Bid or tender writing is the process of responding to a ‘request for proposal’ (RFP) or ‘request for quotation’ (RFQ) – terms which are interchangeable. A ‘bid’ response gives you the opportunity to lay out how you will deliver the project you are tendering for, and to demonstrate how your company is the best fit for the job. In most cases, you will be bidding against other competitors for the contract, so it is important to submit the most compelling tender response.

A prospective client – or existing customer if your company is already an incumbent on the contract – will issue a ‘tender’ through an RFP/RFQ as mentioned. This could be either a government (public) entity or private organisation. The tender response from the companies seeking to win the contract is known as the ‘bid.’

One way is through networking within relevant sectors. Opportunities can also be found through government websites, procurement portals or industry-specific platforms.

There are often two main parts to a bid response. The first is the commercial section which contains your costings and any ‘caveats’ or ‘exceptions’ to the main scope of work that you might choose to include. It also contains formal information such as company and insurance details, and acknowledgement of any terms and conditions.

The second section is the technical response which provides the opportunity to describe your clear understanding of the project requirements, and a comprehensive ‘service delivery’ narrative of how your company will complete the project. It will also include aspects such as your quality, health and safety, environmental and other processes.

While it is quite common to have both the commercial and technical responses as distinct sections within a bid or tender, formats can vary widely.

Sometimes the RFP/RFQ might come in the form of a PDF, or PDFs providing background information and structured in one way or other against specific topics and questions the client wants you to address. In other cases, there might be an online portal you need to log into, which will provide all the information plus a template you can feed information into.

Very often, particularly with government tenders, there is a scoring system associated with particular aspects of the bid response. It may be a fairly straightforward split between, say, quality and price – a 60/40% weighting for example.
In other cases, it is broken down further between, say, sustainability, quality, heath and safety, social value or price for instance. These percentage weightings provide a good indication of the client’s priorities and where you can gain the maximum winning scores. It can also give an indication of the ‘pain points’ the client has experienced and gives you an opportunity to demonstrate how selecting you as a service provider will be of benefit to them in the future.
It may be that the client specifies word or page counts you need to stay within – in which case, stick to them. This is where being concise in your tender response comes in. Words are precious – not to be wasted, and you may benefit from a professional bid writer to ensure your response is consistent, concise and avoids repetition. You may be too close to the business to see things from a more objective viewpoint and often an outside resource can be invaluable.

Once you have received the enquiry, you will be given the chance to ask any questions you may have. This is usually a transparent process, with a shared document issued for all bidders to feed their clarifications into (the document may be set up so that you can see competitors remarks and comments, but not who they are – and vice versa, they will be able to see your questions, but anonymously).
In most cases, once the tender has been issued, you will only be able to ask questions through the shared document, unless you have a direct contact with someone within the client organisation. Some companies proactively seek out projects that will be going out for tender but where the official enquiry has not been released yet – through their industry networks or connections for example. In this way, they can make a connection with the client organisation prior to the tender being released, strike up a rapport, familiarise themselves with the scope of work as far as possible, and ‘hit the ground running’ once the tender is released.

The strongest bid or tender responses are aligned closely with the needs outlined in the RFP/RFQ, presenting a clear and detailed service delivery plan. The most competitive response emphasises the company’s unique selling points (USPs), showcasing past successes through a ‘show rather than tell’ approach, i.e., using relevant case studies from past projects.
This is what is often known as a benefits-driven approach – showing the client what you can do for them, to complete the project both on time and successfully and also show the client brand in the best light. After all, your company will effectively be an extension, and hopefully enhancement of the client’s brand.

Your bid response is an opportunity to demonstrate that your company is best suited compared to your competitors to deliver the required services. In addition to the above, using a strong design element makes your document far more accessible and easier to absorb. The client-side reader will be invariably time poor when looking through the various responses.

Breaking your responses down into bite-sized chunks rather than long passages of text – text boxes, pull out quotes or facts and figures for example, will make the key facts and messages stand out far better. Creating a branded design look-and-feel enhances your response still further. Using a skilled professional bid response writing and design resource is well worth the investment if it increases your chance of winning the project.

Visual elements such as infographics, graphs and clear formatting significantly enhance the readability of your response. A well-structured and visually engaging document will be a breath of fresh air to the reader, as compared to more text-heavy and laborious-to-read responses.

Of course, this may not be possible if the client has provided a specific template – through an online portal for example. So each bid response needs to be treated within its own particular context.

First, it is crucial that you read the ‘exam’ question. Very often there might be three questions rolled into one. It is important to look through each question very carefully, dissect it into its component parts and answer each one. This, and the scoring weightings as discussed, will give a good indication into the pain points the client may have received from previous or incumbent suppliers or contractors. After all, there is a reason the client is prioritising certain areas within the tender enquiry.
Second, thoroughly read the enquiry document(s), create a checklist, and ensure that each point is addressed. It is easy with the pressures of one’s day-to-day functional responsibilities to leave the response to the 11th hour. But this will invariably lead to a less-robust bid submission. Leave adequate time to review and revise your response multiple times to ensure compliance. If winning the project is important, engage an outside professional bid writing resource who will save you both the time and pain of producing the strongest response you can.

Different organisations will have differing ways of approaching how to write and submit a bid response. A common way, should the company have the resources, is to put together a dedicated team of subject matter experts within the organisation, depending on the requirements of the particular tender. In this case, effective communication and a designated team leader are essential, with robust project management to collaborate, assign tasks and manage timelines efficiently.

It is important to consider that subject matter experts within the organisation will already have their own functional duties to continue with, so not to swamp them with information they do not necessarily need. The designated team leader in an ideal scenario should spend time upfront to examine the enquiry and allocate different sections of the bid response to the relevant people. Once each member of team has familiarised themselves with the relevant documents, hold a kick-off meeting to discuss who will be responsible for what, then regular meetings to update on progress – always considering that each team member has their own functional role on a day-to-day basis.

Different client organisations have differing ways to the extent they will provide feedback on why a bidding company was unsuccessful, but always request any feedback they will provide. Use this information to improve future bid responses, and continue refining your strategy based on the lessons learned from each submission.