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The Tender Team

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Bid Writers in Sydney

Bid Writers in Sydney

About The Tender Team

The Tender Team is a team of five experienced and expert bid writers with exposure to all industries from construction to medical and defence. Based in our offices just museum station in Sydney, we love helping businesses large and small write bids and win new contracts. With expertise across proofreading, win themes, tender and bid writing best practice and graphics, we are able to deliver the full suite of bid and technical writing services.

Understanding Sydney and NSW

Our team of bid, tender and technical writers in Sydney understand the local economy, the major industries, and the way local and the NSW state government procures. We have helped ASX listed organisations tender for billion dollar construction projects as well as local businesses in Randwick bid for a small Randwick City Council contract. We’ve been helping local businesses win more work for over ten years.

How we improve your bids and proposals

When you employ us, we will employ a range of methods to achieve bid and tender best practice. These can be appointed by your in house staff and include:

  • Use of graphics and infographics to ensure strong aesthetic appeal and to graphically communicate complex solutions.
  • Sentence and writing structure to make it easier for the reader and ensure key win themes are communicated.
  • Development of win themes and telling a good story that communicates and differentiates your bid or proposal from the competition.
  • Bid / No Bid decisions to ensure that you allocate resources to opportunities that will deliver results.
  • Adoptive positive language and the active voice throughout your bid.
  • Drafting detailed and compelling content that is based on evidence and clearly articulates your capability to deliver the tender.
  • Actively project manage the bid from start to finish.

Our bid writers in Sydney will employ a range of strategies including:

  • Developing win themes in your executive summary. The executive summary is the perfect opportunity to win over the reader. Sometimes, aside from the pricing, some of the review team will only read the executive summary. Therefore, it is critical to take the time to draft a quality executive summary. This is an opportunity to put your case forward as to why you should be selected. It’s also an opportunity to summarise your key points of difference and win themes and introduce key personnel.
  • Persuasive writing. We will ensure that the text we draft is engaging. Regardless of if you are a large corporation bidding for a multi-national project, or a small business aiming to secure a local council contract, the reader wants to read a good free-flowing story in each response that is informative and compelling.
  • We use graphics and infographics to get the message across. People read and interpret information in different ways. Some prefer to read text, whilst others absorb information through images. It’s important to have both in order to appeal to different potential readers interpretation styles.

Two strategies to win you more tenders:

Utilise efficient information systems

This means you must manage the transfer of information with ease and fluidity. Having a good management structure in place greatly helps this process along. It is required for when you must procure large amounts of information for the tender. Such as key personnel CVs or financial data and insurance policies. It is always greatly beneficial to utilise efficient information systems in order to remain focused, remain efficient and remain on the path to tender success

Simple language

Do not write in a manner that would grant a PhD and instead focus on delivering your intended piece of information across with as much simplicity as possible. It is as Leonardo da Vinci himself put it:

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

You are not looking for a grade, nor are you looking to be commended for your linguistic mastery. Instead, you are looking to create business opportunities, and are competing with many others. For this reason, you must incorporate simplistic language use coupled with a positive tone in order to achieve the best results.

Our tender writers believe the key to successful tenders is not to convolute the language through the use of complex and inter-changing paraphrases and linguistic lingo, but instead to incorporate simple, easily understood, and positive language to portray clients in an exemplary light.

If you have an upcoming proposal you need to prepare for, or have a submission to respond to with only a few remaining until the deadline, we are here to help. As a boutique consultancy, we are available 24/7, and have lightning fast turnarounds if required and will take the stress and workload off you in peak periods. We can also assist in the preparation of CVs, profiles and expertise, ensuring you have a standout template ready to work from when a Bid hits your desk.

Our Fees and Service

We offer:

  • Fixed project fees
  • A strong depth of resources
  • Industry expert consultants
  • A library of templates to enhance your response

You can read more about our fees here.

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How to prepare for a tender

Positioning your business for tender success

Mind mapping, competitor analysis and journey mapping are all critical to positioning your business to win a tender. They are generally all somewhat fancy words for figuring out the key decision makers in the target organisation, and any contacts your personnel have with them.

