Bid & Technical

What does a bid response do? It builds a business. Well it does if it’s cogent, engaging and contains evidence of the bidder’s superior resources.

Bids are built piece by piece – updating and confirming bona fides around insurance, accreditation and accounting; obtaining operational information made bespoke to the tender; offering resources, value and proof of experience.  I use a constructive view that moulds around the tenderer’s obvious queries (“Do you have capacity?”) and the less obvious (“Can you give us continuity? Will innovation make a real difference here?”).

Careful, focused attention on the tenderer’s priorities provides a solid bid theme to build upon, using evidence and bespoke plans with assurance of quality as a constant refrain. My overall win ratio is three out of four for invitations to tender, and four out of four for pre-qualification questionnaires.

My experience of bid writing has been greatly enhanced by having practical, industry-wise teachers. Clive Goulden (winningbidmasterclass.co.uk) gave a two-day bid writing course that covered everything from capitalisation to project reviews. This thorough grounding prepared me for the APM Project Management Qualification Foundation course I took (and passed) afterwards, thanks to professional coaching with the kind owner of etenders.ie.

Both research and experience continually inform my writing. I am always happy to discuss finding additional information on a particular topic, industry, public entity or company. The results would be put in a report for your bid library.  Please see my CV for the particular industries and sectors I write best.

Another service offered is bid review, on hourly terms. I can offer sensible, specific comments on why a bid response did not win. The response is reviewed on two levels: is the presentation (writing and formatting) appropriate and clear, and does the response answer the questions specifically, using additional evidence, examples and/or value? For the most in-depth review, access to the full Invitation to Tender is useful, at a minimum the evaluation scale (usually 1 – 5) used will give the best result.