Lasotell Response to Tender Services
In preparing a response to a tender/expression of interest, there are five particular
pitfalls awaiting the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed:
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Price wins the business, not documents.
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If "value for money" statements cannot be quantified, they have no value that
can be expressed in money terms — see pitfall #1.
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Nobody cares about what you or your company "believes". You either do things
or you do not.
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If your response activity is focused on anything other than addressing the specific,
identifiable prospective client's requirements, you are wasting time (and money) and
you will generate the wrong price — see pitfall #1.
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If you cannot prove/substantiate every claim (people, dates, places) you make about how
good you are, you risk failing to deliver the services for the price you are submitting.
If Pitfall #1 is true, why prepare documents at all? Because if you are not the preferred
supplier, but your price is within 10% of the preferred supplier's price, the
prospective client will go through your response with a fine tooth comb to find reasons to
reject you. If you have written a good response, you might show the prospective
client your company knows more about the client's requirements than the preferred
supplier. And on that basis you might knock out the preferred supplier.
If you are not the preferred supplier, why are you responding to this tender? Why do you
think you can still win the business? Every word you write needs to address the second
question.
How do you Write a Good Response?
There are four steps:
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Identify all the explicit and implied requirements, at all levels, within the client
organisation and in the Request/Expression document.
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State what service/product will be delivered to address the requirements at a given
level.
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State what will be done (never how) to deliver the service/product.
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At each level of the response, state the benefits of the relevant aspect(s) of the
service/product you will deliver.
The four steps mitigate against cutting and pasting from previous responses — because
each client has sub-sets of different requirements. Yes, many requirements are the same from
one company to the next, especially within the same market space, but it is recognising and
capitalising on the differences that show client understanding and contribute to a
winning response.
What is a "Benefit"?
A benefit is something you can:
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Measure (performance attributes)
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Kick with your foot (tangible outcomes)
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Put in your pocket (cash savings).
If it is not one of these three, then 9,999 times out of 10,000, you have described a
feature and most people/clients could not care less about features.
When you are dying of thirst and someone offers you drink, you really do not want to hear
about the 147 features associated with its preparation. You just want the drink because it
will allow you to get on with your life.
Measurable Benefits of Proper Tender Preparation
The response document will contain few, if any, unsupportable claims in comparison with your
previous responses. The response document will contain many more crisp, identifiable
benefits than your previous responses. The response document will contain more words/pages
talking about the client company versus your company in comparison with your previous
responses.
Lasotell Tender Response Skills
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Contribute to the solution development phase
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Assist or be the original author for draft plans and other response elements
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Manage the writing phase of the response
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"Gotcha" checks (that is, preventing uncosted statements creeping into
the response)
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Consistency checks
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Quality aspects
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Project Management or Project Co-ordination
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Configuration Management
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Research topics and gather data
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General gopher
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Final document publishing.
