successful tendering starts with: read. review. repeat

When putting a tender submission together for any construction project, it is essential you evaluate the opportunity, get organised with your tender team and a develop plan of action and define who you are in order to sell yourself. The final thing…It is vital to constantly review.

Half time review

Don’t assume everything or everyone is on track and the deliverables are coming together as planned. It is essential that you benchmark your progress to date part way through, including enquiry returns, supporting documentation, programme restrictions and overall risk and opportunity of the tender opportunity.

Ask yourself:

• Do we require assistance in specific areas?
• Are the questions posed in the tender actually being answered?
• Does our supporting documentation need to better highlight our company expertise?
• How are we clearly communicating risk and opportunity to the client?

Mid-tender interview

If you are presented with the opportunity of a mid-tender interview with the prospective client, then use it well.

Not only to ask questions about contradictory information but also to demonstrate your early grasp of the project. Use it cover off:

• Client’s needs
• Project Risks
• Effects on others
• Early proactive engagement of specialists
• Tendering resources and engagement of delivery team within the tender

In addition, use any appropriate opportunity available to talk to prospects and get a real insight to their specific needs. Being able to pre-empt and solve clients project pressures is a powerful tool.

Read, review and repeat

It’s basic stuff, but a bid that contains spelling and grammatical mistakes, will present the client with an unprofessional impression. It’s vital to read the whole document to spot any errors or gaps.

All documents should be carefully checked before sending to the client:

• Is the content referenced and structured as requested?
• Do the answers specifically relate to the questions? Be objective.
• Do the answers exceed word count limits?
• Have you really been objective when reviewing against the client’s evaluation criteria?
• Does the organisation chart match the CV structure?
• Does the method statement reflect the proposed programme of works?

Contractors can also be penalised or disqualified if required information is missing from a tender submission.

Tender tip: When you’re at the stage where you think the tender is complete, stop working on it for a day or so. Return, read and review.

Give yourselves time to review the completed document with a fresh pair of eyes. Like a good album, go through the full playlist from question one to the end. You should still have time to be objective and make minor amendments or see how the copy and presentation could be improved.

To do this, you must plan. This is why making time for tendering is so important. This is good practice and helps avoid the usual last-minute rush.

Always get feedback

Whether you’re successful or not, get feedback. These pointers can be vital for defining your approach to the next opportunity.

Clients are usually happy to give feedback and can often be specific about how your bid was scored. Learn from this and use it to develop your tendering approach. You’ll quickly find that different clients look for different things.

Find out:

• What made you stand out?
• Which solutions provided added value to your client?
• What could have been improved?

Don’t forget… day to day live project feedback is critical. It feeds into your tendering case studies, testimonials and lessons learnt. This is gold dust! Capture your successes and have them ready for your next tender.

And remember…

You cannot win every tender. However, evaluating the right opportunities, taking time over tendering to deliver quality submissions and making the most of feedback will help you develop best practice in your tender process and increase your win rate.

For more information on submitting winning construction tenders and improving your existing processes, read more blogs about our steps to successful tendering on Our Work, contact us for a free consultation on 0115 7060338 or email us at hello@cube-cc.co.uk.