Writing winning government tenders is critical to many businesses looking to grow and increase revenue. Whether you are a private company looking to secure your first public sector tender, or a business that already services the public sector such as a local or state government, you will need to win government tenders to grow revenue.

The government is generally a great client to have. They mostly pay on-time and are reliable for payment, they add credibility to your organisation, and winning your first government contract can open a can of worms in terms of winning additional government contracts. In saying that, you need to go through the competitive tender process to win a government contract and write a compelling RFT or RFP. In this guide, we will run through different strategies to help you write winning government contracts in Australia, including at the federal, state and local government level.

1. Comply with the tender requirements and process

This one is straightforward. However, businesses often get tempted to bend the rules when it comes to tender compliance. The reality is that you need to comply with the requirements of the RFT or RFP to the T. The risk of non-compliance is substantial and there is always a danger they effectively bin your tender response.

World limits are critical as are insurance requirements and other mandatory criteria. However, it goes beyond that. Where there are requirements for policies and plans, such as Work Health and Safety and Quality Assurance Plans, or even requirements for Modern Slavery documentation, you need to make sure that firstly it exists, and secondly it is up to date with the current requirements and regulations.

Prior to submission, here at The Tender Team, we recommend cross checking the tender response with the submission criteria, as well as the proposed contract for any criteria related to insurance values and licences.

In the construction industry, medical and many other industries, specific licences and ‘tickets’ are required for your team members and these need to be attached to the RFP response in order to ensure compliance.

2. Interpret the questions correctly and respond comprehensively

Government procurement teams use different terminology depending on what they are looking for. For example, when they ask you to ‘detail’ something, it requires a comprehensive response, whereas if they ask you to ‘briefly explain’ something, you still need a somewhat comprehensive response, however, a summary and a little less detail is acceptable.

Here at The Tender Team, when writing a response to a question we:

• Break up the question into sub-questions if it is a complex question.
• Identify the key instructional words in the question.
• Create a template / framework response to the question.
• Identify any supporting evidence that can be included in the question.
• Write the response based on the framework/template.

It’s important to brainstorm your response to each question and write a concise response. It’s also important to include any key factors which may not be directly asked, however, may be relevant. For example, we once received positive feedback for a bid where we included reference to the removal of any possible asbestos. The tender questions didn’t directly ask for an asbestos management plan or mentioned any issues with asbestos, however, we included reference to it in a safety question which resulted in us scoring well.

It’s important to write a comprehensive response to each question. This doesn’t mean writing a whole lot of marketing ‘fluff’. However, a detailed, fact-based response with supporting evidence and testimonials is essential to scoring well. You should also cross check your response against the evaluation criteria as well as the tender or RFT specifications to ensure you have covered everything off.

3. Tailor your response and don’t include generic information

This is another critical point which will never be the reason for you not complying with the tender requirements, but will limit your chances of actually winning a government contract. If you want to score well in all the questions in a tender, you need to tailor your response.

You need to use the responses as an opportunity to demonstrate insight and an understanding of the tender requirements and the proposed project or service, as well as any potential challenges that may arise and how you will overcome them. Your team, experience, methodology and company vision and profile will need to be tailored to the opportunity. Using boilerplate information or generic content is useful for an initial draft, however, your response will need to be refined and tailored, and procurement teams can easily see through generic content that has been cut and pasted from tender to tender or generated with AI.

4. Make it easy for the local, state or federal government department to select you

You can do this by building credibility throughout your bid and response. Write with serious and professional language. Incorporate testimonials throughout your bid to give it more credibility. It’s also important to maintain a strong focus on reporting and communication – even though it may seem irrelevant to the product or service you will provide.

The reality is that government procurement teams often want to select the person that is easiest to deal with and won’t cause them any issues – a safe bet so to speak. This is often the case across Australia in different government departments, whether it is the NHS government, City of Melbourne or Perth. Present your business as the safe bet and the easy choice. Where you have won awards or any external accreditations, make sure you include these in your bid.

5. Focus on the benefits to the client – not yourself

This is another critical point. Many businesses fall into the trap of writing a bid or tender proposal that is self-focused. It’s human nature really. You want to include as much information about yourself as possible and talk about why you are the best fit. However, you need to focus on the benefits you will deliver to the client or government department. Focus on them and what you can do for them and how your experience and expertise will enable you to deliver them benefits. This is crucial.

Arranging professional help from The Tender Team for your next tender or bid

If you are looking to engage a professional bid or tender writer to help you with your next government tender, our team here at The Tender Team is ready to assist. We have over 15 years experience helping businesses across Australia write winning bids and tenders.

Contact our team at info@thetenderteam.com.au or simply call 0410 448 770 to speak with our team about your next tender or bid. We are government and public sector tender writing specialists, have helped hundreds of businesses across Australia win government contracts and have reasonable rates focused on helping you win!