In addition, on a business to business level, you need to consider what contacts your organisation has had with the target organisation. Once you gain an understanding of this, the next step is to leverage any contacts. More often than not, throughout the bid preparation period, you are not permitted to speak directly with the client other than through formal procurement channels. That is why your business development and sales preparation process needs to take place prior to the RFP being released.

In addition, throughout your bid, you need to identify your win themes, and also highlight the positive contacts you have had with the client. Talk about how you have been working with them to gain an understanding of their needs and challenges. Link these needs and challenges to your proposed solution and integrate this as a win theme throughout your bid.

A strategy to win

When you start thinking about the best way to prepare for a tender, relationships with the potential client and a good library of information come to mind. You will also need to consider the allocation of resources, availability of key personnel and who is actually going to draft the response.

There is more to consider than the standard issues above. You need to add to your list one critical factor to prepare for a tender that may be looming – your website and other marketing collateral.

The reason is simple – most organisations provide a range of services and tenders and requests for information are usually restricted to a specialised area. Let’s take an insurance and commercial law firm for example. A request for proposal may come in for workplace law services. Without a doubt, even if the workplace law practice group is small, your proposal will talk about your expertise and depth of resources in that area.

That’s fine! In fact – necessary to be on par with other workplace law firms. But how do you prepare for a tender in workplace law, or another small area of your business. Here are some tips on how to prepare for a tender:

  • Update your website. In the law firm’s case, the procurement team will surely review your website and could be shocked if workplace law doesn’t feature prominently and you look like a specialist insurance and commercial firm. You need to make workplace law a feature practice group and give it some credibility on your website.
  • Manage the media. In the law firm’s case, whilst it’s fantastic for your Managing Partner, or other Senior Partners to talk about your business or firm, it will harm the firms chances if they are openly talking about the firm being ‘focused on insurance as a core business’. Imaging a packaging company trying to land a food packaging product talking about how it’s focus is the postal packaging industry.
  • Maintain your market position. For the duration of the tender and the review period, you need to maintain the above. Ensure your website is up-to-date and relevant, and balance other interests and client acquisition activities within the business.

Developing a bid library

Developing a bid library is critical to ensuring your organisation is in a position to respond to tender and bids quickly and effectively. It also helps drive efficiency and quality in your tenders which in turn helps increase your win rate. The key steps to developing a quality bid library include:

  • 1. Gathering all of your previous tenders and bids. We generally recommend bids and tenders from the past three years, however, if there is a large bid from five or six years ago with unique and well developed content then this will of course need to be taken into account.
  • 2. Once the relevant bids have been gathered, the content needs to be separated into topics. For example, case studies with case studies, executive summaries with executive summaries, and response to specific safety questions with other safety questions that are similar. Generally speaking, this will result in between 30 – 300 different topics or questions.
  • 3. Once this has been developed, You need to consolidate the responses into a master long and short response for each question or topic. This way, you have base documentation to work from for different questions both in short and long form.
  • 4. You need to put a system in place whereby your bid library is regularly updated. You can do this by reviewing the bid library against each new bid you submit. Cross check the responses for any new content and update the bid library accordingly.

There are a broad range of software packages now available that automate the bid preparation process. Our team of writers can work with you to identify the most suitable software package for your business to help you streamline the bid process.

For other handy hints, or for a free consultation about how to break into new markets through the tendering process or how to prepare for a tender, contact The Tender Team on 0410 448 770.

Also, check out the government’s small business website.

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Real Estate Copywriting

real estate copywriting

Many real estate agents and property developers opt to complete their own real estate copywriting, rather than using a professional copywriter. Here are some key ingredients for standout real estate copywriting that we use to get you on par with some of the market leaders in the property industry.

If you require assistance with your real estate copywriting,

Identify your target market

Are you selling a city apartment to downsizers, or a large family home close to prestigious schools to wealthy Asian families?

Maybe you are selling to investors who are simply looking for a safe return for their self-managed super fund. Either way, your target market will drive the style of your real estate copywriting. Wealthy families look for safety, prestigious schools and location. For these attractive clients, emphasising quality and top tier public amenities is first and foremost. Price is not necessarily an issue with wealthy families and the requirement for household amenities such as tennis courts, spas, saunas and more differs from other property buyers. Wealthy families in particular benefit from copywriting services as they have the means to afford any and all expense in selling their current property or looking for a new one.

