The essence of bidding

1. © Bid Dynamics bid-dynamics.co.uk

2. © Bid Dynamics bid-dynamics.co.uk
Improving your bidding activity
You want...
 everyone involved in your bids to understand what’s needed for successful proposal delivery
 everyone involved in your bids to be effective (and motivated) contributors
 everyone involved in your bids to be catalysts for change, improvement and best practice.
Essence of Bidding services and training workshops from Bid Dynamics....
 set the ground rules for quality proposal development and bid management
 explain the tasks and activities required to put together compelling proposals and client
presentations.
 position the importance of bidding in your sales and market strategy
 help you develop the highest quality proposal responses.
Improving
quality
Your role
in
delivering
change
Improving
skill and
knowledge
levels

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The different aspects of your bidding strategy

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Where we help:
the Bid Dynamics training and support menu
Deal or no deal
Qualifying the
opportunity
Your bidding
strategy
Storyboarding
the bid
Planning content
Selling the deal
in writing
Documents/
presentations
The aftermath
Review, learn,
retain, build for the
future

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Qualification Respond to the right bids, the winnable bids, the tactical bids,
the positioning bids, the strategic bids – how to decide which
one is which and what it means for you to bid or no-bid it.
Reading the ITT How to assess and understand tender documents – what is
really being asked for, what is really important, the clues your
client/prospect is giving in the RFP/ITT
Risk How to assess commercial risk – from the wider
landscape/corporate risk through to bid risk/project risk
Commercial How to assess terms and conditions and legal/ regulatory
implications – what to look for, what to seek advice on to
make sure you and your business are covered
Competition Techniques for identifying and assessing the competition
including SWOT – what will they bid, can you meet/better it,
how will you do that?
Win themes and
key messages
Value proposition vs. sales proposition – what are the themes
and messages that will succeed in this bid?
The bid/no-bid
decision
The bid/no-bid decision based on all the above;
understanding implications and next steps.
Deal or no deal –
qualifying your sales opportunities

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Your bidding strategy and bid contributors
Bid management
in your company
How is bidding delivered and managed?
Who leads it?
Who contributes?
What are the roles and responsibilities?
What does ‘good’ look like for bid management and
delivery in your bidding context?
Company, client, team expectations
Bid team formation
and roles
Depending on the size of each company, we explore
the stages in bid team formation and the skills,
knowledge and experience needed to progress
through to high-performing bid teams
Managing the
bid team dynamic
Dealing with conflicting requirements – people,
technical, business, sales, deliverability; understanding
conflict in your bid team/contributors and making it
work constructively for you.
Proposal production
in your company
Every deadline a panic? How’s that working for you?!
We go ‘beyond the pizza run’ and find a better way....

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Storyboarding the bid – planning your response
Planning and
storyboarding
Developing the response:
how to identify what the client really needs, how to structure,
develop and write a compelling and influential proposal using
the most appropriate media (documents, presentations,
portals).
The win themes Taking your win themes and key messages identified at the
qualification stage, identify how to weave these through your
response.
What’s going to win in each section?
Targeting the client’s primary concerns
Competitor advantages/disadvantages
Where you will put the emphasis throughout your response
The media Outlining the structure and approach for each required
delivery type – written proposal document, client
presentations, online portals
The look Style and layout to reflect your company branding;
document and presentation layouts/templates
Supporting
evidence
Case studies, reference sites, testimonials – what can help
you sell in this deal?

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Sell the deal in writing – outputs for your client
Compiling brilliant
content
Including the EFFECTIVE use of good-quality previous
content – “here’s one I prepared earlier” – the dangers and
the benefits
Writing styles Appropriate style and language for this particular deal;
Talking your client’s language;
Engaging with the client through your writing;
clear articulation of win themes
Words to watch Traps for the unwary – “ensure/guarantee” – the implications
of certain words and phrases in bid situations
The management
summary
Devising the management summary that will sell best for
you, telling the story of your value proposition in a compelling
style, leading your client to the only conclusion you want
them to come to!
Effective proof-
reading and editing
Who, how, when – and how to use the feedback for longer-
term improvement
Make your response
easy for your client to
approve
Techniques including signposting, way-finding, highlighting
the client’s problem areas and why they should buy from you
for this deal

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The aftermath – review and learn
What happened
and why?
What went well? What didn’t? Why?
How do you track and monitor your bidding
outcomes and the overall experience?
What can we
learn?
How do you create best practice from your best
bids?
What do you “keep/stop/start”?
Identifying development, process and service
needs using client feedback
What can you learn from your competitors’ web
sites and marketing collateral to improve your
bids?
What can we
build on and
how do we do it?
How do you retain and store the best information
for future bids? How to create and maintain best
practice repositories, intranet portals, document
libraries.

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Helping you derive best value from our services
Enhance – improve – coach – mentor
Improving your bidding capability and client proposal outputs for the long term means more than
a tick-in-the-box “Training and support delivered – back to business as usual”.
To derive best value from our service, select and combine any of the following:
Direct support to bid managers and bid teams – this can include mentoring, coaching,
shadowing bid managers and sales managers and preparing/rehearsing presentation teams as
they plan, lead, contribute to or write their next bid, with individual progress reviews at the end
of the bid.
Direct support to bids and presentations: direct support on site or remotely for proposal and
presentation planning, development and delivery covering ITT assessment, bid strategy,
writing/editing proposals and presentations, storyboarding, proof-reading and reviews.
Identifying and developing best practice proposal materials. This will include helping you
develop on-line information repositories and associated update and maintenance procedures to
make sure you retain and optimise best practice materials.
Regular progress reviews to assess impact of improvement activities, assess win rates, client
feedback and all aspects of your bidding.
Ad-hoc and pre-booked support on-site and remotely
Specialist Hotline and out-of-hours service for 24x7 support
Review
Support
Mentor
Apply improvement
actions, training and
coaching to live
bids, with mentoring
and support as
needed
Review application of
new and enhanced
skills and services
Assess in context of
subsequent bids:
development and
output quality
Deliver/
implement
Design and
customise
improvements
Identify
skills/process
gaps
Assess proposal
quality and
impact
Service
positioning

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Benefits of working with us
Our workshops, training and services...
 help all bid contributors understand and address your internal and client-
facing requirements, responsibilities and opportunities
 examine the sales team contribution, impact and influence on bidding and
bid teams
 help everyone remember the client throughout
 help everyone understand their individual role in influencing the success of
the bid and the wider sales/client relationship
 identify the best practice activities and materials from across your business
 deliver high-quality proposal content from all the bids we work on.
All in the context of industry acknowledged best practice
and a focus on continuous improvement.

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Benefits of working with us
Our people...
 have worked in, contributed to, managed, led, trained, coached, mentored
and improved every type of bid and sales team in private sector and public
sector organisations
 have designed and delivered proposal centres, bid processes, bid
knowledge-bases and portals and the highest-quality proposal support and
enhancement services in companies of all sizes for over 20 years
 understand every aspect and requirement of the bidding environment
 emphasise skills transfer, making sure best practice knowledge and
expertise are embedded into your processes, your services and throughout
your business.
All in the context of industry acknowledged best practice
and a focus on continuous improvement.

13. © Bid Dynamics bid-dynamics.co.uk