At The Tender Team, we have strong experience helping our clients writing winning government tenders. This extends across all industries from construction and maintenance to health, IT, defence and the community sector. Government contracts certainly have their advantages some of which include:

• Minimal risk of bad debt – the government is generally quite reliable when it comes to payment.
• Certainty of time (they are often 3 – 5 year contracts)
• Opening doors and opportunities for future contracts with government

Although there are challenges, Government tender and contract opportunities are generally a great opportunity for businesses across Australia to secure revenue. Our team has written successful bids to all levels of government from local to state and federal government. In this article, we will cover ten tips and strategies you can employ to help you win more government tenders.

1.    Comply and follow the instructions

You need to ensure you submit a compliance response. When you respond to a government RFT or RFP there is limited flexibility in how you can response. You are able to put forward an alternative bid, however, that’s only if you put forward a conforming bid first.

There will be a lot of compliance requests built into the RFT, from policies to insurance and other obligations. You generally need to make sure you tick every box. Answer every single question. Attach all the required documentation. Fully complete the response schedules.

The reason is simple. Procurement teams at all levels of government general use decision gates when reviewing tenders. They will firstly look at compliance, before going into detail and looking and assessing your complete tender. You need to strictly comply in order to get to the next stage and avoid the potential for disqualification.

Word counts are another sticking point which many of our clients have issues with. Governments use electronic software to check wordcounts so these need to be on-point. Finally, as part of the tender writing process, they will generally ask for policies such as environmental, WHS, modern slavery and quality management systems. It’s ok to use generic documentation but you need to ensure you tailor it to the opportunity where required, particularly for health and safety.

2.    Interpret the questions correctly and provide a comprehensive response.

When you read government RFT or RFP questions you need to focus on each word within the question and ensure you are interpreting it correctly. This is because this can influence your entire response. For example, we were working on a Council tender where the client was asked to ‘demonstrate’ their experience. The word demonstrate, does simply mean describe and a brief description of previous experience wouldn’t suffice here.

Instead, demonstrate means to provide evidence, detail and how you would apply experience to a given situation. When responding to tenders from the Australian government, or even the NSW, Queensland or other state governments, be sure to interpret the question broadly and answer accordingly.

You also need to provide a response to every question, even if the same thing has been asked earlier in the RFP. This is because you need to score well across all questions in order to get a good weighted score as an outcome.

3.    Respond to and answer the question

Government tenders are quite rigid and many businesses make a simple mistake when writing bids to the Government – they cut and paste content or don’t respond directly to the question. We understand the temptation. Your businesses might have some excellent services to offer which really set you apart.

You want to write about these in the bid at every opportunity, and use previous content from other bids. The problem is that the government will only award marks based on what answers their question.

Your response needs to be on-point and tell them what they want to hear. You need to write concisely and in simple English. This makes it easier to mark and they don’t need to read through generic content in order to find the response they are looking for.

4.     Be a safe pair of hands the government is looking for in a supplier

There is a an old saying that nobody was fired for hiring IBM. It generally applies with government tenders and it’s always a good idea in your tender to convey that you are a reliable and safe bet.  Government procurement is essentially charged with getting value for taxpayers. There is strict accountability and they are generally highly focused on quality control and credibility.

This is one of the reasons they are so thorough in their tenders and ask about complaints handling and community engagement. You need to show that you have robust quality assurance processes in place and that you have a safety-focused culture.

Most importantly, you need to highlight as much of your government experience as possible even if it is experience of your personnel in previous roles.

5.     Work within the response schedules they provide

Government tenders, across the country including in NSW, Qld, South Australia, WA and NT generally provide returnable schedules. I.e. response schedules that you can complete in order to submit the tender. It’s tempting to amend these response schedules and work within your own format which is more presentable. However, just like providing additional generic marketing material, this is generally not appreciated by procurement teams.

Work within the response schedule provided.

6.     Don’t use generic content.

This applies to marketing material or general material from your website or other bids. Local councils, state and federal government procurement teams don’t like reading generic content. They want to read responses that are tailored to the tender and project. They want you to be direct and concise. Directly respond to the question and make it simple and easy for the readers to find the area. Concisely and simply detail your key points of different and what outcomes and benefits you will bring to the contract.

Ask The Tender Team for assistance

Our team is has strong experience helping businesses write winning tenders and bids to government If you would like to discuss your next tender opportunity, contact our team to explore how we can help you win.

When you are bidding for your next must-win tender or bid, it’s a great idea to conduct a comprehensive review or audit of your tender response – at second draft stage or prior to finalising your draft. The reason is simple. In order to win government and private sector contracts, you need to score well across all criteria and submit an exemplary bid in what will surely be a highly competitive process.

