6 tips for tenderers
The first thing to consider when you’re producing a tender document is your audience. The reader/s are likely to be executives who are battling a jam-packed schedule. They are likely to be reading your tender response out of business hours, a weekend or an evening. The goal is to make that experience as easy and pleasant as possible. Your job is to make them believe that they are reading the winning tender from the start.
1. Forget the boilerplate content
Expecting your tender evaluator to read pages of general material about your company is a major turn off. In a tender, you’re invited via a series of very specific questions to respond with tailored answers. A cut and paste of marketing and corporate content is a waste of the reader’s time and is likely to poorly impact your company’s chances of winning.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of your customer’s business and market
When an evaluator can see that a tenderer has taken the time to really understand the drivers behind the customer’s investment, it showcases that the tenderer shares their challenges and has worked on a solution that will meet these. The macro view of the market and its pressures is an important thing to acknowledge. When you mirror back the landscape or ecosystem that a customer is operating in, you are demonstrating that you’ve taken a strategic approach to your solutioning.
3. Don’t regurgitate the RFT document
In reference to point 2, demonstrating understanding is not about rehashing the question or RFT documentation at length. It’s important to reference the customer’s requirements but keep the summary topline and where you’re referring to the requirements, make sure you’re clearly referencing back to the customer’s numbering so that’s easy for them to follow.
4. Answer the question
This seems so obvious. But we see so many tenders that miss the premise of the question. Please don’t expect your reader to dig through and try to find the answer to their question in a haystack. Make it easy, concise and if it’s a long answer, provide a matrix or a framework that makes navigation easy.
5. Poor presentation puts tenderers at the bottom of the pile
That busy executive reviewing your tender documentation has zero patience for sloppy presentation. Make sure your layout, numbering, graphics and information is laid out in a professional and eye-pleasing way that gives the reader confidence in your company’s ability to deliver. At Tendup, we are highly focused on an information architecture approach to tender documents. The precision you put into ordering your information reflects your organisation’s ability to architect the multimillion dollar solution you’re bidding for.
6. Show some innovative flair
Just like at a beauty pageant, your competitors are all dressing up for the occasion. Find the thing that makes your organisation stand out. This can be your solution architecture, your unique delivery approach, your added value, your strategic thinking. Ideally all of the above. Find ways to really knock the competition out of the shortlist.
And remember, you don’t get a second chance at a first impression. At Tendup, we support bid journeys, providing bid and proposal management services and a team of tender experts who are ready to hit the ground running. Talk to us today about how we can elevate your company’s tendering success.
