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Breaking down the Tendering Process with Steve Martin
RCSA recently conducted a survey to learn more about its member’s thoughts about writing up a tender. 40% of respondents admitted the ordeal is challenging for them. 96% agreed they wanted to learn more about the process.
Steve Martin from HeightPM might have the hair colour as his famous comedian namesake, but THIS Steve Martin’s superpower is vastly different. With 15 years Recruitment Experience and multiple sales focused roles, Steve brings expertise in creating successful tenders and is committed to sharing the tricks of the trade with recruitment professionals through the three-part RCSA facilitated online workshop, “Write and Price to Win”.
Why do people find the tendering process so daunting?
Tenders add a significant amount to the daily workload. They are time consuming, can be stressful and quite comprehensive in their requirements - especially government tenders. The survey showed not a lot of companies have case studies, data, and common response materials pre-prepared. As a result, they must source and create a lot of this in a compressed timeframe – on top of their day job. I feel there is opportunity to build best tendering practice in the recruitment industry.
What’s the best way to make your submission stand out from the crowd?
The opportunity to differentiate your service via technical means or methodology in recruitment is less than others. Therefore, it becomes more about showcasing your people and how well you do things through track records, quantifiable data, and real evidence of performance.
There are many ways, and each tender will be different, but providing case studies and telling success stories carefully aligned to the client’s world is one way break down barriers and distinguish yourself from competitors.
What will you cover over the course of the workshops?
The workshops will be conducted over three, 2hr online sessions. In a nutshell, they will cover everything from critical pre-positioning activity to how to best perform in the final interactive presentation stage. We'll cover off how to make rational decisions around whether you should go for a tender or not. Then we'll talk about what the typical tender processes are, what to expect to see in an RFP document and what the client expects. We will share frameworks that help you complete a quality document on time with less stress and best writing practice for setting out responses, writing profiles, case studies and project examples. Pricing and supporting broader outcomes within communities is also becoming very important, particularly with governments, and we cover off what scores the best points in these areas.
What should you NOT do when writing a tender?
Too many companies talk about themselves first. They’ll focus on presenting their features, hoping that the client will see benefits within that text. This is a big mistake. It’s critical to put yourself in the client's world first. This means you need to do your research and understand their drivers and the risks are they seeking to manage before you start writing a single word…only then you can align your solutions to their requirements and articulate true value.
What is the main message you would like attendees to take away?
Attendees of the course will come away feeling empowered and armed with the know-how to put their best case forward and the confidence of being in control of each step of the process. The principles we share have value in growing business well beyond tendering and can even be applied to dating LOL!
With the right systems in place and the right preparation, attendees will save a lot of time and achieve great outcomes for themselves and their company.
Register here for the workshop.
The first session kicks off on October 3.
For more information, please contact the team via [email protected]