Formal procurement is becoming more and more prevalent within the professional services but how do you create seriously persuasive tender documents? Here is a free sample of our special report that looks at exactly that.

1. How do you build more successful
formal tender responses?
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2. Contents
Page 4 Qualification: How do you work out which opportunities to progress?
Page 5 Qualification: How do you manage your fee earners’ expectations?
Page 8 Planning: How do you identify exactly what you are being asked to provide?
Page 9 Planning: How do you ring-fence the key points to concentrate on in your response and how to decide what additional information
is required to strengthen your bid
Page 11 Research: Where do you find those pieces of information and who should be personally responsible for finding/writing up those pieces of information?
Page 12 Research: How do you underline when the required feedback needs to be provided to keep the production line in motion?
Page 14 Creating internal engagement: How do you get the relevant fee earners onside?
Page 16 Creating external engagement: How do you use the points of contact given in the call for tender most effectively and who should ask the questions?
Page 17 Creating external engagement: How do you make best use of any opportunities to ask questions the purchaser might make available?
Page 18 Creating external engagement: How do you use the question facility/pre-submission contact to improve your position?
Page 20 Structure: How do you build tenders that follow the proven 3-step ‘persuasive structure’?
Page 21 Structure: What should be included in each of the three sections?
Page 23 Structure: How do you invert the focus of the content from the writer to the reader and what else can you include in your structure
to strengthen your positon even further?
Page 25 Structure: Where do you put the supporting information on firm and team so that it doesn’t clog up your main response?
Page 26 Costs
Page 29 Appearance: How do you make the final submission more visually appealing?
Page 32 Delivery
Page 34 Building a ‘tool box’ for future tenders: How can you save your content so that it makes future tenders quicker and easier to construct?
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3. Qualification
1.1 How do you work out which opportunities to progress?
Tender responses take a great deal of fee earning and marketing time to complete so the first thing to establish has to be “do you stand a realistic chance of winning?”
To work out if it is going to be worth investing the required time and effort to complete a submission you will need to:
1. Go through the call for tender in detail (tip: I tend to use highlighter pens in the first instance using different colours for technical skills,
client experience and service/delivery respectively)
2. List out exactly what is being asked for in terms of technical/legal skills
3. Now list the departments you have that provide this experience and the fee earners in each whose practices/clients are closest to the organisation
who has released the call to tender
4. List out exactly what is being asked for in terms of relevant industry/sector experience
5. Now list the client examples you know the firm has to support that request
6. List out exactly what is being asked for in terms of client management and service delivery
7. Now list examples of clients for whom you have provided similar management and delivery mechanisms
If you cannot provide an 85% - 90% match with points 2, 4 and 6 and at least 3 relevant examples for 3, 5 and 7
the chances are you will not be successful.
This is not a reflection on your response, your firm or your fee earners; it is simply because it is more than likely a number of the other firms tendering will be able to.
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4. When it comes to writing tender responses most people just want to kick on and start writing.
However the planning stage is absolutely necessary and should never be skipped; not only will doing it properly improve the final outcome, it’ll also make structuring
and fulfilling the content easier and quicker in the later stages.
It is also a much shorter process than perhaps writing it out in long-hand (as I’ve done below) may suggest.
2.1 How do you identify exactly what you are being asked to provide?
During the ‘Qualification’ stage you will have put together a detailed list of the criteria the call for tender is asking for.
The next stage is for you to double check that list – it is often the detail that wins tenders so make sure you haven’t missed anything. It may be a request for a single
point of contact, it may be periodic face-to-face reviews, it may be a billing requirement.
The fact you have both picked up on and answered points that others may well miss will increase the likelihood of success.
Now ask someone else (preferably a fee earner) to double check your list against the call for tender. It may look like double handling but a second pair of eyes is
always invaluable.
Planning2

5. ?We are here to help.
If you have a tender on your desk that you need help with, just contact Doug at Size 10½ Boots:
Email: douglas@tenandahalf.co.uk
Telephone: 0115 969 9817
Mobile: 0778 654 0191
You will also find a wealth of other free marketing and BD support at http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/resources. Please help yourself!
Alternatively, if you’d like a copy of our brand new Learning & Development directory, please email info@tenandahalf.co.uk.
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