As a team of expert tender writers and consultants, we know writing winning tenders is a skill that takes time, hard work and detailed analysis of every element of a proposal, from the initial’ bid or no bid’ decision, through to the actual submission of the final high scoring, bespoke response documents.
Losing a tender is not on our agenda and we work closely with our clients to avoid common mistakes.
When we talk to companies that are not successful at tendering, it’s normally down to the following reasons:
PRICE
Losing tenders on price is very common, you may be scoring highly on quality but because you are not pricing the client’s actual requirements in their scope of work your price is not competitive.
You are not analysing carefully how important the PRICE is to each individual client. The lowest price bid received in a tender project is allocated the full weighting available. Maybe the winning bidder is tactically using PRICE as their ‘Win theme’!
SOCIAL VALUE
You are scoring low in this area because you are not tailoring a specific proposal of commitments for THIS client over the contract period. It’s no good telling a client what you have done in the last 2 years, they want to know what you WILL do for them, if you are awarded the contract.
You need to look at what the client is doing in the area of CSR and try to make your commitments to social value link in to their approach.
EXCEED THEIR REQUIREMENTS
As a MINIMUM you need to meet the client’s specification/scope of work. To score highly however, you need to be looking at ways to EXCEED IT, and sell the benefits to the client of delivering more, quicker, more efficiently etc.
COPY AND PASTING
Stale, previously used text is being copied and pasted from previous tender submissions, it’s not tailored and specific to this client. This will never work as it won’t score high enough marks.
Your writing needs to reflect what this client wants in all aspects, it needs to be compelling, mitigate risk and be persuasive.
If you are not winning enough tenders and would like to receive some bespoke consultation, training or use our tender writing services, contact us!
01384 279568
georgina.bock@klickbusinesssolutions.co.uk