A detailed tender audit or review will help you identify areas of weakness and turn them into strengths – thereby helping you win. Our team of bid writers here at The Tender Team, will help:

• Review your bid or tender and make suggestions for improvement.
• Ensure you comply with requirements and score well against the evaluation criteria.
• Develop ideas for win themes and value added services to help you win.

How a tender, proposal or bid review will help you win

A tender review will help you:

• Identify any spelling and grammar errors in your bid.
• Ensure your responses to each question directly answer the question and address any issues raised in the question.
• Ensure your bid is compliant and you haven’t missed anything. When you are running your business and have to write a bid, it’s easy to get distracted and take your eye off the ball.
• Achieve best practice – by challenging your responses and ensuring that your writing is concise, positive and evidence based.
• Win more tender and increase your tender win rates.
• Improve the overall quality of your proposals and introduce graphics and infographics that ensure a professional look and feel.
• Create a bid library and boost your tender efficiency. We will point out what content is generally repeated and can be incorporated into a bid library to make you ‘tender ready’ for future bids.

Can I review my own tender?

Yes. It’s a good idea to review your tender or even have another person in your office or organisation review. Alternatively, you can contact our team here at The Tender Team and we will conduct a review for you. When we conduct an audit or review, you get the benefit of all our knowledge, expertise and the opportunity to learn what best practice is and improve your bid.

What is the difference between having my tender proposal professionally review and reviewing it myself?

The key difference between reviewing a tender yourself and having one of our tender writers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or across Australia review the tender is that you get to tap into our know how and experience.

When you engage us to review your tender or bid, our professional tender writers will read the RFP documentation and then review your response. We will identify areas for improvement and then provide you with an example of how to improve your writing to ensure it’s a best-in-class response.

You tap into our wealth of experience gained through writing tenders and bids for over 14 years across a broad range of industries. We know our way around tender and RFT documents and have been in countless feedback sessions giving us insight into what works and what doesn’t.

An independent and fearless review. When you engage us to review your tender, we are fearless and independent. This means there is no discomfort in giving constructive feedback. We will provide direct feedback that addresses any issues. There is no workplace politics and we are completely objective in our review and response.

We cover all aspects of the tender for A-Z. When you engage us to conduct an external review, we will review the tender response in its entirety. We can also review specific questions, if you require, as opposed to the entire bid.

How to complete a tender review?

When review your tender, bid or proposal, no matter what business you are and in what part of Australia, we generally follow the below methodology. If you are looking to review your tender or bid yourself, you can adopt this methodology as a framework for your review (or call our team of experts).

Get across all the tender requirements

This is the first step and a very critical one. You need to read the tender requirements and also any addenda or addendums that have been issued. You need to create a checklist of the requirements and review the scope of work, evaluation criteria and formatting and submission instructions. These are all critical as the scope of work will give you an understanding of the project and help you read between the lines in terms of what they are looking for, the evaluation criteria will be used in the review to help you ensure the responses are comprehensive and you score well, and the formatting and submission requirements are critical for the bid to be accepted.

It is also important to develop a gut-feeling for the tender. In order to successfully respond to an RFT (Request for Tender) you need to read between the lines and develop win themes that align your key points of difference to what the market and RFP is looking for.

Check the template response and structure

Your responses need to be simple and well structured. In addition, you need to ensure that you have used sub-headings and bullet points where possible, so the document is easy to read for the procurement team. The structure is also related to the tender as a whole. It’s important in the review that you check the overall tender structure. Key areas to review include:

• The covering letter: It needs to be personalised and brief. The writing needs to flow and you need to highlight your intention to submit and possibly one or two key selling points that are relevant to the client needs. If there is no cover letter and you are permitted to write one, you should write as part of the review.
• Executive summary: We have written many articles and blogs on executive summaries. In general, it’s important to ensure that it is direct, concise, client focused and that it summarises why you should be selected for the job or project. The executive summary also needs to be ‘punchy’ so don’t waste unnecessary words on general marketing writing.
• Methodology: Check that it is detailed, reflects the scope of works, and demonstrates that you have thought through the project in full. You need to ensure timelines and deliverables are practical.
• Pricing: We usually review the pricing to ensure that you have comprehensively and correct completed the pricing proposal. However, if you are auditing your tender on your own, you can review the pricing in its entirety to make sure the price is reasonable and also ensure you have completed the pricing questions correctly.

More on fees and pricing for a tender

When you are reviewing the pricing provided in a tender, you need to ensure you are delivering value. That is the first step and also often the easiest one. The next step is even more critical. You need to ensure that you are writing and have clearly showcase how you will deliver value in your response. It’s one thing to put figures on a sheet. It’s another, and a better to approach, to put figures on a sheet and supplement this with explanations in your bid about how you will deliver value and why you have priced the tender like you have.