Investors also look at strata fees and distance to public transport, whilst downsizers often look for 24/7 security, lifestyle features and convenience. Demographics such as age, financial status, family size and others determine for copywriters what exactly they need to target. What is important is to ensure that the features that are appealing to your target market are highlighted in your sales copy. When drafting real estate copy, keep in mind that simple English is best and a focus on readability is absolutely key. We always engage in short, snappy copy to engage our potential audiences quickly and deliver the benefits of our client’s property or other services.

We can turn your sales descriptions, IMs and appraisals often in less than 24 hours, and they will be ready to upload to relevant websites such as realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. We write each property listing or description with perfect grammar, tone and style, and ensure you don’t get caught up for hours writing copy for each listing. Our clients often underestimate the amount of time and effort for effective copy that not only is memorable but clearly covers all features of a property. We’ll even personally attend the property where possible to ensure we capture all the key points and reassure your vendors that a copywriting professional will be all the difference between a sale and no interest.

real estate copywriting

Establish a neutral tone

To put it simply, avoid the use of clichés. They have no real place in real estate copy as such terms are usually overused and provoke no reaction from the client. Clichés essentially make your real estate copy look cheap and distract the reader from the message you are trying to convey. They do not differentiate your product from the crowd, and lack innovation. Forget about advertising a ‘renovator’s delight’ or ‘ready for improvement’. Instead, focus on a factual yet elegant style of copy that delivers to the reader the all-important info while conveying a mental image that would induce them to want to live there. At heart, the copy should be a representation of the property that will encourage any interested party to enquire and simply know more.

Keep it simple

Resist the temptation of using overly formal or complicated words when writing real estate copy. Instead focus on writing in a clear, concise and exciting manner. A large percentage of buyers are from non-English speaking backgrounds and don’t like reading through (or simply wont) overly complicated language anyway. Keep the copy exciting and engaging and forget about the fancy words that no one except the writer may know the meaning of. It is always the purpose of the copy to present the basic features of the house below in an entertaining and memorable manner;

  • Bathrooms
  • Living Rooms
  • Kitchen
  • Gardens (Both front and back)
  • Bedrooms
  • Outside deck/patio and pool

In addition, good copy goes hand in hand with beautiful pictures taken of the property with good natural lighting and furnished rooms. Copy is only one part of the marketing approach for any property but an important one that must never be underestimated.

Call us for help

If you are too busy to focus on real estate copy, call us to complete it instead on 0410 448 770.

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To bid or not to bid – what is the question?

The decision on whether to bid or not to bid for a tender opportunity is always a tough one. There are many factors to consider including the cost of putting in the tender, the opportunity cost of focusing on other opportunities, and whether or not you actually have a chance or not. We’ve developed a free bid/no bid checklist to help guide this decision process.

Here are two short anecdotes that highlight lessons learned and approaches to consider:

The opportunity.

Let’s call the client Tom. Tom had a successful construction business with a number of government contracts which he already services. A tender came out from a current government department he was servicing on two other contracts. He had a good relationship and excellent feedback from the government on his existing contracts. This opportunity was big. The contract was for over five million dollars worth of work, double the size of any other contract Tom’s company had held.

Now here is where the plot thickens. The tender documents were exhaustive. It was going to cost approximately 20,000 dollars to put the response together. He was extremely busy servicing his current contracts and the questions were heavily geared towords the existing providers of this contract and their respective key points of difference. Tom was having trouble pricing the job as he had no intel on what was required or the scope of works as the tender documents lacked detail in this regard.

Tom decided to bid for the tender. He was unsuccessful. The feedback from the debrief was that he was his price was too high, and he hadn’t clearly demonstrated his methodology and how it would deliver. Some of the supporting documentation was inadequate. On reflection, Tom realised that he was too busy to give it a good shot, and he needed assistance with the pricing. It would have been best if he didn’t go for the tender.

The long shot.

Let’s call the client Sarah. Sarah had some strong connections with the local Council although in the past she had mainly serviced the private sector. She ran a recruitment business and wasn’t particularly familiar with Government contracts or the process. Her contacts within the local Council encouraged her to go for a contract opportunity that came up.

