Get Your Submission Ducks in a Row: 6 Pre-Bid Steps

Every successful bid starts with the right planning. However, it isn’t always easy to know how to prepare for the tendering process. At Thornton & Lowe, we’re experienced in helping businesses to win contracts and framework places, and we know that everything starts with getting your bid submission ducks in a row. Indeed, organisations that take a strategic, selective approach to tendering have a win rate 16% higher than those that don't.

In this guide, we’ll break down our six simple pre-bid steps to getting ready to bid. This will cover everything from selecting the tenders you want to apply for through to completing final pre-submission checks. We’ll also show you how you can make the process even simpler with expert support.

🦆 Step 1: Research

The first step in the process is to know what you want to apply for. Key to this is shortlisting the opportunities that best correspond with your services, location, capacity and budget. Building up a rolling pipeline enables you to plan ahead rather than reacting at the last minute. You can use official procurement portals such as Find a Tender and Contracts Finder to start your research.

With a variety of tenders, frameworks and dynamic markets available at any given time, it isn’t always easy to know which are the best fit for your business. One tool that can make the selection process easier is Tender Pipeline. This free tool allows you to search for contracts in your area, and filter by keywords, buyer names and deadline dates.

🦆 🦆 Step 2: First Bid/No Bid Decision

After carrying out your research and identifying an opportunity, you must next decide whether to pursue it. This is known as a ‘bid/no bid decision’, and it’s a crucial part of the tendering process. Research has found that 83% of top-performing teams use this kind of process. That’s because it enables you to focus your time and resources on only the bids where you have the greatest chance of success.

Some important questions to consider as part of this decision include:

• Can you compete?
  Look at your strengths and weaknesses in comparison to competitors, including how you stack up on service and price.
• Are you the right fit?
  The contract may sit within your sector, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your business has the right experience. For example, you may be an FM business with a focus on cleaning, but a waste disposal contract might not fit.
• Who has won previously?
  Knowing who the incumbent supplier is can be an important indicator. If you know that the buyer is happy with them and has a strong relationship, they may be unlikely to switch.
• Do you have the capacity?
  If your team is already spread thin, they may not be able to take on the added workload that comes with a new project. This may lead to lower standards of service. Think about whether you can deliver to the requirements.
• Will it be profitable?
  The contract may look promising at first glance, but if you have to cut your prices or pay for expensive operational costs to provide the service, your margins may be slim.

Once you’ve evaluated these questions thoroughly, you can make an informed decision as to whether you should proceed with your bid.

🦆 🦆 🦆 Step 3: Pre-Bid Work

After making the initial decision to bid, there’s a lot of work to be done. Most of this happens long before you write a single word of your tender submission. This is the ‘pre-bid’ or bid planning stage.

One of the key pre-bid steps is research. This includes reaching out to relevant stakeholders to better understand the buyer’s requirements and which elements are likely to be most important in scoring. Developing a PME process can ensure that you approach bidding in an efficient, streamlined way. You should also ensure that you’re registered with the right procurement portals in advance.

Another key part of pre-bid work is the creation of your win themes. Here, you home in on what your unique value propositions (UVPs) are: the things that set you apart from competitors. Then, take them and show how they can address the client’s pain points. In short, you show why you are the solution to their problem. Having these win themes to hand early means that you can build them into your tender submission.

This stage is also where you collate the information you need to show the buyer that you’re the right choice. Using a service such as Tender Library can make this process more efficient. The list of documents to start lining up includes (but is not limited to):

• Relevant case studies with measurable outcomes
• Policy documents, such as health and safety and environmental policies
• Any certifications that may be required to ensure compliance
• Insurance information, such as public liability insurance

There are plenty of aspects to pre-bid work, but Thornton & Lowe is here to help. Our services include bid mentoring, which sees our experts offer training and advice to your in-house team. Meanwhile, our Bid Success Programme is an ideal choice if you need extra capacity to win more tenders. Our team will become an extension of your own, providing guidance and expertise to help boost both your win rates and the quality of your bids.

🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 Step 4: Re-Evaluation

Though you will have already completed a bid/no bid review earlier on in the tendering process, this will have been based on preliminary information. After spending time completing the bid planning stage, you will have learned much more about the buyer, their requirements, and the criteria they are looking for. This provides you with an opportunity to re-evaluate your decision.

At this stage, the questions to ask yourself include:

• Do we meet every mandatory requirement?
• Do our win themes map to the evaluation scoring?
• Do we have credible evidence for highly weighted questions?

You should be able to answer all of these with a confident ‘yes’. If you have doubts, then it might not be right to proceed with the bid, as you could be sinking further resources into a lost cause.

🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 Step 5: Writing the Bid

Only after completing each of the pre-bid steps above is it time to put pen to paper. If you have an in-house team, following our ultimate guide to bid writing can help you to keep track of what you need to include in your submission. Alternatively, Thornton & Lowe’s expert bid writers have experience across a range of sectors, and boast a 75%+ win rate.

When writing your bid, our tips include:

• Maintaining a consistent house style, including both formatting and language
• Avoiding jargon and long sentences
• Building win themes into the bid
• Providing process maps, RACI matrices and milestones to show how you will deliver
• Mirroring question structure and weightings in your headings
• Planning out each response to satisfy all evaluation criteria
• Preparing supplementary supporting evidence (if allowed)
• Proofreading to avoid any mistakes and to ensure consistency

Our bid writing courses can provide you with the skills and knowledge you need to win more bids more efficiently. Available online or in-person, you don’t just sit and listen but instead actively take part. They offer an engaging and interactive way to understand what buyers want and how to structure your bid.

🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 Step 6: Submitting the Bid

The final step is tender submission. You might think that this is simply a matter of clicking the ‘upload’ button, but there’s more to it than that. Now is the time to ensure that last-minute mistakes don’t derail your bid.

One of the last steps to carry out before submission is a red team review. This involves another member of your team going over the bid with a fine-tooth comb, making sure that it is clear, compliant and persuasive, and free from errors and inconsistencies. If you don’t have the internal capacity for this, Thornton & Lowe offers a bid review service.

Make sure that your submission pack includes all required documents, including method statements, CVs, case studies, certificates and pricing schedules. Make sure that you use the most up-to-date versions of each. Check that the right file formats are used and that you are within all word count or page limits.

Once you hit submit, you may find that the buyer asks you further clarifying questions. Be sure to monitor your inbox closely, as you may have only tight timeframes in which to answer them.

Are All Your Bid Submission Ducks in a Row?

There’s more to the tendering process than many people realise, and getting prepared can be difficult without the right guidance. That’s where Thornton & Lowe’s bid writing training comes in. Delivered by our Director of Development Charles Grosstephan, our courses can help you to write successful bids for public and private sector contracts.

We offer:

• 1-day bid writing courses that cover understanding the buyer, bid writing and presentation
• A more in-depth 2-day bid writing course that provides additional context about the public sector, getting tender-ready and bid preparation
• Bespoke in-house bid training, tailored to the needs of your company
• Advanced bid writing training, building upon our existing courses and going into additional detail on planning and writing a strong bid

To learn more, visit our bid writing training hub, or get in touch with the team to discuss your requirements further. We’re here to help take your bidding to the next level.