How to win more government and private sector tenders in Brisbane and Queensland

Our team of tender and bid writers in Brisbane help businesses across Queensland:

• Write winning bid and proposals to government and private sector clients
• Review and provide feedback on your draft tender responses
• Create a tender and bid library
• Win lucrative government and private contracts

We have been providing this service for nine years and have had excellent start to 2024 with a number of winning results coming through for tenders and bid we have helped clients submit to Brisbane City Council and the Queensland Government in 2023. 

Our expert bid and tender writers are Brisbane based and bring a wealth of experience across a broad range of sectors. We employ industry leading methodologies and strategies to help you win including:

Strategy 1 – Writing to the weighting criteria – It is important to review the weighting criteria and write accordingly. Most tenders will provide a weighting criteria. You will notice that some perceived less important components of the tender will have lower weighting. For example, there may be a 10% weighting criteria for local procurement for a tender response for Brisbane City Council.

When compared with 40% for previous experience it doesn’t seem like a lot at all. Either way – you still need to write a comprehensive response and aim to score the full 10 marks. Why ?  Well firstly, a mark is mark and some tenders and bids are successful based on 1 or 2 marks difference. Secondly, sometimes lower weighted questions are a great opportunity to differentiate and score well. Most of your competitors, for example, will have similar experience to what you do. However,

Our tender writing in Brisbane service provides a professional, responsive and expert bid and proposal writing service to businesses in Brisbane and across Queensland.

Strategy 2 – Talk the Government Talk (for Govt tenders) – When you are submitting to tender to the Queensland Government, or a local Council, it’s important to talk the Government talk. To a lesser extent – this extends to the private sector.

It’s all about how you will benefit Queensland. Think about and talk about he following in your submission:

• How will you ensure the downstream economic benefits of the contract flow through to the local community?
• How you will support disadvantaged groups as part of the tender (this is helpful when you are tendering to large corporations who like to show that their values align with their suppliers)
• How will the contract help you support local jobs and training?
• Do your values align with the Government department? What are you doing about the environment and how will any innovative environmental initiatives you employ as part of your service benefit this?

Strategy 3 – Incorporate win themes – You need to develop win themes to convey in your bid. These should be interwoven throughout your bid. It’s important that they key sales points are not your standard points of difference. As each tender is different – you need to tailor your win themes for the specific opportunity.

Look at the contract from the outside in – not the inside out. I.e. look at your business in the context of your competitors, bidding for this opportunity. Your normal key points of difference may not apply – and your win themes will need to reflect this point. Once you have established your win themes (for example, an innovative approach to safety), you need to introduce the win theme in responses to previous experience, equipment and resources etc. Not just in response to schedules with respect to safety.

For example, in case studies you put forward, you should not only talk about your performance on the case or project in terms of KPIs or deliverables, but also your safety record on that specific project.

We employ many more strategies to help our clients win more contracts and are happy to discuss them with new potential clients at any time. 

Strategy 4 – Write concisely.

It is important to write in a clear and concise manner the council and government departments do not like reading overly detailed or overly fluffy writing they want everything to be clear concise and to the point they also want you to back up everything you say with evidence. That is because over the years they have reviewed tenders that would have made many different claims that weren’t true the procurement team need to know that what you are stating you will deliver can be backed up and will be delivered. In order to do that they look at your track record and they look at evidence for what you were saying.  Examples of evidence can include testimonials, letters from suppliers, letters from previous customers and also policies and procedures that you have developed within your business. When you are putting forward your evidence you can attach your evidence his appendices or alternatively include testimonials and other quotes directly in your bid. Finally, it is important that you reference whatever evidence you provide and that you provide some information on the context of the of the services that were provided. For example, if you attach a testimonial his evidence, you need to ensure that you provide some context on the services that were provided to that client he provided the testimonial. A short case study talking about the project the challenges that were encountered and the solution you provided will usually suffice.

Strategy 5 – Detail your experience

Go into detail when you are talking about your experience. It is important that when you are talking about your track record you go into detail about some of the projects that you have completed. This is because providing a summary of the projects that you have completed does not give enough insight to the reader about what real value you contributed to that project. By going into detail and broadening the scope of what you talk about, you can cover off topics such as safety, procedures, your methodology, the key personnel that were involved, and the unique solutions you provided as part of the contract. It is important that you link the requirements of the bid that you are going for with your previous experience and talk about how there are similarities between the two contracts or projects.

