How to Write Bids That Win Business

A guide to improving your bidding success rate and winning more tenders

David Molian, Martyn Curley

• Publisher: Harriman House
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780857196545
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

How To Write Bids That Win Business brings together over 30 years of know-how in creating and crafting successful bids for tendered contracts.This book is an invaluable guide for bid managers and bid writing teams. It shows you how to:- create a bid writing strategy that plays to your organisation's strengths- increase your success rate by focusing on bids you are more likely to win- avoid at the outset bidding for contracts you don't want to win- embed robust bid writing management systems that deliver results time after time- ensure you follow the three golden rules for bid writing successBased on extensive research, How To Write Bids That Win Business explains what bid evaluators are really looking for, by deconstructing the questions asked and explaining how to answer them to achieve top scores. Parts I to III guide you through the complete bid creation process, providing the tips, techniques and tactics for maximising your effectiveness at the shortlister interview. In Part IV the book examines the forces shaping the future of bid writing, and outlines the three key factors for success in the years to come.Co-authors Martyn Curley and Stephen Oldbury, co-founders of Bidwriting.com, have advised many UK business-to-business organisations across 35 commercial sectors. David Molian was for many years Director of Cranfield School of Management's renowned Business Growth Programme and has consulted for numerous companies on developing their brands and growing their businesses. He is a Criticaleye Thought Leader and remains a visiting Fellow at Cranfield.If you are looking to take your organisation's bidding performance to the next level, improving profitability and morale throughout the business, How To Write Bids That Win Business is the book you need.

Part I . Preparation

Introduction

Perfect preparation prevents poor performance. The converse of this old management rule of thumb is that imperfect preparation produces substandard performance, or at the very least leaves you at the mercy of events. Very few businesses grow and prosper by accident, and if your success largely depends on your ability to win work through bidding you can’t rely on getting lucky. Yet we have been constantly surprised by how many organisations that apply rigorous planning elsewhere in their business fail to adopt a disciplined approach to their bidding.

Part I starts by walking through a typical bidding supply chain. Even in large organisations, bid writers and bid managers often have a limited idea of the bigger picture. They understand who their immediate clients and suppliers are, but don’t really grasp where they sit within the scheme of things.

The fact is that very few bids happen within a vacuum and to understand the context and what is driving the process helps to produce a better and more compelling bid. Understanding the bidding supply chain will also help you to appreciate the varying chances of success as the bidding chain progresses through its life cycle. At every stage there’s an opportunity to beat the odds by avoiding the common errors that eliminate many bids early on.

The focus then turns to how to create a bid writing strategy that harnesses your strengths and builds on your organisation’s track record. The fact that so many organisations have no effective bid writing strategy creates huge opportunities for those that do. We show how taking some fairly simple steps can have a dramatic effect on an organisation’s performance, and outline the tangible and less tangible benefits that result. Two steps that produce maximum impact are linking your bid writing strategy to the Sales and Marketing functions, and setting improvement goals. Sales and Marketing can provide you with invaluable broad and specific market intelligence, informing your strategy and checking its validity. Measurable improvement in your bidding performance translates into better margins and improved morale, as the sense of winning spreads through the organisation.

Successful strategy is equally about what you choose not to do. Some bids should be avoided at all costs. Either they’re taking you in the wrong direction or they’re a poor match with your organisation’s capabilities. If you’re unfortunate enough to win them, the chances are that you’ll lose money and be burdened with what we term the winner’s curse. We profile the warning signs and share with you our Bid/No Bid template that helps to screen out the losing propositions at the outset, leaving you to concentrate on bids you have a better chance of winning. If the potential opportunity passes the screening, there are certain key questions you need to answer to ensure that you are fully equipped to enter the contest: in our words, preparing for battle.

Finally, we look at the political and cultural considerations that may play a role. These assu...

Table of contents

• Contents
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Part I . Preparation
• Introduction
• Beating the Odds
• Creating a Bid Writing Strategy
• Linking Your Strategy to the Sales and Marketing Functions
• Building the Plan and Creating Improvement Objectives
• Hard Benefits and Soft Benefits of a Bid Writing Strategy
• To Bid or not to Bid?
• Preparing for Battle
• Political and Cultural Considerations
• Map and Match
• Takeaways from Part I
• Part II. Creation, Review and Preparation for Shortlisting
• Introduction
• Avoiding Common Mistakes
• Forming the Bidding Team
• Writing Bids that Clients Want to Read
• Reviewing the Bid as it Evolves
• How to Prepare for When You Make the Shortlist
• The Best and Final Offer
• Site Visit[s]
• Takeaways from Part II
• Part III. Review and Improve
• Introduction
• Recap: the Story so Far
• Learning from the Best
• The View Across the Bridge
• Reviewing Your Wins and Losses
• How to Capture What You’ve Learned
• Housekeeping
• Takeaways from Part III
• Part IV. A Glimpse of the Future
• Introduction
• The Lessons of History
• Three Big Things to Think About and Plan For
• Implications for Bid Writing
• The Good News
• Appendices
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Appendix 4
• About Bidwriting.com