If you’ve ever had any skills training to help you write a better bid you’ll know that you should structure your bid with an introduction, followed by the main content, which must always broken up into manageable headings, and ending with a conclusion that reiterates what you said in the introduction…right?

Well, in my opinion…wrong!

Just think about it from the assessor’s point of view for a moment. You’ve got to read and mark any number of bids and essentially guide your Procurement Manager to make an informed decision on whom to choose. But, you’re human too, so after a while you’ll start to skip and scan read to get to the real information that tells you what you want to know so you can mark the responses against your score sheet.

Now I’m not saying this always happens, but imagine the tedium of reading standard responses that follow a standard approach using the same format providing the same information…zzzzzz!

The style that I’ve described is most likely one that was learnt in school and the way in which your teachers thought that an essay should be structured. But of course, we’re not writing an essay…we’re trying to sell the benefits of what you do in a way that will engage and connect so you get picked.

Most of us will have played sport at primary school and can recall standing in line waiting and wanting to be picked by the team captain…we’d stand tall, stick our chests out, and jiggle excitedly in the hope we’d get noticed and be picked first! Yet, when it comes to business we straightjacket ourselves into what we think is expected of us and behave accordingly without really testing this out.

So, why not strip off that straightjacket and write in a way that is interesting, tells a story in a way that engages your reader and provides information that they want in the way they want to read it?

I’ve read many introductions to responses that start by saying, “in this response we will outline our approach to X” and then they go on to give a précis of the information contained in the main response that the assessor will read any way if they could just get past this introduction! Most of the bids I work on have specific page limits so to use valuable words on simply reiterating what I have been asked to do is a no-no.

Of course, it’s always best to answer the question…so when you’re asked, “…how will you manage X…” you can start your answer with “…we will manage X by…” and this is the start of your response. There is more guidance on this in my previous article called ‘How to Score Higher in Bids by Answering What You’re Asked’- you can go to my LinkedIn posts or click here to read it.

But I hear you say,

…this is just an introduction in another guise!
And to some extent you’re right but this approach strips out the useless formality and lets you start answering the question immediately. You can embellish this initial part of your response by stating the issues that your client may face; or the problems that could arise if something isn’t done; or what might happen if the outcome isn’t achieved. This is important content that helps to set the scene and raises concerns that you will address next…you will then move seamlessly into your main content.

The structure of your main content should always follow the order of the question(s) to make it easy for assessors to use their score sheet and mark you higher because they can quickly find the information they need. Use headings if you like but remember that you need to take your client on a journey of discovery moving from their problem to your products and the purpose they will fulfil…sounds like the 3Ps Process to me! Check out my posts to learn more about this. Answering questions is one thing you must do but doing it a way that sells your services is just as important…check that your writing style induces your client to take action. Work out what it is about your bid that will most excite them…and accentuate it, really accentuate it!

Finally, your conclusion should address the benefits that will arise from your solution because it is only ever about them and not you. To maximise the space you have available for your answer, resist reiterating what you have already written and say why your solution is important and what it will do to fix the problem your client wants to fix.

So throw out that rulebook, strip off that straightjacket and write in a way that connects quickly, easily and powerfully…the results will amaze!

Top Tip
Choose a bid that you have previously submitted and using a marker on a copy strike through any words or sentences that are superfluous…useless introductions, wordy narrative that says little and conclusions that reflect what has already been said. You will know where you need to improve by the amount and location of the most highlights…then you need to take action!

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