You should also check for, and add any, potential value-added services as part of the bid.

Compliance and regulatory

When conducted a tender audit or review, we always check for contract compliance and regulatory compliance. This is usually relatively straight forward – i.e. checking that you have all the appropriate licences in place. For example, if we are writing a bid for an electrical company, we would check you have the appropriate electrical licenses depending on the works, and also that you have traffic control certificates or any other documentation.

The key point to review is in the contract. You need to make sure that you meet the insurance requirements and that you are comfortable with any risks to the business. Sometimes there are onerous insurance or liability provisions in a contract. We pick up on these in a tender review where possible and ensure you are aware of and comfortable with them.

Proofreading and editing

AI or a simple spell-check will do the basics here. For something more advanced, you should read the tender and tighten the language to ensure it is concise, direct and personable.

The Tender Team tender audit and tender review service

Our team provides a comprehensive tender review and audit service for businesses across Australia. We can help you with specific questions, or review your entire bid. All of our audits and review are conducted by our founder, Jason Cooney, or one of our senior writers with direct experience in your industry. We have strong experience in government tenders and well as private tenders. When we review your bid, we will tailor our review to your client. I.e. We will take a different approach depending on if it is a local government (council) tender, state government or federal government RFP.

You will get an independent set of recommendations and instructions on how to improve your tender which will generally cover suggestions on:

• How to clearly express and integrate your win themes
• How to ensure you showcase the benefits your submission offers clearly
• Ensuring your key messages are interwoven throughout your bid
• Where to insert graphics and infographics and how to format your tender or bid to ensure it is polished.
• Practical examples on how to improve your content and case studies to ensure they are all evidence based.
• How to ensure your tender is robust

The cost, fees or price for a tender review

We are able to review your tender based on a fixed fee or hourly rate. When you send through a copy of your draft documentation, we will conduct a quick scan of the documents and then provide you with a fixed fee or estimated hours to review your tender for you. Contact our team today to discuss how we can assist

Frequently Asked Questions about our Tender Audit and Review

Is there a consultant in Australia that can review all of our previous tender and bids and create us a tender library?

Yes – Here at The Tender Team, our Director, Jason Cooney, who leads our bid review team, can conduct an in-depth deep dive into your previous tenders and bids to understand where you can improve and how. We can then help you draft ‘best practice’ and prototype responses to all common questions which you can then use to tailor to future responses.

Call our team on 0410 448 770 or email info@thetenderteam.com.au to discuss further.

I need a tender review and audit to find out why we are losing tenders. We are a construction business in Perth and Victoria. Is there a tender writing consultant that can assist?

Yes certainly. At The Tender Team, we have over fourteen years experience writing construction tenders and bids and are able to assist with a complete review of your upcoming bid.

Can I get you to check my tender and ensure it is all correct before I submit it? We have offices in Sydney and Brisbane and we also have operations in Darwin. This is a government tender.

Certainly. We can check your tender to ensure it is compliant. We have experience across many industries including health, defence, mining and community services. We do suggest that you provide us with ample time prior to the deadline so we have time to conduct a thorough check and that you have time to review the tender.

How do you audit the tender process? Can you help us restructure our sales and bid writing functionalities? We are a large, national firm.

Certainly. We have experience developing bid teams and functionalities. The Tender Team Director, Jason Cooney, will review your tender process and interview key team members. We will then provide improvement and suggestions on how to streamline and improve your tender process including adopting software and AI where possible.

How to evaluate a tender?

You can evaluate a tender by reading the response and cross checking it against the evaluation criteria. You need to mark each individual question. When we review your bid, we undertake this process to ensure you maximise points where possible.

Client testimonials

Jason and the team at The Tender Team reviewed our tender at Bronze, Silver and Gold stage (first, second and final draft). We were very happy with the review they provided at each stage as they added value at each stage and thought through the tender. Their review is very thorough and when they provide feedback they provide it in a positive and constructive way. When they reviewed our drafts, they came up with new ideas about what we could do to enhance our bid, and they pay particular attention to the scoring and the marking criteria. It’s like having it evaluated before it’s evaluated. 

They looked at it from the procurement team’s perspective and provided insights into how they look at bids and what we needed to do to win. Finally, they came up with excellent suggestions, and examples, of infographics and graphics. Where we were weak on some questions, they wrote a model response for us which we could adapt! Overall, it was a very positive experience and I would recommend them to any business who wants to ensure their bids and tenders are in line with industry best practice.

