Many business owners choose to outsource their tender writing services, maybe you don’t have the time, the skill, the desire to resource internally or you simply want to work with specialists who understand the tendering process and how to respond to each question, making the process pain-free.
Whatever the reason, it’s important to remember that whilst your tender writer will be able to craft your tender responses, they don’t know your business like you do. This will need to be a collaborative partnership where you and your team provide the information needed and share your unique and competitive selling points. The longer the relationship with your tender writer continues, the better they will get to know you and your business and therefore you the time needed from you and your team will reduce.
Our winning tender writers share their top tips to make outsourcing your tender writing services a success!
1. Talk to a number of tender writing consultancies
Like any business relationship you want to ensure your businesses are aligned and you feel like you are a good fit. What are their values? How do they work? What experience do they have with your industry? Do they understand where you are taking your business?
2. Ask to meet the tender writer who will be assigned as your primary contact
It’s important that you can build a rapport with your tender writer as you will be working closely with them on each tender. Arrange to talk to your potential tender writer and discuss ways of working and ensure dialogue is open and honest.
3. Decide which members of your team will be involved in the work
If you can, it is a good idea to involve the wider team. It’s key that your tender writer has access to subject matter experts so discuss this with your team and invite them and key stakeholders to the kick-off meeting both when you first decide to work with the company, and for subsequent tenders. You will end up building a core team for your tenders and it’s important to ensure they have sight of the plans, deadlines and are given time to work on gathering the information and documents required.
4. Be clear on roles and responsibilities
When you first start working be clear on roles and responsibilities for you and your team. To begin with a lot of information gathering will be done and it’s important that everyone knows who needs to do what by when. After the first tender is completed, a lot of the information and documents will have been collated so this should be easier for subsequent tenders, just don’t forget to check the information you have is still up to date.
Typically, the consultancy providing tender writing services will write the responses, check the portal, ask any clarifying questions, upload the final response to the portal and you would be asked to provide information for the repsonses, review the response to each answer, along with any necessary policies, plans, organisation charts, etc. but it is pertinent to check this at the start of each tender so everyone is clear on their responsibility.
5. Stick to the facts
As a business owner, you are emotionally invested in your business so you will often to want to add in more information or respond like it is a marketing campaign but it’s important to be succinct and stick to the facts. Responses often have a word or character count so your tender writer will be an expert at identifying, from the information you provide, the specifics that the buying team want to see.
6. Set aside time to reflect after the submission is complete
It is important, even before the outcome is known, to diarise time with everyone involved to look at lessons learned so processes can be streamlined, feedback can be taken on board and acted upon so there is continual improvement.
Outsourcing your tender writing services can be hugely successful when you follow the steps outlined above and we see this with the clients we work with and the contracts we win. If you are considering outsourcing your tender writing, click here to find out more.
