Key Bid Writing Skills to Win Tenders

With between £300 and £400 billion spent on public procurement every year, bid writing skills are in high demand for companies across all industries and sectors – including construction, facilities management and health and social care.

Bid writing also demands a specific, multi-faceted skill set. We take a look at just some of the skills required for a high-quality, persuasive and competitive tender submission.

General bid writing skills – best practice

The bid evaluation process means that tenders will be marked on a split between quality and price. In addition to the pricing schedule, there will be a number of quality questions or method statements requiring bidders to describe their approaches to delivering works or services.

Content must be highly relevant and specific to the opportunity. Whilst a bid library may be useful for frequent bidders, repurposing and reusing past responses is unlikely to result in long-term success.

Exceptional writing ability

Arguably the most important bid writing skill is the writing itself – the ability to produce concise, complete writing which aligns with the question and evaluation criteria.

If you are unfamiliar with the evaluation process, content and style which comes in bid writing, it is unlikely you will score high marks. As a minimum, all quality responses should:

• Be compliant with the specification and other documents included in the tender pack
• Address all parts of the question to make sure everything has been responded to accordingly, avoiding the loss of easy marks
• Be persuasive and include hard evidence where appropriate, with statistics and specific numbers attached to claims
• Use images, tables, bullet points and other basic formatting to enhance the visual impact of the submission – making a positive impact on the evaluator.

A bid writer will need to include technical and persuasive, evidence-based content as a balance. A competitive response will reference the contract specification, buyer’s priorities and unique selling points which will enable your tender to stand out from other bidders and make it easy for the evaluator to award marks on your behalf.

Strong project management skills

An experienced bid writer will likely be managing multiple submissions at the same time at various stages of completion. Like other time-bound roles, it is important to ensure each bid is progressing at pace and there is no threat of a late submission, as this will not be accepted by the authority.

As such, it is beneficial to use a project tracker – for example, our bid management matrix – to ensure:

• The date of submission and tender clarification deadline date are recorded, minimising risk of missing the submission window
• All narrative responses have been written, reviewed and proofread prior to submission
• Appendices and supporting documents – for instance, a Gantt chart mobilisation plan – have also been completed
• Other submission documents, including the Standard Selection Questionnaire and ‘sign and return’ documents (such as the form of tender) have been completed.

As such, effective project management is crucial to your arsenal of bid writing skills.

Keen attention to detail

The question set and requirements will change for each tender submission – for example, some challenges will include:

• Multiple bullet points or themes and topics to cover within a response, ensuring these are comprehensively addressed
• The contracting authority’s policies and procedures, such as a customer care procedure, which may be included as part of the tender pack
• Minor differences in language in question sets – for instance, the difference between the mobilisation and implementation period and tasks required by suppliers.

Lastly, the requirements of the submission may vary based on the authority’s preferences. For instance, there may be a requirement to title documents in a certain manner or the response must be anonymised entirely – with failure to do so resulting in loss of marks or disqualification.

All the above underscores the importance of attention to detail, ensuring responses are compliant and align with the evaluation criteria and the evaluator’s expectations.

Ability to work to tight deadlines

Typically, a tender notice will be issued four to six weeks prior to the submission deadline. With multiple projects to balance at any given moment, a skilled bid writer must be able to work quickly, accurately and calmly to avoid projects stacking up and becoming untenable – or failing to submit.

Consequently, the ability to stay calm under pressure and work to internal and external deadlines is an invaluable part of your bid writing skills. The authority will rarely grant an extension to the submission date and you should also leave enough time to review your tender submission prior to submitting the final draft.

Our bid and tender writing services

Each of our bid and tender writers complete dozens of tender submissions every year, gaining valuable experience in writing concisely and persuasively whilst managing multiple projects with strict deadlines.

If you would like to learn more about the bid and tender services we can provide – including our bid writing training, which teaches crucial bid writing skills to your internal subject matter experts – our sales and marketing team are available for a chat and no-obligation quotation at info@executivecompass.co.uk or via phone 0800 612 5563.