Terry M | Top Tier Construction | Australia-wide

We used Jason from The Tender Team for a tender review and he was excellent. Quick and response, he told us everything we needed to fix and improve and how to do it. He uses track changes and comments and clearly explains everything so it’s easy to act on his feedback. I would recommend a bid or tender review to any business who wants to make sure they haven’t missed anything in a tender response or has a must-win tender they are working on and wants to ensure it aligns with everything the competitors may do and more. 

Claudia S | Professional Services | Sydney

Our in-house team writes most of our tenders and bids and if we have capacity constraints we use The Tender Team. Recently, we solicited the services of The Tender Team, in particularly Jason, to review one of our drafts and provide feedback. It was a must-win tender which we were completing ourselves, so we though it was worth getting them to have a look over it. It was well worth the investment. They found two critical errors and gave us feedback which not only helped improve the quality of our tender, but also up-skilled our internal team. 

Another and impressive points is the way in which they deliver their feedback. It’s constructive and direct, but they include a lot of compliments about the draft as well which was critical for the moral of our in-house team.

I would recommend to any organisation, in just about any industry, that if you want to see where you stand in terms of your proposals or tenders, get one of the consultants at The Tender Team to review you draft.

Isaac C | Regional Manager QLD & NSW | Construction Industry

Welcome from our team

Welcome to The Tender Team. In this 2025 guide we take you through some of the strategies we use to help you win tenders. Our team of bid and tender writers work around the clock to help our clients win government and private sector contracts. 

The tendering landscape

Tenders are highly competitive in Australia in both the public and private sector. Within the tendering world, there are a number of different types of tenders and RFPs and RFTs often go by different names and acronyms.

Different types of tenders

Different types of tenders require different strategies and methodologies to complete and win them. It’s important to understand the tender process and type of tender that is released, in order to make an informed bid/no bid decision and submit a compelling response.

Open tenders – These are the most common types of tenders and also usually the most competitive. They are open to anybody and everybody to bid and therefore, generally have a lot of applications. Open tenders are a reality of tendering – and for many clients who had a contract for many years, it can be an intimidating and scary process.

On the other hand, open tenders are a great opportunity for businesses to get their foot in the door to service the government as well as private sector contracts. Procurement teams generally use the open tender process to gather as many bids as possible and get an understanding of the market. It’s also the most open and transparent way of carrying out the tender process.

Restricted or closed tenders – As the name suggests, you need to be invited to participate in these types of tenders. They are generally a competitive process between 3 – 5 highly respected businesses and more often than not, key competitors.

If you are invited to participate in a closed tender, it’s generally a good sign that it’s a serious process and that your bid will be taken seriously. They are generally highly competitive, not in terms of the total number of businesses bidding for the contract, but more around the quality of bids and the level of competition.

Panel appointments – These are appointments to panels for a 3 – 5 year period. They can come in the form of an RFP or RFT or other procurement mechanism. They are excellent opportunities to secure a pipeline of work – and even though you may not be tendering for a specific job or project – you will be tendering for the opportunity to work on a number of smaller projects over that period.

Changing strategies to win private vs public sector tenders and bids

The approach you should take to writing winning bids and tenders in Australia differs between private and public sector bids. Public sector bids are generally more compliance focused and there is limited flexibility in what you can do. You need to adhere to the response criteria and submit a compliant bid.

You also need to include evidence throughout your bid and strictly comply with the procurement guidelines. Beyond that, you are free to adopt best practice bid and tender writing techniques such as writing in simple English and integrating win-themes into your bid response.

Private sector tenders provide a bit more flexibility. You can use graphics and infographics to convey solutions to complex problems and they are often more receptive to alternative and non-compliant bids.

The procurement processes are sometimes less rigid and a more creative approach can be adopted through the tender process to ensure your bid is compelling and professional.

Preparing for your next upcoming tender in 2025

Early preparation is critical in terms of tenders and bids and you need to have a strong basis of content and documentation in order to respond to a tender quickly and to a high standard. To write a compelling bid, you will need to tailor your proposal to the specific contract. That means you need to spend the time writing a tailored responses and providing expertise and experience that reflects the opportunity.

One of the best ways to put yourself in a position to do this is to prepare well. Prior to the tender being released, get all of your insurance and other certifications together and store them in a central location. You should also develop a bid library with general content for case studies, CVs and other information.

What else can you do to prepare for a must-win tender or RFP?

Study and understand market and competitive landscape

Competitive intelligence is critical. If your competitors are launching new products and services into the market, you should monitor this. Identify if they are innovative in any way and look at what you can do to position yourself as a thought leader.

Where there are trends in the market, and changes in the competitive landscape, it’s important to monitor these and be mindful of these when writing your bid or tender. It’s also a good idea to research your competitors to understand their strengths and weaknesses, and monitor any tenders they bid for or successfully secure where possible (for example, the Northern Territory Government published all results on their website).

