Interesting discussion on LinkedIn between bid writers. They always try to work out if a tender is “wired”. In other words – has one bidder managed to get the tender written in such a way as to favour them! From a sales manager’s point of view the perspective is different. A good sales person always

The world of formal tendering is full of buzz words and acronyms. Formal opportunities come with all sorts of labels. These can be broken down into those where you are invited to pitch for contracts, and those where, at this stage, they just want information from you. The TLAs used include: ITT – Invitation to

The good thing about a formal tender response (ITT, PQQ etc) is that you know absolutely when the job has to be done by. So when putting the project plan together it is very straightforward to start at the end and work back from there. However, the temptation when starting a complex task of this

Do you ever read the questions in a tender document and find that a question appears to have been asked twice? Often these questions appear in different sections of the document. Your reaction may be, “These people are incompetent,” and you simply deal with it by offering the same answer twice. BEWARE – this is

Formal requests to tender are invariably full of complex questions. So much so that the natural inclination often is to find an answer as quickly as possible to each question and move on to the next one. Finding an answer can involve scouring the various pieces of material you have and finding something on the

Of course, you should have read the question before writing the answer. However only reading it before you answer the question is very dangerous. It is surprisingly easy to find yourself answering what you thought the question was, only to find, on re-reading it, carefully, that it actually asked something else. The temptation at this

When you win a tender the value is clear to see. But when you lose one it may all seem like wasted effort. Clearly you haven’t won any business, and if you leave it at that there will be no further benefit to be gleaned. However, if you regard all tenders that you submit as

Tenders normally contain a set of questions. Some of them may sometimes seem a little strange, but logic would dictate that just writing an answer should be enough. However, that may lead to composing an answer that fails to score well. Further analysis of the question could unearth deeper meaning. Key points to consider: Why

I’ve often been told that you can’t develop a relationship with your prospective client during the formal tendering process. There is a fair amount of truth in this – they certainly hold you at arm’s length inasmuch as all questions and answers are circulated for all to see, and everything is kept strictly above board.