Overview

Writing commercial bids in response to tenders is both challenging and time consuming.  It helps to have a good understanding of the overall process, how your bid will be scored, and how to manage and write your content well, to get maximum scores.  The overall aim is to win tenders bringing new contracts into your organisation in an efficient and effective way.

This course will walk you through all stages of the bid writing process so that you understand how to write good bids, how to get the best scores and best practice in the industry.  Bids are usually subject to time, budget, and quality constraints, and you will learn what these are and how to work around them.

This training is interactive and uses case studies, discussions, exercises and break out rooms to help you practice new skills and polish existing ones.  Your trainer will also have time to answer your specific questions.

Aims and Objectives:

  • Understand the process and how to decide whether to go ahead and invest your time in an opportunity.
  • Learn how evaluators score submissions for bids.
  • Understand bid best practice and save time preparing your content meeting tight deadlines.
  • Engage and obtain relevant meaningful content from Subject Matter Experts
  • Develop bid writing skills to create persuasive answers.
  • Learn how to embed bidding best practice within your organisation to contribute to long-term success.
Trainer Profile: Alison Reeves

Alison has been writing bids for over 25 years and has a background in training, technical writing, marketing and copywriting.  Her clients span several business sectors including IT, Commercial Cleaning, Security, Manufacturing, NHS and Social Care and are made up of a variety of clients including large multi-nationals, SMEs, family businesses and Charities. She also helps clients win funding and grant applications.

Alison has long been passionate about supporting organisations to write their own bids and has run 100s of training courses over the last 15 years.  She also helps her clients to build effective bid libraries and content.

Agenda
  • Registration
  • Welcome and Overview

     

  • Part 1. What is the Bid Writing Process?
    • What rules and regulations govern procurement?
    • Overview of the process.
    • Understanding your buyers needs and how they score your bid.
    • Exercise – Bid/No Bid process. How to win more by finding prime opportunities
    • How to get your organisation tender ready.
    • Exercise – How to analyse a specification and pick out the key requirements
  • Break
  • Part 2. Writing Persuasive Content
    • The biggest mistakes and how to avoid them.
    • Exercise – Engage your reader from the first line by planning answers and writing powerful headlines.
    • Re-structuring bid responses for clarity and power.
    • Exercise – How to improve a bid response.
    • Bid and funding writing tips and tricks.
  • Lunch
  • Part 3. Bid Management Planning
    • Best practice and project management tools for bids.
    • How to manage tasks against time and budget restraints.
    • Getting your subject matter experts onboard and productive.
    • Understanding the importance of the clarification process.
    • Exercise – Sharing bid management best practice.
  • Break
  • Part 4. Making it Work For You and Your Organisation
    • Building a long-term approach to bidding.
    • Using feedback to drive continual improvement.
    • A format for case studies – the ultimate evidence.
    • What is capture planning and using it to prepare for upcoming opportunities.
    • How to get the best from your wider team
  • Questions and Answers
  • Trainers Summary and Close
Pricing
  • Public Sector Rate: £495.00+VAT
  • Private Sector Rate: £595.00+VAT
  • Voluntary Sector Rate: £445.00+VAT