Proposal Writers – Some Tips to stay Motivated

When you sit down to tackle the latest tender that arrives in your in-box, do you feel confident that you are able to complete it to be at the very top of the bid writing profession?

Our confidence as proposal writers can fluctuate daily – particularly when we’re influenced by a recent great win or a devastating rejection at the hands of our evaluators. The problem is, the main criteria we have to assess our individual writing skills is a clear-cut win or lose scenario – meaning that no matter how adept at writing we may be, we can only ever measure ourselves against our ongoing win rate.

Win rates can be dependent upon a range of things – whether the bid was priced properly to be competitive or not, whether the people across the bidding company got information to you in time, and whether you were supported by a competent bid manager and strong process.

However, if all of these factors are in place and you still don’t seem to be measuring up in terms of your win rate, it may be worth revisiting your training and seeing if you can polish up on some of the bid writing basics.

There are a wealth of different ways to learn new bid writing skills, and sharpen your prowess as a writer.

One of the first ways you can approach a process of learning is by looking at the work of other people.

Bids that win are usually supported by great writing, so looking through the past catalogue of tenders which others have produced and have been successful can give you great insight in to new techniques and tricks for enhancing your own skills.

Another ideal way of sharpening your skills as a writer is through evaluation. Changing the focus of your skills from writer to evaluator on bids enables you to approach documents with a fresh eye, ascertaining how compliance can be reached and enabling you to mark down all of the things a fellow writer could have done to improve the bid.

Sitting on the other side of the desk will remind you of some of the basic tenets of great writing, when you read another bid which may not necessarily include some of these good practices. Additionally, operating as an evaluator for a while reminds you of what you need to do to secure a win, and how you can improve your style and technique to ensure absolute clarity and compliance in future bid writing challenges.

Finally, remember to keep abreast of new methodologies, tips, tools and techniques across the remit of the bid writing profession by attending bid writing courses regularly. Read up on new books, take a refresher course if you think it may be useful, and revisit the basics from time to time to keep ahead of your game.