Frequently Asked Questions

---

The main reasons you may want to hire a bid writer are:

• Lack of experience
• Lack of available resources within your organisation
• You have tried before without success

Successful tenders often have a number of factors in common:

• Tell a compelling story – winning bids are not just a ‘brain dump’ of all the information you hold on your company. They are a persuasive and structured reason why your organisation can provide the best offer. How will you craft your response to appeal to a buyer and make them remember you? Bids don’t have to be linear and conservative but they do need to be relevant, concise and accurate.
  
• Answer the questions asked and always provide the evidence – understand what you are actually being asked and don’t assume the buyer knows about you, your organisation or an important operational detail. If you don’t include the information in your bid, the buyer cannot give you relevant marks for the answer. If you say you can deliver better quality then you will need to ‘prove it’. How will you do it? You must be able to demonstrate ‘how’ as well as ‘what’.
  
• Substance is important – all answers should be consistent in tone, layout and formatting. This is the voice of your bid and should reflect who you are. A professional tone, correct spelling and consistent style all create an impression e.g. small typos in a bid response can easily suggest a lack of attention to detail and result in reduced confidence in your tender. 

Structuring and crafting a good bid response takes time and experience. For small businesses this is often a task which is outside of their team’s skill set or an added pressure which cannot easily be resourced.  

In these circumstances, bringing in external help may be the answer. An experienced bid writer can help guide you through the process, draft elements of the response on your behalf and advise on the approach for the more technical areas where only you or your team will know the specifics.

It will still need input from your organisation. A bid writer cannot know all that is unique about your company or how you intend to deliver the contract but they can make the task manageable. Help can range from proof reading the response, advice on specific questions to drafting a large element of the bid.  Bringing in a bid writer cannot guarantee success, no one can, but it can greatly improve your chances of winning the contract.

I can help you with the Qualification (PQQ), Quality and Governance elements – based on information gained from you.

I cannot advise on technical or commercial / pricing but can offer guidance on your responses regarding compliance and support you to answer them in full.

I can help you with Community Benefits / Social Value statements which most Public Sector Contracts are keen to be delivered as part of an award.

I can help draft elements of your submission, proof read and advise on any areas which I believe can be improved. 

I can help guide you on what policies you will need in place to be compliant with a tender and how to ask clarification questions and submit eTenders.

I only agree to help a small number of clients at any one time, so I can be sure to provide a high quality service and meet the deadlines needed for submissions. This way I provide a tailored service, depending on how much assistance is required and can be flexible to meet a client’s needs and timescales. However, this does mean that an early discussion is recommended if you have a tender you are expecting to be published and are looking for help with submission.

Most bids require information in the following broad categories:

• Qualification
• Technical
• Governance / Quality
• Commercial / Pricing

Price is important but there are other factors which may be just as crucial to the buyer. They will need to be confident you can meet the operational needs, maybe satisfy the environmental, diversity or recruitment requirements and meet all applicable legislation.

Bids usually require financial / organisational information – this is often the PQQ section and will need evidence of your business registration and financial standing. A DUNS number is often mandatory.

They will need the specialist aspects where you must evidence your ability to meet the technical, skill and experience required. This may involve you having precise equipment, vehicles or premises; staff skills / qualifications and the ability to deliver to the standards / specifications required. 

Most bids require you to evidence your governance, policies and procedures and how you manage unplanned events e.g. loss of premises owing to fire or flood or loss of key staff e.g. pandemic preparedness. They will want to know how you would manage potential financial, commercial and legal risks that could cause contract failure.

It is not enough to state you can manage the contract effectively. Buyers will want you to detail how you would implement the start of the contract, meet deadlines, manage any potential staffing or TUPE considerations. You will be required to evidence that you have defined operational procedures, milestones and a detailed project plan in place with a team capable of delivering it.

Public sector buyers are looking for bids which demonstrate how they can add value, both Social and Added Value, to benefit the community in which you are working.  Social Value is the building of improved social or environmental conditions into the contract e.g. Apprenticeships and training,  Added Value is more commercially tangible and shows how you can offer more for the same amount e.g. through bulk buying you may be able to source higher quality materials at no additional cost. These elements improve the quality of your bid and help differentiate you from your competitors.

The commercial aspects of the bid will include your pricing – usually this must be shown in a set format as detailed in the bid document to allow buyers to make comparisons easily with other bidders. You may be required to include a breakdown of elements such as staff time / costs; management time / costs; capital / premises costs etc. Factor in the length of the contract, costs can fluctuate over the duration of a contract term.  You need to evidence you have considered all the variables and have included a contingency for unexpected costs that may arise. 

If a bid writer is writing your response they will need to understand more about your organisation to answer the tender questions in the best possible way. 

This usually includes asking questions about how your business works and requesting company literature (if you have any) to help understand who you are and what differentiates you from your competitors.

For the best chance of success it will be necessary for you to work together to compose the full submission. Once the bid writer has looked at the bid documents they will want to meet with you, via telephone / video link and ask you specific questions to help inform the bid response. This maybe an ongoing process which can be conducted via email or sometimes a regular telephone catch-up as the bid writing progresses.

Whatever the agreed process for working together, you can expect to be an integral part of the drafting and signing off process. A bid writer cannot do it all for you, but they can make it manageable and help greatly improve your chances of success. 

There are several procurement procedures used to award public sector contracts - the Contract Notice will state which one is being used. Common ones include:

• The open procedure- all interested parties are asked to return tenders by a set date. These are evaluated and contract(s) awarded to the winning party/parties; often used by local authorities.
• The restricted procedure - a one or two-stage process of a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) and an Invitation to Tender (ITT)
  Often the PQQ and ITT are published within one tender process and are required to be submitted simultaneously. The PQQ is marked first. If an organisation fails the PQQ, the ITT may not be considered. An example of PQQ Core Questions 
• The competitive dialogue procedure - for more complex procurements involving negotiations with companies to develop suitable solution(s) which chosen companies will then be invited to tender. 

Framework agreements are set up by public sector bodies with suppliers to provide goods or services according to certain requirements – e.g. price, quality and quantity. Frameworks can be arranged centrally by one public body on behalf of itself and/or for a number of other public bodies. Those party to the framework can then order (or 'call-off') the goods/ services when required. If there is more than one supplier, then a mini-competition may be held to identify the best supplier. A contract is only formed when an order is placed for a specific requirement.