Sarah downloaded a bid and found a host of questions on government recruitment practices, government processes and previous government experience. She didn’t have any previous government experience, and quite frankly didn’t know a lot about government recruitment processes. What she did know was that she was a local, had some good contacts within Council, and had strong experience in the private sector.

Sarah decided to have a shot. She researched processes for government recruitment and wrote a methodology based on her research that cut the mustard. Our consultants gave her some expert advice on tenders and found a lot of policies and procedures on line. They then leveraged on her quasi-government experience such as providing recruitment for a local University, as well as the fact that she was a local resident as key win themes.

Sarah was appointed to the panel.

So what are the lessons – and when do you bid for or decline government and private tender opportunities?

  • Think of the full cost of tendering. The opportunity costs of everybody’s time.
  • Be innovative in how you approach questions where you may not have existing capability.
  • If you are going to tender, tender to win. Don’t submit a half-decent tender.
  • Play to your strengths. Focus on your strengths as win themes.

Call The Tender Team or Tsaks Consulting for help with your next bid or proposal, or for help deciding whether it’s in fact worth submitting a tender or not.

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Tender Writers in Toowoomba

tender writers in toowoomba

Who we are

We are a full-service content and proposal creation consultancy which is focused on winning you government and private sector contracts. Founded in 2007, we like to think we have the experience and expertise to make your next tender in line with industry best practice.

As a professional tender writing service, we specialise in helping businesses win more bids and tenders. This includes government contracts and private sector contracts. We help businesses in Toowoomba and the surrounding area and regions from all industries bid for contracts at all levels of government.

We help all industries with tenders and bids so have a read and call us if you need any help.

Toowoomba Tender Writers

Our tender writers in Toowoomba deliver results. We assist with your bids and proposals to ensure they reflect industry best practice and give your business the best prospects of success. We have a strong understanding of the local economy and region as well as a broad understanding of the major drivers and markets.

For over seven years we have been helping local businesses will private and public sector contracts including with Queensland Government and Toowoomba Regional Council.

Copywriting and Grant Writing

Our expertise extend to copywriting and grant writing. We add value through:

  • Refining and improving your content.
  • Ensuring you comply with the tender conditions
  • Introducing graphics and infographics to ensure a professional appearance.

Our team of four writers are available around the clock and include a graphics and editing specialist. We have the in-house capability to develop with you a quality proposal or bid. We work around the clock to help business win more bids and tenders.

Through our unique and transparent pricing structure, we are capable of providing assistance to all businesses at any stage of the submissions process. Regardless of if you require us to review a draft and provide feedback to completing the entire response submission, we will help.

Services

Our team of Tender Writers in Toowoomba will add value by either coaching you through the process and explaining what your business needs to do to comply, or by improving your existing material to ensure it is of premium quality and aesthetic. We provide:

  • Strategic guidance
  • Expert writing and editing
  • Coaching and presentation training

We offer a range of fee alternatives to provide certainty a quality.

Our team will get to know your business and key differentiators and introduce these as key themes throughout your response.

What makes for a successful tender response

A good tender response needs the following core elements:

  • Tender document must be clear: Your document must be clear, logical with organised sections. Readability is a must. If they can’t understand the Contents Page flow then that’s not a good sign.
  • Relevant and tailored information: You need to ensure you tailor your response to each and every opportunity and question. The information you include in your tender or bids needs to be relevant and not generic.
  • Direct response: You need to ensure you directly respond to and answer the questions. For each question, you need to put together a template response that interprets the requirements of the question directly and provides a detailed response.
  • Testimonials and referees: These are critical and you need to ensure your referees clearly and comprehensively attest to your capabilities.
  • Proof Read the Tender: Check for any spelling and grammar issues and ensure your writing has a direct, simple and positive tone.

Call us now to discuss how we can help you win your next contract
Speak with our team about how we can assist with your next bid or tender and help you win more tenders. We will take the time to understand your business, develop a winning strategy and help you write a quality proposal that is compelling and persuasive.

Our approach

company profile

We are success driven, punctual, collaborative and lateral thinkers. Our bid and proposal writing team focus on delivering value.

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OUR OFFICE
1504/157 Liverpool Street, Sydney,
New South Wales, Australia.
Email : info@thetenderteam.com.au
Phone : 0410 448 770
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