Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s broken down into chapters, and each chapter deals with its own situation or theme, again with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Your chapters are ordered logically so that the story builds on what you’ve already read, and in a way that makes sense. You don’t put the chapter about the castle siege before the ones that introduce the castle, and why it’s strategically important.
Great stories are verbose enough to give you vivid detail, but without over-complicating things. They focus on what matters, and hold a reader’s interest, especially when there’s a lot of back story to set before you can get into the meat of what’s really happening.
A proposal, in any format the client requires, is essentially a story. They have a problem, you have a solution, and your story is about how you are the best supplier to connect the two together for everyone’s benefit.
Also remember that no two client projects are the same. Even if your solution is basically identical, it’s a different client, who works a different way, and will almost certainly see different problems and different outcomes. Treat them as such.
Never take a proposal you’ve already written, and just change the client names. Generic proposals stand out a mile and go against every piece of advice you’ll ever get from this website. A good proposal speaks directly to the client and their problems, and you can never get as good as result if you’re re-using some of all of an existing proposal.
Of course, there are exceptions – it’s better to submit a copy/paste proposal than nothing at all, if you have literally no time to write one. There’s also some bits of information which are so generic they can legitimately be copy and pasted from other proposals, but you’d be surprised how much less you can re-use than you might first thing.
A good example here is your ‘our team’ page. This is generic, right? People’s hobbies don’t change! But if each person’s bio is so generic that it can be re-used, then you’re missing an opportunity to demonstrate to a client how great each person is for their project specifically. And if you did spend the time editing a bio so it is more in line with a specific project (which is a good thing), then it can’t just be used on the next one…right?
What you will find yourself being able to do is taking existing content and editing it to suit. And yes, sometimes the edits will be minor. And OK, sure – sometimes you’ll be just find actually directly copy and pasting. The point is, don’t get used to it. Expect to have to write everything from scratch, and be pleasantly surprised you save yourself some time.
You’ve probably got some experience of putting together a proposal for a private project – maybe an existing client or someone you’ve been talking to for a while who has asked you to quote on their next job. Trust me, your approach for a public tender will likely be NOTHING like those proposals. I’ve spoken to multiple people over the years who have tried and failed with public tenders, and it almost always turns out they approached the public sector job in the same way that they’d tackle a referral from an existing client.
THEY ARE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT.
A public sector tender proposal is going to be like nothing you’ve ever written before. You need to remember that the people reading your proposal have likely never heard of you, have no idea what you do, and might not even understand the project requirements in much detail. It’s entirely possible that the person reading your proposal is helping sift through a hundred submissions and is working off a checklist of requirements, rather than innate knowledge of the project itself.
At the very least, you should consider the volume of proposals they will be reviewing. Skim-reading is inevitable, and proposals that spend the first 10 pages waxing lyrical about how great the supplier is are unlikely to do well. Whilst you still need to impress the client, they are less likely to be impressed by a bunch of recognisable brand names than a private client is. Instead, they’re much more about the detail, so making sure they can find that detail and see how you’ll solve each of their requirements is your absolute priority.
Whilst I would never say this actually happens, I write my proposals like it’s the last one in a pile of twenty they’ll have read that say. Tired eyes, by now they’ll be incapable of consuming complex words and long sentences. Indeed they might even just skim read the executive summary and the pricing page to see if this proposal is even competitive, before reading it in more detail.
Writing with that frame of mind, you keep waffle to a minimum and make your points obvious and accessible. The mantra “don’t make them think” applies very strongly here. Don’t hide your answers behind complex sentences that require the reader to process them and decide for themselves if it meets their requirements.
In example, lets pose a question from a client:
Answer A – we’ll be using WordPress for your project, which comes with a full suite of modern content editorial tools.
Answer B – our solution is a cutting edge content management system with all of the modern features you might require, including strong editorial tools that give you complete control over your content, including version control, the ability to review previous versions of your content, and the ability to restore those versions to the current version on demand.
Answer C – Yes, content revisions with review and restore capability are a standard feature.
A is committing the ultimate sin, where if the client knows WordPress, or is willing to research or ask about it, they will discover that yes, it does meet their requirements, but the answer doesn’t directly say it.