Strategy 6. Tailor your bid to your team

Tailor your CVS and personalise your tender or bid. This is critical. Throughout your bid or tender it is important that the buyer and the reader get to know your team. Firstly, you should tailor the CVS that you provide in your bed. Since you are bidding for a government tender, it’s important that you include government sector experience for each of your personal. This needs to feature at the beginning of their CV when you provide a brief description of their experience. In addition, it’s important that you tailor the experience and expertise that you include in each of your personals CVS to the opportunity. IE, if one of your team members has experience as an electrician and you are bidding for a grounds maintenance contract, you should give his or her profile more of a grounds maintenance flavour, rather than just focusing on electrical. Secondly, you need to show that your team members come from all walks of life. When bidding for a government contract it is important to demonstrate that you have a diverse team and that you are an equal opportunity employer. One of the best ways to do this is to talk about your different team members, and talk about their diverse backgrounds. Including quotes from your team members about how they are excited to work on the contract and how getting the opportunity to work on the contract will help their careers is useful and beneficial to your bid. These types of quotes should be integrated throughout your tender.

Strategy 7 – Understand the Council or Government Department’s motivations

It is important to research what the specific council or government department is looking for in their contract. Let’s take Brisbane City Council for example. If they release a bid for grass cutting services and this contract is in addition to the normal grass cutting services which they already have a panel appointed for, that it may be for something additional. For example, are they looking for additional grass cutting services to manage the volume of a special event. Once you research the activities that council is undertaking you will get a better idea of the underlying reasons for them to release contracts for tender. Furthermore, you can align your bid with their requirements, talk about some of the challenges they may face in the future, and then put forward a bid that not only answers their questions but also provides solutions to the issues that they’re facing.

Strategy 8 – Bid / No Bid Analysis

Make sure you undertake a comprehensive bid and no bid analysis. It is important that prior to bidding for a government contract, you ensure you have the appropriate experience and can meet the mandatory in requirements. This is because tenders and bids for government a highly competitive and you don’t want to waste precious resource is bidding for a contract where you have limited prospects of success. Take the time to review the minimum requests of the bid and ensure you will comply in order to ensure you bid for contracts you have a strong chance of winning.

We take a flexible and collaborative approach to helping our clients. Our fees can either be provided at hourly rates or on a fixed fee basis. We’re happy to help at any stage of the process. If you have completed the tender and want a fresh set of eyes to review it and bring it up to the next level with suggestions and graphics, we can help. Alternatively, you may require us to help with the submission from start to finish. We’re happy to provide a full tender service as well.

Our team of expert tender and bid writing consultants in Brisbane

Our team is led by Jason Cooney, a bid writer with over 12 years bid writing experience. Jason is supported by three highly experienced bid writers all of whom specialise in different industries and have a strong knowledge of the procurement processes of Brisbane City, the Queensland Government and the Federal Government. As a team of Brisbane-based experts in bid and proposal writing we have helped companies win private and government contracts across a range of industries including:

• Medical – including for the provision of medical services in regional and rural Queensland. 
• Healthcare – including providing healthcare products and a range of services to the healthcare and also aged care sector. 
• Defence – including writing bids and tenders to the Department of Defence (DoD) and developing marketing collateral and writing bids for Brisbane and Queensland based defence to overseas clients and governments. 
• Construction and infrastructure – ranging from writing small local Council bids for plumbing maintenance services to much larger proposals such as for the development of the Inland Rail project. 
• Facilities management – for both the private and public sector. We have helped small cleaning and security companies submit bids to service local shopping centres across Queensland as well as larger companies including national facilities management companies securing contracts for the management of multiple public buildings. 
• Manufacturing and supply – across a number of different industries. For example, we have assisted a quarry and other building supply companies to write bids to local Councils for the supply of building materials. 
• ICT / IT – Across the broad range of It and ICT services including telecommunications companies providing wireless services to regional areas and managed support providers servicing the education sector. 
• Professional Services – Including writing bids for lawyers and accountants. On occasion, these are for national firms based in Brisbane, or alternatively, based in Sydney or Melbourne with a Brisbane office presence. 
• Many more.

Examples of tenders and bids we have assisted with include:

Assisting an IT company to win a contract across Brisbane (and Queensland Schools

We assisted a Queensland based company to win a tender for the provision of IT support services to schools across Queensland including a number of Brisbane based schools. Our client was based in Brisbane and was a medium sized player in their market. They were an incumbent provider to five schools. When the contract was put out to re-tender, they come to us with the aim of growing the client.

We worked with them to communicate a comprehensive resourcing plan in their bid. This was critical as they had to demonstrate that they could grow with the client and expand their service offering. We also put together a localisation program so that schools and parents could get involved in IT. 

