Next course: Tuesday 5 November via Teams
Click on the link at the bottom of this page to book.
Who should attend?
Anyone involved in the tender writing process. Whether you are writing your first tender, or have been involved in tendering for a number of years and are looking to improve your techniques.
Why should you attend?
If tendering is one of the normal ways of winning work in your industry, then it is vital to do it well.
This course equips you with tools and knowledge on how to write a strong tender and how to manage the bid writing process. It is based on 13 years experience of writing tenders on behalf of clients from a wide range of industries, 12 years of evaluating bids for funding within the public sector and 4 years of writing for government ministers.
Benefits from attending
- Increasing your likelihood of success with a tender
- Increasing the quality of tenders that you submit
- Reducing time wasted pursuing tenders that you are unlikely to win
- Improving your bid management
- Helping decide how to proceed with using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for tendering
- Increasing your understanding of the public sector procurement mindset
- Increasing your ability to find public sector tenders
- Reducing stress associated with putting together a tender
Training Course Content
- Stages in the tendering process
- Preparing before the tender
- Compliance & Responsiveness
- Understanding the buyer
- Identifying key things to focus on
- Preparation before a tender is released
- Where to find contracts that you can bid for
- Creating a tender pipeline
- Project managing the tender process
- Researching your competitors
- Good practice for bid managers
- Deciding whether or not to bid
- Using a tender portal effectively
- Things that can and cannot be influenced by good bid writing
- Completing a Standard Questionnaire
- Policy Development
- Understanding the evaluator exercise
- Using team knowledge and skill to produce a strong bid
- Using a compliance checklist to help with bid management
- Advising writers and subject matter experts
- What does “significant added value” mean
- How to produce an excellent answer
- Evidence and what to include
- Avoiding “hollow statements”
- Good writing skills
- Editing exercise
- Good Formatting
- Headings and subheadings
- Using & producing case studies
- Benefits vs features
- Discriminators/Unique selling points
- Answering questions on Social Value
- Using good graphics to strengthen your bid
- Using captions to get your message across
- Use of review meetings to improve your tender
- Completing online tenders
- Financial assumptions in tenders
- Researching competitor pricing
- Submission tips
- Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems effectively when bidding for tenders
- Common mistakes when tendering
- Using FOI to get information
- 11 steps to develop your tendering process
- Plenty of opportunity to ask questions
Timing
The course runs from 9:30-16:15 and is delivered on-line using Teams. Alternatively, it is delivered over two 3-hour sessions arranged at a mutually convenient time.
In-person training can also be delivered. See ‘Delivery at your premises’ for details.
Trainer – Dewi Hughes
Dewi is one of the most experienced trainers in tender/bid writing in the UK.
- He is founder and MD of Silverlock Tenders – one of the main tender/bid writing companies helping SMEs to submit tenders and bids in the UK
- He has written and managed tenders and bids over the last 13 years for SMEs from a very diverse range of sectors (including construction, domiciliary care, waste, engineering, education, energy, training, security, IT, third sector & public sector)
- Dewi is a CIPD qualified trainer and has been delivering courses in tender/bid writing for over 11 years both in-person and via Teams/Zoom. Clients/courses include:
– Southwark Council – June/Sep 2024
– Icon Lifts – June 2024
– Can Geotechnical – May 2024
– Julian House – Mar 2024
– Nottingham CityCare Partnership – Feb 2024
– Turner and Townsend – Jan 2024
– Software of Excellence – Nov 2023
– Westminster Insight – courses delivered in Sep 2022, Nov 2022, Mar 2023
– London Anchor Institutions Network – June 2023
– Companies attending East Midlands Chamber of Commerce events – 2012 – 2021
– SMEs attending Silverlock’s 1-day courses (both open & bespoke) – 2012- 2024
– Nottingham Trent University – April 2018, 2023
– Nottingham City Council – several groups of SMEs trained – 2015-2016
– B2B Quote – several groups of SMEs trained – 2014
– Saab Technologies – 2014
– NHS Dudley – 2014
– Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce – 2013
– Nottingham, Gelding and Rushcliffe CVS organisations – 2012- 2015 - Training has received excellent feedback (https://www.silverlock.co.uk/feedback)
- Prior to setting up Silverlock, Dewi spent 21 years working for the government which included 12 years appraising bids for government funding, 4 years writing for over 50 government ministers, 4 years monitoring large European funded projects (ERDF & ESF) and 2 years managing Freedom of Information
- Dewi is qualified with the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP)
Course Dates
Latest courses dates for on-line training are given at the bottom of the page. New dates are arranged on a regular basis. If you want training around a particular date, please get in touch using the ‘Contact Us’ page to check availability.
Course price for on-line training if more than one attendee from your organisation
£350 plus VAT for 1 attendee
£275 plus VAT per attendee if 2-3 attendees
£250 plus VAT per attendee if 4-5 attendees
Urgent training
Have you got an urgent tender that you need to work on? We can provide training within 1 month at an extra cost of £300, or within 2 weeks at an extra cost of £500.
Added Value
One option we have recently added is a session where we provide feedback on a previous tender that you have submitted. You would need to email the tender to us 1 week before the first day of the course, and the feedback would be delivered via a session on the final day of the course.
Price: £600 plus VAT (which would be added to the total price).
Delivery at your premises
We can deliver the course on a face-to-face basis at client premises throughout the UK. Courses can also be tailored to focus on any particular needs. If you would like a quotation for delivering the course at your premises, please get in touch online, or call 0115 9266 477.
