Well, well, well, let me tell you the first thing you need to do is change your attitude. Yes this is a long drawn out process and in the end you may not win the business, silly carry on as some people would call it… turn your negative into a positive this is like anything the more practice you get the better you are. Did you stop having sex the first time you did it … eh … I would say almost all of you would shyly or embarrassingly answer no to this question, and yes after time it gets better and then the end result WOWZA amazing! After you have given this enough time and practice and maybe even try a few different things out you will be amazed at the results, there is no better feeling then winning a tender or RFP !!!!! Okay so this might be a very unorthodox way of making the analogy of practice makes perfect but leme’ tell ya once you start winning those tenders and RFP’s you might think differently!
This could be the making or breaking of you but companies who win tender after tender, RFP after RFP will tell you one thing … ‘YOU CANNOT WIN THEM ALL’ and to top this you won’t win any if you don’t compete … but why should this stop you from trying??? The rewards can mean a significant difference to your business! You could take the approach of bid to win, manage to profit? You could take the attack of buy low sell high OR you could have a methodical and calculated approach to your submissions and start winning some serious contracts!
One of the things you will not have immediately and could mean you’re slow to start this race is a decent library of content, no matter what you say Content Is KING. As each and every Tender or RFP differs’ the information which you put in each application will differ too.
Here are the top 3 tips when it comes to content:
1. Business Certificates: Keep your certificates in one place, for example; tax, recycle, motor, insurance, exclusions, quality documents, workflow processes, industry certifications, waste removal, associations etc. – keep them all in one place so they are easily accessible as these need to be interchangeable from bid to bid.
2. Naming Conventions: Managing your library can be as complex as you like however if you are clever enough to be organised and have a realistic and universal approach to your naming conventions then finding the right information in your library in a timely fashion should not be a problem! These will be your go to docs for almost every single tender or RFP you apply for.
3. Assign an employee; if your having trouble resourcing this task, ask your employees if they would like to or can volunteer some time to this exercise, get a brain storming session going we can help you overcome the fear of doing this and help train your staff to think outside the box when it comes to their job role and entering into a project like this. Small to medium business should be able to call on one, two or three people that can happily help write a tender or RFP submission without any fancy software or expensive project management tools!
Encouraging the staff that you all ready have to become part of this team could mean the difference between winning a four year contract worth a lot of money and staying in the same rut and never being able to tap into this extra stream of revenue!
If you think you would like some advice on whether or not your company might be able to apply for an RFP to increase your revenue, sales pipeline then send us the RFP and we will help you to decide if it is worth going for or not! We are no RFP power house but we have over 15 years experience in submitting tenders both inside and outside our area of expertise and know what needs to be accomplished when it comes to writing a winning tender.
With a structured, methodological approach a win is attainable!
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