Hiring a new bid writer to join your team can present both you and them with a very steep learning curve. For most organisations, this learning curve can mean tendering for upwards of 10 opportunities whilst the new member of the team develops the requisite skills and techniques to create winning submissions. This might result in a period of lower success rates in the interim, a significant investment of extra time from your senior team to bring responses to the required standard, or both.

Based on the approach used to successfully onboard members of our own writing team, our bid writer induction and skills training course has been designed to fast-track your newly recruited bid writers through the learning curve, allowing them to hit the ground running and contribute to your success from day one.

Course agenda

Ahead of the course, we will speak with you to understand what relevant experience, if any, is held by your incoming bid writer(s) and better understand your tendering strategy and approach. We will then tailor the course accordingly, adapted from the core agenda below, also taking into account your own organisational processes:

• Understanding the role of bid and tender writing, and its critical importance to the ongoing success and growth of the organisation
• Key terminology, legislation and regulations, including key learning from procurement policy notes (PPNs) published by the Cabinet Office
• Tender documentation and their purpose, developing an understanding of how to interpret and use the information provided by the buyer
• Recognising the need to methodically analyse service specifications and reflect the unique requirements of each buyer
• Sourcing and understanding contract notices to help inform which opportunities to pursue, as well as research buyers and competitors
• Effective bid management techniques to guide timely submission of compliant bids and provide a clear overview of progress throughout
• Utilising tender portals, including communicating with buyers and raising informed and strategic clarification questions
• Completing selection questionnaires (SQs; formerly PQQs) and other supporting tender documents compliantly and comprehensively
• Techniques for consistently deconstructing tender questions to give responses structure and effectively manage word or page limits
• Answer planning for complex tender questions to build competitive responses and guide input from internal subject matter experts, optimising use of their time
• Working with complex networks of internal stakeholders more generally to maximise buy-in to the tender process and capture high-quality information
• Writing impactful, content-driven responses and elevating descriptive narrative to be persuasive and evidence-based
• Post-tender activity and embedding a continuous cycle of learning based on buyer feedback from both successful and unsuccessful submissions
• Developing and maintaining information-rich bid libraries, including creating and using model answers to streamline the tender process.

Typically taking place over three days, the course will be adapted to reflect your particular requirements, with the trainer taking time to understand your own internal vocabulary, processes and ways of working. Drawing on Executive Compass’s 15 years’ organisational experience of writing winning tenders with an 85% success rate, the bid writer induction will therefore sit alongside your own organisational induction to give your newly recruited colleague(s) the most comprehensive start possible in their role.

What you will learn

Whilst a career in bid writing means a continual process of learning through practice, participants in the course will learn all the fundamentals of effective, high-quality bid writing, which ordinarily take months of trial and error to work out.

Specifically, participants will be familiarised with the complex landscape of UK public procurement and how bid writing fits within the overall operation of the organisation. A focus for most of the course is how, in practice, to create impactful, persuasive, high-scoring responses to tender questions.

Requirement

The bid writer induction course is suitable for anyone starting a new role in the organisation which involves bid writing, or for established team members becoming involved in bid writing for the first time.

Whilst the standard agenda has been designed for trainees with no background in bid writing, the course in practice will be tailored to your specific requirements. It would therefore also be suitable for those with a background in bid writing looking to refresh their skills or to become familiar with your organisation’s specific processes.

Delivery

The duration of the course would be agreed with you based upon your particular desired outcomes, as well as any prior experience of the participant(s). As standard, we would anticipate a minimum of three days, which may be delivered on three consecutive days or if preferred could be provided across non-consecutive days to better align with wider induction training sessions.

The course would be delivered online via Teams, Zoom or equivalent, either on a one-to-one basis for a single participant or, if numerous bid writers are being onboarded concurrently, in a group setting.

The training method centres on open communication and collaboration, underpinned by detailed real-world examples and scenario-based exercises informed by our trainers’ extensive background as bid writing professionals. Where available, we would integrate your organisation’s own past bids, collateral and content into the course, presenting a joined-up message.

Price

Contact us for a bespoke price, depending on your requirements.