The bids was successful and they expanded to service 32 schools.

Assisting a law firm to bid for a Queensland Government law firm panel

We have helped many Top Tier and Mid Tier law firms win government contracts of the years. On this occasion, we were helping a law firm based in Regional Queensland bid for a a contract with a Queensland Government Department based in Brisbane.

Our client was an accredited specialist and had a small team all of whom specialised in the particularly practice area. They were going up against a number of large and mid tier firms – some of whom were located in Brisbane. We worked with our client to develop a strategy to help them win. The first key point was to talk about their presence in Brisbane. We provided, as part of the bid, a plan for a guaranteed presence in Brisbane should the bid be successful. This was critical to supporting any in-person needs. 

Secondly, we developed a win theme throughout the tender that focused on their depth of specialist resources. The reality was that our client’s team was actually larger than those from mid-tier and top-tier firms if you considered the practice area on it’s own. Other competitors may have had more lawyers, however, they were not specialised in the area our client was bidding for. We developed a win theme in the bid to articulate this point and clarify that although a boutique firm, our client was indeed the best resourced in terms of qualified and experienced personnel. 

Trades and maintenance services for an asset maintenance company in a bid to Brisbane City Council

To win a Brisbane City Council or Brisbane Government tender, you need to have a good plan for local jobs and apprenticeships (including Indigenous). We helped an asset management and maintenance company win a contract with Brisbane City Council for the provision of Asset Management Services for a range of Council buildings. 

It was a challenging contract to win because there were a number of other competitors going for the contract and it was for a number of different council buildings the scope of works of the contract was electrical plumbing fire and air conditioning. We work closely with our client to put together a comprehensive apprenticeship and jobs plan with the apprenticeship and jobs plan. We identified five potential roles where new apprentices could be taken-on in the company if they were to win the tender. We also talked about cross skilling and put a plan forward for local Brisbane residents some of which were of indigenous background and other were from the word disabled or were from a social group facing difficulty in the community.
We put in we put in a plan for them to learn different skills and start their certified apprenticeships as electricians, plumbers or other trades we talked about how they would build their skills over the length of the contract. In addition, since it was a five-year panel term we talked about how the apprentices could complete their apprenticeships within the term of the contract. This provided certainty to our business (being a five year contract) and also certainty from an employment perspective for the potential apprentices in order to help with this contract. We worked with our client to talk about the different equipment that they would purchase and how this equipment was environmentally friendly. This was also appealing as it was a panel tender for Brisbane City Council and therefore they were concerned about the equipment being used on site being safe and being environmentally friendly. Our client was successful in being appointed to the panel and there were only another five supply is appointed to the panel which was an excellent result for our client.

How we help you:

We have experience drafting bids and tenders to both the government (local, state and federal) as well as the private sector.  We have worked with countless companies all throughout Australia on projects of all sizes and scope. This ensures we have the expertise and experience to help you:

• Win more tenders
• Comply with tender requirements
• Implement best practice writing techniques
• Manage the tender or bid process from start to finish
• Develop compelling content
• Develop win themes that secure contracts
• Design graphics and infographics to get your message account
• Review your tender and suggest avenues for best practice

Our team will work with you to:

• Identify and implement key win themes
• Create a suite of documents as required for you to use in the future
• Educate and train your personnel on bids and tenders throughout the process
• Extract the best information and case studies that sell your business and experience
• Focus on and talk about your commitment to the local economy

Government tenders

We’ve helped business across Queensland win government tenders. A sample of the government tenders we have helped with include:

• QGIF
• LocalBuy
• QTenders
• Department of State Development
• Departmnet of Transport and Main Roads
• Queensland Health
• Department of Education
• Workcover Queensland
• Banana Shire Council
• Brisbane City Council
• Cairns Regional Council
• Cassowary Coast Regional Council
• Charters Towers Regional Council
• Cook Shire Council
• Noosa Council

• Palm Island Aboriginal Council
• Redland City Council
• Rockhampton Regional Council
• Scenic Rim Regional Council
• Sunshine Coast Council
• Tablelands Regional Council
• Townsville City Council
• Fraser Coast Regional Council

• Gold Coast City Council
• Goondiwindi Regional Council
• Ipswich City Council
• Hinchinbrook Shire Council
• Isaac Regional Council
• Logan City Council
• Mackay Regional Council
• Moreton Bay Regional Council
• Mount Isa City Council

What services our RFP response specialists in Queensland provide 

Our broad range of tender, bid and proposal writing services in Brisbane include:

• Technical tender writing
• Tender review and editing
• Professional layout and design development
• Bid writer recruitment
• Training on tender writing tools and strategies
• Complete tender response management
• Tender and bid review and feedback reports
• Business proposal and report writing

Our approach to helping you win Brisbane and Queensland Government Bids and Tenders

Our approach to helping small medium and large businesses win Brisbane government tenders and Queensland government tenders is simple. We become an extension of your team. From the moment you engage us we become part of your company. We work with you to help you win the tender. At the start of the process, we will take the time to understand what existing content you have. We will then look at your internal capabilities, and identify what subject matter experts we can work with, as well as any of your personal that will assist us in preparing the tender.

