What do The Houses of Parliament, a University, a Formula 1 racing team and a local council have in common?

You’re likely to be scratching your head unless you’re one of the growing number of Sales Engine customers who have asked us to work on bids for these establishments over the last couple of weeks.  As a result, life is never dull here at Sales Engine!

Despite the wide array of bids we’re now involved in, there are some common traits (and pitfalls!) we like to keep an eye out for.

This is where our experience and processes kick in and ensure that when we provide support, it’s as efficient, focussed and (relatively) stress-free for our customers as possible.

The importance of efficient bidding shouldn’t be overlooked – if the end-to-end process is so inefficient that the cost of response outweighs the benefit of winning, you may want to think again!

But it’s far from a “one size fits all” process – every bid is unique and needs to be treated as such.

One constantly changing factor is the understanding of the final prospect’s business.  Take our recent examples – a Formula 1 team operates very differently to a University.  As a result, their demands are very different even if they’ve asked for the same services in their ITT.

We’re amazed at how often customers will blindly reach for the “standard response to ITT for XYZ service” and not give due consideration to the vagaries of their prospect’s business.  As a result, our role is often part-consultant, part-policeman!

In summary, the secret to successful and efficient bidding is getting the balance right.  It’s all about working smartly by pulling on your own experiences and efficiencies (or, even better, ours!) but never forgetting that each submission needs to be carefully and thoughtfully tailored to the specific needs of your prospect.

If in doubt, give us a call or drop us a line…

Whenever we talk to people who are putting bids together (which, as you can imagine is quite a lot) we do quite often end up discussing the most appropriate timescales for putting a bid together! To a man most of our customers agree that a reasonably long period of time is required to get the absolute best work done and a top notch bid put together…but there is the odd dissenter.

And that voice of dissent on initial hearing is pretty out there!  Here’s what they said “as short a time as is possible to get the work physically done”.

To some that brings on the cold sweats as the thoughts of shredded nerves and desperate last minute changes come to mind. But after an initial surprise, we began to think about this approach and could not only see the reasoning but also think back to our own experiences and see where it have been beneficial.

It wasn’t that long ago that we got pulled in to help pull a bid together in only 4 days. The contract value was in excess of £1 million so pretty significant for the client…but the timescales were very tight.

Normally I’d say that these sorts of timescales were unreasonable and the end result wouldn’t be up to the standard required when pitching for this sort of size business.

But the results were excellent.

The reasons behind this may have been that this short (some may say unrealistic!) timeframe bought a laser focus to the work being done. The bid team (a combination of people from the customer and Sales Engine) worked quickly and efficiently.  Whenever we asked for information, we got it back in double quick time.  A joy.

The ability to focus on the important things is a very good one when dealing with bids, and whilst I’m not advocating leaving all your bids until 4 days before their due (!), what I am saying is not to be afraid of a short timescale and try and harness to focus they can bring.

Oh, any by the way, our customer won the bid…