B and C basically say the same thing, but whilst B is hardly complex, it still takes far longer to consume as a sentence, whereas C gets right to the point and the box is ticked.
Making sure you are clear with your answers and your writing in general is super important.
No two tender responses are equal, and how you are supposed to respond can vary wildly depending on the approach the client has decided to take. For example, opportunities through the digital marketplace will usually start with a set of questions you complete online, each with a 100 word limit for the answer. Successful bidders are shortlisted and then there might be a proposal to write, or a pitch to attend.
More common are one of two approaches: the pre-formatted questionnaire, and the open proposal.
The tender pack will include a some or all of the following:
Sometimes, you’ll be able to break out the questions into a separate document – ask, as not every client allows this and you risk disqualification if they don’t allow it.
Even if they DO allow it, be careful over your formatting and how you copy the questions across. Remember the reason you’re doing this is to make things EASIER to read, so changing the order of the questions, or any of their wording, will almost certainly result in disqualification. Any attempts to be clever, such as adding additional content into this broken out doc, will at best be ignored, but could also cause you to be disqualified.
Make sure you fully understand how you are supposed to complete each of the documents. Some will want the questions filling out, some will be statements for you to confirm. Some will ask you to confirm statements made in other documents. It can be needlessly complicated, and you need to pay attention or…you’ve guessed it – you risk being disqualified.
Ask questions of the client until you are completely clear on what is expected of your submission.
The beauty of a pre-formatted questionnaire is you know exactly what you’re answering, so it can make a submission quicker to finish, if not a little easier to think about whilst you’re writing it.
These are both a blessing and a curse. Blessing, because it puts you in complete control of the story you’re about to tell…but a curse because you’re never quite sure if the client wants to read your story! Finding the balance between too much and too little detail is tough, especially if you’re a naturally verbose writer, and it can take a lot of practice before you’re confident in what you’re writing.
The first thing to check is if there are any limits for your proposal – you’ll often find word or page limits, and these may or may not include the cover sheet, so check if you’re unsure.
Make sure you know the format they’re supposed to be submitted in, too – I’ve seen clients specifically request that documents ARE submitted as PDFs, and some that request they are NOT submitted as PDFs.
Other than that, whilst the rules below apply to any kind of response, they mostly apply to open proposals, so pay close attention!
Just like you would if you were writing an essay, put together a structure for your proposal. This doesn’t have to be much, but it really helps you make sure that you’re telling your complete story, in a way that makes sense to your client.
We’ll have solid examples of structure elsewhere on this site, but a typical proposal will go something like:
This is NOT a hard and fast layout, merely an example. Several considerations would immediately change this structure if noting else, such as the client explicitly requesting to see things that dictates or suggests a certain order, or the inclusion or exclusion of particular sections (more on that in the next section).
Sections like ‘case studies’ are not always required, but are sometimes demanded. Equally, some clients want to see the team, others don’t really care. If it’s not demanded, and you don’t think it’s adding value, then don’t include it. You should absolutely NOT have a standard proposal format you always use.
If a client calls a spade a shovel, then you call a spade a shovel. If they give you a list of things they want to see, copy that list and respond to each point in order. Remembering that, come review time they could quite possibly be working through a list of things to tick off, using their language and keeping their order makes it much easier for them to find what they’re looking for. You absolutely do not want them jumping back and forwards through their list, or your document, trying to match things up.
It’s simple to do and WILL make a big difference to your chances of success.
Another simple one, but so often missed – make sure you actually cover off everything they’re asking for. Before you start writing, as part of your qualification process really, you should create a list of all of the project’s requirements. Then when it comes time to put a response together, make sure you’ve crossed off each of those requirements in your document. An all too common mistake is to hide, or simply forget to include, answers to their core requirements, and you will lose because of it.
Plain English, using their language, in an order that makes sense. Don’t talk in-depth about how your solution can solve specific problems until you’ve introduced it, for example. Don’t make the reader backtrack for context, and don’t split the answer up into two places.