Reading between the lines of the client’s requirements

When you receive a tender or RFT to complete it’s important not to take all the questions at face value. You need to read the questions and think about the motivations and reasons that the procurement team has asked them. Reach each question and ask yourself:

• Why do they want to know this?
• What response will score well and what are they looking to hear?
• Could they be asking this because there are issues with the current contract?
• Does this question provide me with an opportunity to showcase some of my value proposition or USPs?

We generally recommend attending the pre-tender meetings as although they will always release the slide presentation afterwards, sometimes what they mention gives important clues about the clients pain points and what they are looking for.

Project managing the bid and tender writing process

One of the key areas where clients come unstuck in the tendering process is managing the tender and bid writing process itself. It’s one of the tasks that takes up a lot of our time here at The Tender Team when we are writing bids and tenders for our clients and is also critical. Failure to manage the bid writing process effectively decreases your chances of success as you invariably don’t have enough time or energy to focus on completing a comprehensive and compelling proposal submission.

If you want to win a public sector contract, you need to ensure you develop a proposal that highlights your key messages, is simple and easy to read and focuses on your key points of difference.

A robust process and methodology for writing a tender

In order to write a winning tender, you need to manage the tender preparation process well. Here at The Tender Team, we recommend taking a methodical and logical approach to the process. The methodology we generally adopt entails:

• Conduct a detailed review of the tender documentation when it is released. Put together a checklist of the different questions, who need to be involved and what supporting documentation is required.
• Put your initial team together for working on the response. Allocate roles and responsibilities and get everybody on-board with the opportunity.
• Conduct a bid/no bid discussion. This is important to understand whether or not the opportunity is worth bidding for.
• Set timelines and a schedule for your internal stakeholders to complete the bid.
• Appoint a bid manager and have check-in meetings with key personnel.
• Create a central document which can be treated as a live draft. Ensure the bid manager is in charge of version control.

Winning tender writing techniques

With businesses large and small all wanting to win a government tender in Australia, it’s becoming increasingly important to integrate best practice tender writing techniques into your bid or proposal. Some of the techniques and strategies we use when writing tenders for our clients include:

• Writing in clear, simple and easy to understand English with limited technical jargon.
• Structuring content with headings, sub-heading and bullet points. We also use images and infographics to break up content.
• Incorporating testimonials, quotes and other evidence throughout the bid and your writing.
• Spell check and grammar check your tender.
• Tailor each of your responses to the opportunity. Ensure you provide a tailored response to each question and also tailor any supporting documentation.
• Personalise your bid and write in a positive tone and active voice.

Storyboarding and developing win themes that will boost your chances of success

You need to have a positive, overarching story to tell in order to win a bid or tender. This includes developing key win-themes that will resonate with your client base and integrating these win themes throughout your bid.

Your win themes need to combine your key points of difference with what solution the client is looking for. They are interwoven throughout the bid or tender to convey clear messaging and a quality response.

A knock-out executive summary to help you win before you start

Another critical component of any tender is the executive summary. It’s generally speaking, one of the only parts of the tender where you can be relatively sure that the client will read it. It’s a chance to showcase your relevant experience, put forward your key points of difference, and highlight the benefits your bid delivers. When you write your executive summary, focus on your strengths, focus on the client, and ensure you convince them that:

• You will be using you’re A-team to deliver the service
• You are a credible and reliable supplier
• You are focused on the client – the client’s issues, the client’s challenges – and not on yourself.

Developing case studies and evidence that helps you win Australian contracts

Writing compelling case studies is critical to winning. Nearly every tender will ask you for your previous experience in some way or another. They usually also want you to provide referees where possibly and require sufficient detail in order understand your experience.

In order to write a quality case study, here at The Tender Team, we generally recommend you:

• Talk about the nature of the client and the contract or project
• Talk about which key personnel are/were involved in the project and if they are part of your proposed team.
• Talk about what services were provided as part of the contract including the volume and length of the contract
• Talk about your outcomes and performance. This isn’t restricted to contract deliver. You need to cover off safety, environmental and other key factors.
• Write about the challenges you encountered as part of the project and how you overcame them.
• Finally, and critically, make sure you identify the similarities between the project and the project or contract you are bidding for.

What you need to do to win!

In order to be successful in a bid or tender, you need to provide a compelling and persuasive proposal. Key strategies to employ include:

Responding to the evaluation criteria

Responding to the evaluation criteria is critical to the bid writing process. You need to ensure that you answer and respond to the evaluation criteria in order to be successful and score well. Each part of the evaluation criteria will be marked, and you need to make it as easy as possible for the reader to award your marks and align your response with the various aspects of the evaluation criteria.

When writing your bid or tender, ensure that you provide evidence and facts and figures that support your claims and add credibility to your bid.

