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Win more bids, tenders, proposals, contracts

Most organisations find the bidding process time-consuming, onerous and frustrating; most buyers find evaluating bids a chore. It’s not a labour of love on either side.

What if, as a bidder, you could make the process easier and faster, resulting in bids that buyers found interesting, informative, easy to read and even enjoyable? What would that do for your win-rate?

My 1-day bid writing workshop and 2-day master class deliver that, and more. If you and your bid team want to win more contracts by writing better business proposals, bids, and tenders, learn how to:

– follow the three steps of the writing process and avoid the most common bid writing mistake
– produce much better first drafts faster, cutting the number of edits and re-writes
– tailor your content to each of the five classic buyer roles, so each buyer recognises themselves and their agenda in your document
– structure your bid for maximum impact and clarity, exploding the myth that a document must have a ‘beginning, a middle and an end’
– avoid the ‘Super-Smashing-Great’ school of writing and evoke those feelings in the buyer instead
– create a ‘killer’ page/slide that articulates your value proposition, unifies your bid and separates you from the competition
– produce clear, concise and compelling executive summaries that get the senior buyer’s vote in under three minutes
– score the readability of your text within seconds, so you know what’s going wrong and how to fix it
– raise the readability of your text with five simple drafting techniques that native and non-native English writers can master immediately
– apply a stunning alternative to bullet points to improve the ‘look & feel’ of your document and the clarity of your content
– alter the whole focus of your bid for a tectonic shift in its persuasive power

WELCOME

09.00 – 09.30

  • House-keeping
  • Introductions
  • Your goals for the day
  • Workbook, running order

Structures that Sell & Persuade

09.30 – 11.00

  • The 3 writing steps
  • Exercise: why and how to plan the bid document
  • Establishing your purpose
  • The five buyer roles
  • Structures that sell
  • Exercise: converting features into benefits

Drafting for Clarity & Impact

11.15 – 12.30

  • Quiz: how to write clearly and concisely
  • Tone of voice, register
  • Selling through personalisation
  • How to dramatise and invigorate your writing

 Break

11.00 – 11.15

Lunch

12.30 – 13.15

1-day Bid Writing Workshop

Exercise: writing plain English

13.15 – 14.00

  • Making your writing clear and concise

Editing your bid document

14.00 – 15.00

  • Editing, checking & proof-reading your text
  • Scoring its readability: the 3 ratios to target

Bid make-over
15.00 – 16.30

  • Exercise: editing, re-writing or drafting from scratch an executive summary or standard tender question
  • ‘Buddy’ review
  • Plenary debrief

Learning Round-up

16.30 – 17.00

  • What you’ve learnt, what you’ll do differently
  • Rules for success
  • Evaluation, close

Maximum no.of participants: 12

Let's talk

2-day bid writing master class

This includes the 1-day workshop, with day 2 acting as a writing ‘clinic’ or ‘surgery’. Under my guidance, each delegate applies what they’ve learnt to the executive summary or technical section of a live or recent bid and gets extensive feedback from me in a private, confidential 1-to-1 coaching session.

If you/your staff apply what they learn on this training, you will see your tendering win-rate and ROI rise.

Maximum no.of participants: 10

If you head an in-house bid team and would like to know more about my bid writing workshop or master class, pls book a slot in my electronic diary. This is a relaxed, introductory, exploratory conversation for you to find out more about the training, and for me to understand your needs and objectives. There is absolutely no obligation or pressure on you to buy.

Let's talk

Absolutely brilliant. Would highly recommend it even to experienced bid writers as it will make them think. Beginners and experts alike will benefit.

Helen Bartlett Swanswell (charity)


 Excellent. Relaxed delivery. Very practical to everyday job. Really well pitched. Everyone in the office should attend this

Emma Cannning Hawkins\Brown (architects)