Bid and tender management courses for your staff

Is your team in need of bid and tender management courses? We can help you understand where your team may be going wrong. We appreciate the tendering business is difficult and it’s easy to make mistakes. We can help you identify signs to look for to help your team with tendering.

Where is your team going wrong?

1. Not answering the question

The first sign your team is in need of bid and tender management courses is not answering the question properly. We see this happening too many times. Either they haven’t understood the question fully or their answer is too short. If the question asks for 500-words and you only submit 100, you haven’t answered the question in enough detail.

If the question is long, you may find it more helpful to break it down. For example, if the question has five parts to it, break it down into five smaller questions. This will help you understand what is being asked and you’ll have a better chance of constructing a good answer.

2. Using too much technical language

You may think the best way to win a bid is by showing off your vocabulary and writing complex sentences. It isn’t! Although you understand the acronyms, technical language and jargon you’re using, don’t assume the reader also knows what they mean.

Don’t overcomplicate your answer when you don’t need to. You should keep your vocabulary and sentences as short and simple as possible. Not only will the reader understand what you’re talking about, but the copy will flow better. Remember to keep your copy concise and clear. If the examiner has to read your answers twice to mark them, it is not clear enough. The examiner should only be reading and marking it once.

3. Not relating your proposal to the specification

Your team may need bid and tender management courses if they aren’t meeting the specification requirements. Good bid responses will not only answer the question in full but demonstrate how they meet the specification. Your response should meet the core requirements stated in the contract. If you’re not meeting requirements, you won’t win the bid.

4. Lack of evidence

When answering a question, the buyer wants to see the evidence to back up what you’re saying. They have no reason to believe what you’re saying if you don’t provide examples. Buyers want to see how you’re capable of carrying out the task. They want to see evidence of how you’ve dealt with a similar situation in the past. We recommend providing at least three case studies, statistics, and testimonials to back up your point.

5. Too much waffling

 A common mistake in the bidding process is waffling. Although it may seem hard trying to reach the word count, don’t waffle just to reach it. Writing information that isn’t relevant is unnecessary. It takes up vital words you could make better use of. It also makes your answer too long and boring to read. Don’t beat around the bush to answer a question to up the word count. The evaluator has enough bids to assess. They don’t want to spend 5 minutes reading an answer that could have taken half that time.

6. Not leaving enough time for proofreading

If your team aren’t proofreading their bid before submitting it, they definitely need bid and tender management courses. Proofreading is one of the major steps in the bidding process. You should never submit your bid without checking over it at least twice. It’s so easy to miss mistakes when typing a long document. Always put aside time to check over your work for any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. Submitting a bid full of errors looks unprofessional. It makes it harder for the examiner to understand and you’ll lose marks. Ask someone who hasn’t worked on the bid to read it. Sometimes a second pair of eyes may pick up things you missed out on.

7. Time management struggles

Time management is essential when it comes to writing bids. As it’s a lengthy process, delays may unexpectedly crop up. You need to ensure you allow yourself plenty of time to complete the bid. Be aware of when your deadline is and ask yourself if it is possible to finish the bid in time. The last thing you want to be doing is rushing your bid to finish it before it is due.

Make a plan of what information is needed and how much time you will spend on each question. Planning in advance will help the writing process run more smoothly.

The submission process itself can take up a lot of time. So don’t wait until the last minute to submit it as you may miss the deadline. Some portals can be temperamental and slow. You don’t want to miss the deadline because of this. Submit it early to avoid any technical issues.

8. Dull response

Not making your bid sound interesting could be another downfall of your team. You could use visuals such as diagrams, charts and images to make your response more appealing. This is also a good way to break up large chunks of text. Using subheadings and bullet points can make a big difference.

9. Bidding for contracts you can’t win

 An easy mistake to make is not bidding for the right contracts. If you don’t meet the requirements or you’re unable to deliver what the contract is asking for, DON’T BID! Not only are you wasting your time as you won’t win the bid but you are wasting the evaluator’s time too. Double check if the bid is right for you, you meet the requirements and you’re able to deliver the contracts.

What bid and tender management courses are available?

Does your team portray any of the weaknesses mentioned above? If so, it’s time to sign them up for a bid and tender management course.

Consultancy support

If you are unable to write the bid yourself, you may think about outsourcing it to someone who can. Our sister company, Hudson Succeed, have a team of Bid Writers with over 60 years of experience. They have an 87% success rate and can alleviate all stress by writing the full bid for you.

Workshops

Another bid and tender management course that can help your staff is workshops. Workshops can help your staff improve their tendering skills or get started with tender writing. These are useful sessions for those who need more support when it comes to tendering.

Conferences

Conferences are often held to talk about a variety of topics around tendering such as:

• What is tendering?
• How to tender successfully.
• Industries to tender in.
• Submitting your bid.

These conferences are helpful to businesses that are wanting to see more success with tendering.

How can a bid and tender management course help my business?

The most important thing is that it can help you win the bid. That’s the main goal, right?

Signing your team up to a course will further develop their understanding and skills on tendering. Our Tender VLE course can help you and your team. Tender VLE is the UK’s first virtual learning environment dedicated to bid writing courses. Tender VLE offers the resources to help whether you are new to tendering or an expert, looking to improve. We have training courses suitable to various learners.

To conclude we hope we’ve cleared some ground to help your team improve their tender skills and how courses can help them.