brushing up. Other times there are some big gaps, and The Bid Writer will help you to plug these gaps with templates we can develop into documents that are unique to your business.
We will also review what we call ‘evidence’. This is case studies, testimonials and reviews. This is the social proof you need to ensure the claims you make in your bids are believed. It’s a great way to collect more marks when your bid is being marked.
The service begins with a review of what you have and what you don’t currently have so we can create a detailed plan of action and set a timeline to get everything in place. We work together each step of the way and the content you end up with in your bid library will be bespoke to your organisation. We end with another review to ensure we have ticked all the boxes and created all the documents we identified as being required.
So, what will we be covering?
Information about your organisation as an entity. All those details about our organisation that we can’t always put our finger on. Do you know your company or charity number? Can you remember your VAT number? All these details can be annoying to keep finding for each tender you want to bid for. I’ll show you how to corral all this information in one place for ease of access.
Certifications your organisation has gained. Having industry relevant certifications and accreditations can make a huge different to winning or losing a tender. It demonstrates you are serious about your products and services. Obviously you want to make sure you keep the evidence to hand, but we also discuss what certifications are relevant to your sector and a sensible timeline on getting them in place.
Accounts, cash flow forecasts, turnover figures. There is certain financial information that all tenders ask for. It makes sense to have this to hand and that it is up-to-date. You don’t need to be making urgent requests to your accountants or bookkeepers and worrying about whether it will arrive in time. Get a system for ensuring you always have the up-to-date files available.
Policy documents relevant to your sector. There is a wide range of policies that may be required to complete a tender. We start by ensuring the most common ones are in place and then build a library of them over time. I have access to resources that can ensure your policies always reflect the latest legislation and regulations.
Documented systems on how you go about your activities. In addition to policies, it’s important to have common processes in place that determine how your organisation will run. These should be documented and filed in your bid library ready to use when asked. These often go on to become part of your staff handbook and/or your client support documentation.
These are so important they have their own category. Tenders always ask about your quality processes and it’s not enough to just have a policy in place. Quality also covers risk assessments, method statements, accident statistics and so on. It can also cross over with environmental information for example with COSSH documentation. This can end up being the actual documents and also templates for future use.
Staff handbooks, training, testimonials collected. There are many other documents that can be valuable when writing a tender that you don’t want to create or try to find at the last minute. Examples might be an organisation chart, case studies for various products and services, testimonials and client references. These are valuable additions to your bid library.
Your staff’s ability to provide the product, service or project. Tender documents commonly ask about your people. It can include how they are trained, what individual experience and accreditations they may have, what training they have received and how you manage all this. It’s also important to have standard templated CVs, in both long and short form.