Put forward a competitive price that will see you profit

Pricing for a tender is challenging. On the one hand you will want to win the tender or contract. On the other hand, you will need to make a profit – and winning a lot of tenders that are not profitable is simply not good business.

Some of the strategies we help our clients implement here at The Tender Team include:

• Cost-plus pricing. This is relatively simple. You add the costs you expect to incur to include the services, and then add on a margin. The key risk here is that you need to include the cost of administering the contract (reporting etc). Many of our clients when it is their first time tendering, do not understand that there is more bureaucracy administering a government contract. This needs to be priced into your price and reflected in our cost base.
• Value based pricing. This is a completely different approach. You are looking to quantify the value that you propose to provide. This can often be a higher figure than cost-plus – and requires a strong compelling proposal to justify the value you will provide as part of the contract.
• Market and competitive pricing: This is where you analyse your competitors pricing and set your pricing according to the market. This information can be gathered through market intelligence. This is an interesting approach and we generally recommend proposing a price that is mid-market. This allows for a reasonable profit margin and enables you to let your tender do the talking.

Health and Safety – always important in tenders and government contracts across Australia!

Health and Safety features in almost every tender or contract across Australia issued by the government, and most tenders issued by the private sector. In some industries, the questions are relatively straight forward and you will need to comply with all the requirements.

Other industries (such as construction and transport) are different. Health and safety can be a key win theme and a real point of difference that can make or break your proposal. The key point is that you need to see it as an opportunity to showcase your capabilities and not just tick a box. Procurement teams are able to see through businesses that simply tick a box and attach the required documentation.

If you think through the project and the health and safety challenges and risks, and you address these challenges and tailor your documentation to the opportunity, it will often set you apart from your competitors and put the readers and procurement team in a positive frame of mind.

Integrating quality assurance into your tender preparation process

Quality assurance is critical firstly for your tender response. Most federal, state and local government departments require you to have a quality management system as part of the tender process. But also – for your own internal procures. In order to ensure you write a compelling and polished proposal, our writers here at The Tender Team recommend you undertake the following quality assurance checks throughout the bid preparation process:

• Check claims and statements are backed up by evidence and facts/figures throughout your bid.
• Ensure the key messages throughout your bid are consistent and are client focused.
• Use the same font and general formatting throughout your bid (and in any supporting documentation where possible)
• Ensure you comply with the tender requirements (word limits etc)
• Conduct a spelling and grammar check
• Adopt a positive tone throughout your bid.

What happens after you submit your tender and are shortlisted – presentations and negotiations

If you submit a tender and it is successful, you will generally progress to the next stage of the tender process. This often involves a presentation and negotiations.

Presenting to win

Presentations are an opportunity to expand on what you have written in your tender submission. It’s a great opportunity to further personalise your bid and build a connection with the procurement team. Our team of writers have helped many clients create persuasive presentations and prepare to present. You need to look at it as an opportunity to close the deal – stress and focus on your strong points – and deal with any potential issues.

The reality is that by the time you enter a presentation, you procurement team will have read your bid and already know a fair bit about you. However, they will now have engaged with you, spoken to you, or developed any type of gut feeling about your ability to deliver.

When developing a presentation we recommend you:

• Focus on your win themes and make sure these shine through
• Take your team to the presentation to show your depth of resources
• Talk about the client’s needs and show that you understand the market
• Adopt a relaxed and friendly tone in your presentation
• Ensure that you have no internal politics in your team and your presentation is well structure.

Negotiating the final contract

Over the years, we have seen many clients successfully present and advance to the final contract negotiation stage, and then pull out of the tender process altogether. Sometimes this is for good reason. The procurement team may change some conditions or put onerous demands on the client. For example, we recently worked on a bid for a council run events centre when in the final negotiations, the Council put forward a requirement that the tenant pay the land tax. This was a substantial amount which made the process unviable.

On the other hand, taking a strict approach to the final negotiations can put a potentially successful tender and contract in danger. Our team of bid writers have guided clients through tender negotiations in all states across Australia from NSW to the Northern Territory. We advise our clients to:

• Be flexible in terms of additional requirements – especially if they add no risk or financial impact to your business
• Be confident, firm, fair and polite in negotiations
• Agree on communication channels early (such as email and phone contacts)
• Always look for a win-win solution
• Be professional and understand that the client will be using the negotiation process to gauge what it is like to work with you.
• Where you do not accept any terms, or additional terms, explain to the client why and what the issue is and propose an alterative solution where possible.

Feedback and debriefs – your chance to learn and what to ask

Once you have completed the tender process, regardless of if you have been successful or not, you will sometimes be given the chance to have a debrief or feedback session – take it!