Once we have reviewed the tender we will provide a template document for you to undertake a bid no bid procedure. This will help inform us of if you should bid for the tender or not. Once we have decided to bid for the tender, we will then look at the existing content you have and identify what new content you require, and which key stakeholders will provide that content. If you need to update insurances or other supporting documentation, our team will work with you to either develop those documents or arrange for another provider such as your insurance company to provide them.

We will then start to work on the tender. For each question, we will provide a template of what points need to be covered. This ensures you provide a comprehensive response to that specific question and therefore, score well. We find this is the best way to ensure you have put forward a comprehensive and detailed bid that maximises your potential to score well in all questions.

When the initial template is developed, we will work with you to start putting together the first draft. Depending on the size of the tender, we can either put in place a project plan, to manage our progress on the tender response, or alternatively we can manage and project manage the response process for you. We will start to write the first draft for most of the questions, and we will pass these draughts onto you for your review and input. When we’re working with your internal stakeholders, we work collaboratively and constructively. This means that we come together as a team for the purpose of developing your bid and build strong relationships with your internal personnel that give them the confidence to contribute to the bid.

When we’re working with your engineers or other highly technical personnel, we will work with them to translate some of the technical documentation into easy to understand written content. We will also work with you to create graphics and infographics to ensure that your bid has a professional look and feel. Infographics are also helpful communicate complex solutions in a simple and easy to understand manner.

Once you provide your input on the first draft, we usually share a document in the form of a second draft which we work on collaboratively with you until we finalise the bid. If there is an online submission process, we can work with you to upload the documentation, and will of course keep any pricing that you submit for the bid confidential. With respect to pricing, we don’t provide specific advice on pricing, however we can assist you in interpreting their questions with respect to pricing.

For example, over the years we have worked with a number of manufacturing companies who have had difficulty answering questions regarding rise and fall in exchange rates will stop this is something that is often featured in government tenders in QLD, however many of our clients have not come across similar questions in the past. We can explain to you what the specific pricing related questions are asking for, and leave it to you to submit prepare and submit your confidential pricing documentation (of which there is no need for us to see or review).

Why hire our affordable proposal writers in Brisbane

Tender submissions need to comply with defined selection criteria and follow a specific format and content requirements. Many businesses don’t always have the in-house expertise needed or the staff available to write a tender that is worthy of making it through rigorous assessments. This is where it pays off to outsource the service to a professional company that specializes in tender writing in Brisbane. We understand the Brisbane and Queensland market and have experience helping companies win bids and tenders from all industries.

Selecting a service provider to help you with your tender writing in Brisbane is a big decision. Our tender management experience means you will be appointing a team of bid writers that specialises in bid writing in Brisbane and can increase your tender win rates. Our RFP writers have over a hundred years of collective tender writing and proposal writing experience. Our professional tender writers have helped hundreds of businesses in private tenders in QLD, including helping with Brisbane city council tenders and gold coast council tenders. We’re also experienced in content writing and provide a range of other content writing services including report writing and government bids.

How our experienced tender writers inBrisbane will manage your bid

Our tender management processes are tried and tested and we will approach and manage your bid in a highly organized and effective manner leveraging on our tender expertise to help you win. When we begin our engagement, we will research your company and get across your previous documents, get to know your organization and help define your proposal’s key win themes. Best of all, we know what the assessment panels are interested in. We can develop the bid response and package a tender application that will engage, persuade and compel the reader to choose you.

In addition to having the capability to preparing winning tenders, we also offer tender applications assessment, bid writer recruitment and tender writing training. We are able to provide examples of bids and tenders for your review, and have helped many businesses across Queensland secure private and government contracts.

How much does it cost to hire a tender or bid writer in Brisbane to help with your tender?

Our fees depend on the specific tender, it’s size and scope, and to what extent you require our involvement. Send through an email enquiry or please refer to your fees pages for some ballpark pricing. 

If your business is looking to grow its clientele through tender writing in Brisbane, contact Jason of the Tender Team 0410 448 770 to see how we can help.