What to do after submitting a bid
After working hard for months, writing with immense concentration and working alongside various members of the team to pull the information together, the time period after submitting a bid can be an anxious one. You might be thinking, I wonder if my bid was good enough? When will we hear back from them? Will they give feedback about what could be improved?
In the meantime, there are a variety of activities you can be getting on with to improve your future bid writing and bidding processes, which we will explore below.
Have additional information ready to go
After reading your application, the buyer may ask for more information or clarity on some aspects of the bid. Make sure you have all relevant documents to hand so that you can respond to them in a timely manner – don’t let your competitors beat you to it.
Add to your bid library
The more you bid, the larger your bid library will be. This will actually make bidding easier in the future as you can go back into previous bidding documents and re use certain data or testimonials, which will save a lot of time, plus you know that your answers have already been approved by Senior management. It also allows you to review bids that worked well and those that didn’t do so well, which you have the opportunity to learn from as you can save feedback in the library too.
Review your bidding procedures
Whilst the project is still fresh in your mind, it is a good idea to take time to reflect on how it went. Did it all take place smoothly or were you held up while trying to access certain data or get a testimonial from a client? Thinking about these factors will help you to plan ahead, allowing you to be more organised the next time a bid comes around. Planning a debrief meeting is a good way to go about this.
It is also a good time to update information that could now be irrelevant or outdated, such as insurance documents, CVs, accreditations and reference contact details. This will help to save precious time in the future.
Ask for feedback
When you eventually receive feedback, whether you won the bid or not, use this information moving forward to fine tune your applications. You may even gain some insight into what your competitors may be doing better than you, or areas of their business that they emphasised more strongly in the application. You can also find out what the tendering organisation is looking for, so that if they release more invitations to tender in the future, you know exactly what they like to hear about a business.
Consider professional bid support moving forward
Although you may have experience writing a large volume of bids, experts in the field can help you to improve any application. An outsider’s perspective on the strengths of your business can remind you of certain business activities you carry out that will really help to prove that you are worthy of undertaking the work. Perhaps you could benefit from bid training or hiring an interim bid writer?