Also, don’t assume that because you’ve answered a problem somewhere, you don’t need to repeat it for a similar question somewhere else. At the very least, reference where the answer is, but ideally just find an interesting, non-condescending way to repeat the answer. For pre-formatted questionnaires in particular, different questions might be reviewed by different team members, so if your answer is in question 1, and you only reference it in your answer to question 3, then your reviewer might not even have access to it. Always try to answer each point or question where that point or question exists, even if you’ve answered it elsewhere.
The more you control the narrative, the more chance you have of winning, simply because you are dictating things. A great way to do this is to effectively steer the project where you want it to go by finding a few problems that the client hasn’t mentioned, but absolutely does need solving (or would like solving) in this project. This not only gives them a real sense of knowledge authority about you, but it lets you then focus the solution on something that you’ve introduced into the project, which is especially useful when you’re looking for a USP.
At the very least, it will create a good impression, so it’s always worth doing.
Your proposition is the reason you’re writing this proposal, so ensure you make the most of it. Fix their problems with your unique approach or product, and make it clear why this is a benefit to them over the generic approach that others are taking. You don’t need to talk too negatively about the generic approach, but it’s always good to dismiss it as “.OK, but here’s why what we do is better”.
If you get this right, then you’re not only basically scoring points for originality, you’re also planting the seeds of doubt regarding any competitor who is sticking to the generic option.
One thing to be careful of is that you don’t make your unique offer sound too experimental – safety is foremost within the public sector, and ‘tried and tested’ will win out over ‘great, if it works’.
This is a preference of mine more than a hard and fast rule, but rather than throw in a ton of case studies, I like to reference my previous work throughout my proposals, ideally when answering a question about a skill or requirement.
In (a made up) example:
Answer: Yes. We regularly migrate site content for our clients, even factoring in content reviews and edits. When we did a 10,000 page review for the BBC’s CBeebie’s website last year, we even built a separate content staging site to allow for edits and reviews to start months before the site was due to go live.
Here, we’ve answered their question, dropped a name they’ll recognise, and given a practical example of where we’ve done exactly what they’re asking for (and more), right where they need to see it, which is all you can expect from a full page case study, except we gave them what they were looking for, rather than expecting/hoping they’ll read the case study to get that confirmation.
Ideally, you’ll use a different client or project for every example you make, and obviously the more recognisable, the better.
But don’t worry if you don’t have recognisable names – many don’t. Just be sure to reference your previous examples all the same. And if you’re brand new, and don’t have any (or many) previous examples? Try to explain – as briefly as possible – how you will go beyond their expectations, to make up your confirmation.
Another ‘simple but no one does it’ bit of advice. If you’re struggling to write your proposal, stop writing. You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about yet, and you’re trying to push on, hoping the inspiration will come to you. Sometimes it does, but even then it will be obvious that you didn’t plan things out properly as your proposal will lack cohesion and that story-like flow.
Once you have a proper plan, and you understand the problems you are solving, and the products/services you are selling to solve those problems, things flow easily. Get to that point, and stop and backtrack if you’re not feeling it. The result will be all the better for it.
This is usually more of a problem with pre-formatted tenders than open proposal ones, but there are still plenty of opportunities that will require you upload much more than just the proposal. Typical document requests are insurance certificates, accounts and other company-related documents. First, make sure you have them. Second, make sure you aren’t disqualified because of them (not been trading long? You might fall foul of some procurements that need 3 years of accounts).
Importantly, make sure you do this early, as often there is scope for alternative docs that can be submitted (a letter from your bank or some formatted documents from your accountant, in lieu of 3 years of accounts, for example) that might take you a couple of days to arrange.
It’s rarely a problem if you know what you have to submit, and leave yourself time to arrange them, or clarify with the client.
Sometimes, you’ll be in the middle of writing your proposal, and you’ll realise something just doesn’t stack up. Either your USP isn’t as strong as you first thought it might be, or you’ve noticed something in the detail that you missed in your earlier reviews, and it’s not as compelling an opportunity as it first was.
As soon as you feel that it’s not worth going for, can it. Don’t feel that because you’ve already committed 10 hours into a proposal, you should spend another 10 finishing it. Those extra 10 hours are your next proposal.
Move on and make the best use of your time.