It’s an excellent opportunity to gather feedback on how to improve your tenders and what you need to do to win future bids. We recommend you ask probing questions when given the opportunity such as:

• Where did we score well?
• Which areas of our response could we have improved on?
• How did our pricing compare to the rest of the market?
• Were there any concerns or red-flags with our bid?

When you gather any feedback, be it verbal or written, be sure to store it in a central repository and integrate and specific feedback into your bid quality assurance process.

The Tender Team – Reviewing your draft tenders and proposals and guiding your bid team

Our bid review service is very popular. It enables small, medium and large businesses across Australia to tap into our bid writing skills and experience, whilst completing the tender themselves and improving their own in-house bid writing capabilities.

When we review your bid, we will ensure you:

• Have introduced win themes throughout your bid
• Adopt the right response structure for each question
• Comply with the specific tender requirements and criteria
• Do not have any spelling or grammar errors (if it is a final draft)
• Have evidence and infographics in place to ensure your bid is credible.

Frequently asked questions about writing bids that directly respond to and serve your client’s needs in 2025

How do we know what clients really want to hear and read about in a tender?

When you are reading the question, you need to go beyond face value. Ask yourself why they are asking that question and what response they are looking for. Sometimes client have had a bad experience with the previous provider and will want to ensure there is no repeat issue.

What can I do to win more tenders?

Our tender writing service is designed to help you win more bids and tenders. To win more tenders and bids you can:

• Only bid for opportunities you have a real chance of winning
• Project manage the tender writing process efficiently
• Develop win themes and integrate these throughout your bid
• Write in a concise and effective manner
• Back up everything you say with evidence
• Tailor you bid to each specific opportunity and question and avoid using generic content.

Is there a tender writing service that can help us win more tenders?

Yes – here at The Tender Team we provide a tender writing service. We are focused on helping you write and win tenders. We work on bids across Australia in all industries such as construction, medical and defence.

Yes. The Tender Team helps businesses across Australia write and win government contracts. Jason Cooney, Director, leads a team of bid and tender writers who help clients:

• Win more tenders and bids. 
• Writing winning tenders.
• Develop quality professional bids to submit to government.

One of the first questions clients ask as when they call is if we can help them write tenders and win more government contracts. You can call 0410 448 770 to speak with Jason directly or email our team at info@thetenderteam.com.au to discuss your requirements.  

More often than not, our clients ask a series of additional questions including:

What industries do you service?

Our team writes bids and tenders for all different industries. We do not specialise in any specific industry. However, having said that, there are some industries which we do have detailed knowledge of, and others where our knowledge is less in-depth (mainly due to the fact that we haven’t worked on as many tenders in that specific industry).

Examples of industries we have extensive experience in include:

• Legal. We have helped law firms of all sizes, from boutique firms to the Top Tier, to write bids and tenders. This includes both the public and private sector such as TfNSW and the Federal Government, as well as the private sector such as ASX listed companies and multi-national insurance corporations. We have helped many clients fill key gaps including for maternity leave placements and writing bids and tenders when they are under-resourced. A quick chat with our team will demonstrate to you our breadth and depth of knowledge in legal tenders, all backed up by references if required. 
• Medical. Our experience in medical bids is also extensive. It includes allied healthcare bids as well as pharmaceutical bids and tenders. We have helped local and international clients to secure government contracts for a range of different health services from speech pathology to supply of medical equipment. Our team understands what the different government departments are looking for and has a strong understanding of the medical sector. We help medical businesses win contracts.
• Construction and maintenance. Since our inception, we have helped construction businesses across the country write winning bids and tenders. This includes smaller builders looking to win local Council contracts as well as Tier-1 construction and infrastructure companies bidding to deliver some of the countries most iconic projects. We understand the building industry in Australia and what it takes to win.

The Tender Team has experience across a wide range of industries – so talk to our team about how we can assist and how our experience aligns with your needs. 

How will you help us win more tenders?

A common question from clients and it is great that our clients ask. It shows that they are interested in getting value and winning more bids – which is our specialty. The Tender Team will help you win by:

• Ensuring you comply with all the requirements including requirements for supporting documents. 
• Introducing win-themes and positive language throughout the bid.
• Providing evidence and quantifying the value you will provide.
• Ensuring your bid is focused on the clients and their needs.
• Creating graphics and infographics to ensure your tender looks professional. 

Can I send you one of our previous tenders we lost and you tell us why we lost?

Of course. Our team can review your previous bids and will provide input on what you can improve in your next tender. We are committed to providing detailed, constructive ideas for improvement. Generally speaking, we work with microsoft word and will track changes and provide comments on how you can improve your bid.

We will also give you our perspective on why your bid was unsuccessful and will transfer our knowledge of bids and tenders to you through the process.

This helps ensure that your internal bid writing capabilities improve and you are in a strong position to win more future tenders.