Uncategorised Archives » Page 2 of 2 » Tender Training College

Three tips to complete your online course

So, you have signed up for an online course with the best intentions, but are finding it difficult to find the time to complete it? You are not alone!

Online study offers the convenience of being able to learn anywhere, anytime and at your own pace. That is why it is such an attractive option for many. However, life also gets in the way and it is difficult to juggle competing priorities.

Here are three tips to help you get back on track with your eLearning:

Step 1: Set a deadline and establish a study schedule

Whether you are studying in work hours or outside business hours, it’s essential that eLearning becomes a part of your schedule.

The best way to do this is to schedule time in a daily or weekly planner – just as you would any other commitment or event that you don’t want to forget.

This gives you the flexibility to schedule study time that fits with you and your other commitments. If you have an upcoming tender to prepare for, it is particularly important to set a deadline for when you are aiming to finish the course.

Regardless, having an end date when you want to finish will help you keep motivated and on schedule.

Step 2: Ensure your environment is right

If you have scheduled study time in your office and you keep getting interrupted by colleagues, you might want to consider a better place to complete your course.

Everyone is different with what works and what doesn’t when it comes to their physical learning environment.

Some learners will find background music helpful, while others will be distracted by it. Others will excel by heading to a coffee shop and getting online, while others will find the noise and constant movement difficult to concentrate.

Work out what is the best environment for you so that you can make the most of your dedicated study time.

Also, remember the Tender Training College’s online courses can be complete on any device – so you might want to consider how you can integrate your online learning into your daily commute, or lunch hour, for example.

Step 3: Know you are not alone

Online study can take a bit of getting use to, particularly if you normally learn in a traditional classroom setting with other people. Make use of the customer support along the way.

Our Customer Excellence Team is happy to provide support online and offline. Email us at support@tendertrainingcollege.com.au or telephone 1300 414 000 during business hours.

Also, ensure you download the training materials to guide you through the course and to apply your learnings to the real-life tendering environment.

However, there is one constant to remember when you embark on an online learning journey – that’s don’t forget your WHY. Why you started this journey! Reminding yourself of this motivation will give you the extra push you need to complete your course.

Why a review of your tender is so important – before it is submitted

By Kate Burrows, Managing Director, Tender Training College

I recently wrote a response to a tender question for a client, who was bidding for a large government contract.

I was required to submit my response for ‘peer review’ as part of the client’s tendering process. That is, experts in tendering and the subject matter provided an objective and constructive review of my work before the submission date.

As well as positive comments, the reviewers provided invaluable feedback in terms of improvements to the content and the structure of the response. I was able to use this review to substantially improve the final draft.

The nature of the tendering environment means we are often under pressure to deliver a high-quality document within a tight timeframe – whether it be a small or large tender. An independent review of your tender – before it is submitted – helps improve the overall quality of your response and puts you in the best position to win the bid.

Here’s a few examples of how a review can help improve your tender outcomes.

1. A double-check against the core components

In the haste of compiling a tender, it is easy to forget or overlook a key component. This may be as simple as forgetting to include an attachment, or inserting a diagram in the wrong place.

However, it can also mean failure to include mandatory information, or not putting the response in the required format – all of which can make your bid non compliant.

A reviewer with ‘fresh eagle eyes’ can provide a check against these core elements, helping you spot any missing components that may put your submission at risk.

2. Assurance you have answered the question

Tender questions are often complex and confusing. Apart from deciphering and answering the question completely and thoroughly, there are multiple elements you need to address to score top marks.

Your response needs to:
• Address the evaluation criteria
• Show how you will meet the relevant tender requirements
• Be easy to read and score
• Convince the client you are offering the best value for money.

Often as tender writers, we write about the subject we know and sometimes miss addressing these key elements. An independent review against these criteria will enable you to address any gaps before the bid is submitted for the client’s evaluation.

3. Is it best practice

A tender response is a business communication tool that represents your company and is designed to win new business. Not unlike a business email, or a company report, there are best practise approaches and standards that are expected when writing a tender. These elements are not often communicated in the client’s tender document, but are expected.

They include:
• Don’t openly criticise the client or the competition in your response
• Make sure your font is readable
• Ensure you have the client’s name correct
• Follow the numbering system as set out in the client’s tender.

An independent review will not only identify any of these missing standards, it is also considered best practice when preparing a tender.

Building in review(s) to your tendering process will not only help improve the quality of your submission and your company’s reputation, it will also enhance your tendering skills and capability.

Kate Burrows is the Founder of the Tender Training College. Kate was inspired to start the Tender Training College to help businesses and professionals secure their futures by providing quality tender training courses.

To see how the Tender Training College can help you or your company improve its tender review capabilities, contact k ate@tendertainingcollege.com.au or visit https://tendertrainingcollege.com.au/review-my-tender-online/

Counteract the common tender fears

By Kate Burrows, Managing Director, Tender Training College

Tenders can be daunting, especially if you are new to tendering and the future viability of your business hangs in the balance of a successful submission.

I am currently working with a small business owner who is bidding their first tender. The outcome of this tender will make an enormous difference to the long-term sustainability of their company and their future livelihoods.

It is completely understandable then that this business owner has fears of the tendering process and also about their chances of success.

Even the most experienced tenderers can find the tendering process overwhelming at the best of times. But, the good news is that you can counteract these commons fears.

Empowering yourself with a better understanding of the tendering process, and the skills and capabilities associated with this, will put you on the path to tender success.

Let’s apply some of the key steps in the tendering process to help beat the tender fears.

1. Conquer the tender document

Tender documents can be mind-boggling and downright confusing!

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the questions, language, number of pages, and the rules and the requirements (or sometimes, the lack thereof).

As the first step in the tendering process, take the time to read the tender document. Now read it again.

This will help you gain familiarity with the tender document and its content, which is key.
This is important because at the end of the tender period, you want to submit a client-focused response.

Every time you read the tender, you will pick up something different and gain a better understanding of what the client is looking for.

Highlight key sections, such as: the client’s objectives; the evaluation criteria; the due date and time; and how the tender needs to be submitted.

2. Ascertain your chances of success

Don’t write yourself off as a losing the bid before you even begin.

Another key step in the tendering process is to review the requirements of the tender. These are what the client has stated as the necessary requirements to deliver if you win the contract.

Carefully assess whether your company can meet the tender requirements and for the duration of the contract.

If your company can meet the requirements of the tender and can deliver a competitive price – you are in the running to win.

You should carefully consider whether or not you will proceed with the tender if you can’t meet the requirements, and/or how your business can change its approach to be compliant with the requirements.

Failure to properly consider your chances of winning can mean a lot of time and money wasted on bidding.

However, once you know you are in with a shot, it’s all action stations on preparing a winning bid!

3. Outshine the competition

It’s easy to be nervous of the competition, particularly if they are a larger, more experienced or a better equipped business.

However, use this competition as a motivator!

Another key step early in the tendering process is to understand your company’s points of difference – that is, what sets it apart from the competition.

The first step in doing so is to look at the competition’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of what needs to be delivered.

How can you counteract the competition’s strengths, or use their weaknesses as an advantage?

Now take a good look at your company – what are your strengths and weaknesses, and how are these different and/or unique to those of the competitors?

Once you have identified your competitive advantage, you can distil this into succinct key messages.

This will help define your approach to the questions, and enable you to write your response with much greater clarity.

How to avoid three fundamental tender writing mistakes

By Kate Burrows, Managing Director, Tender Training College

I was recently engaged by a small business to audit its past tender responses, and advise on how it could improve its written submissions and win rates. The key improvements I identified for this particular SME’s business are actually relevant to all companies, bid teams and professionals who write tender responses. They represent tips to counteract some of the fundamental mistakes professionals make when answering tender questions.

I see these tender writing mistakes time and time again, and they put companies at the lower end of the scoring scale when it comes to the evaluation and winning the bid.

Mistake 1: Failure to answer all parts of the question

Don’t give away marks by only partly answering the question. Let’s take an example tender question to demonstrate how to answer it in its entirety:
The Respondent is to provide its approach on how it will measure, monitor and report on its performance over the term of the Contract.

If your response only includes information on how your company will measure performance, then you will not score full marks.

You need to address all parts of the question to be eligible to score maximum points. That is, how you will separately measure, monitor and report on performance.

TIP: Before you start writing your response, identify the components of your question that need to be addressed. Failure to address each component means you are giving away valuable points.

Mistake 2: Poorly structured response

The basis of a strong tender response is in the structure. Too often, I see tender responses that are poorly structured.

By that, I mean the content is not presented in a format that clearly references and answers the question. This makes the evaluator’s job difficult to find the information it is looking for and to assess the response.

Let’s take our example tender question again: The Respondent is to provide its approach on how it will measure, monitor and report on its performance over the term of the Contract.

I would expect to see a structure with headings that clearly reference the elements of the question, such as:

1. Approach to measuring performance
2. Approach to monitoring performance
3. Approach to reporting performance.

TIP: Before you start writing, set up a structure for your response so you have a framework for answering the question in a clear and logical way that references the question.

The best way to do this is insert headings and sub-headings in your document that reflect each part of the question. Also, make sure the headings are in the same order as presented in the question, and contain the same or similar wording.

This enables the evaluator to easily identify, review and assess the information they are looking for.

Mistake 3: Of course we can, not how we can

In one of the SME’s tender I reviewed, it appeared as though content had been copied from a capability brochure or a website.

The response talked generically about how the company performed its business and provided its service offering. There was little or no reference to the contract it was aiming to win.

Evaluators do want assurance that your company has the capability to deliver the goods or services under offer. However, they are scoring your response on how your organisation will apply its skills and experience to meet the specific requirements of that particular contract.

Each client, each contract and each tender has unique requirements. Failure to identify these requirements and show how you will meet (and hopefully exceed) them, may result in a non-compliant bid and certainly a lower score.

TIP: Read the tender document carefully to identify the requirements that are relevant to your question. And then make sure your response addresses how your company will deliver upon the tender requirements over the term of the contract.

The Tender Training College offers Tender Writing Courses for professionals in small to medium sized businesses as well as those in larger corporations.

For professionals in SMBs: Tender Writing Certificate
For professionals in large companies: Develop & Write Winning Tender Content Certificate

To see if and how the Tender Training College can help your company improve its tender writing capabilities, contact kate@tendertrainingcollege.com.au

Dos and don’ts of tendering to avoid common mistakes

By Kate Burrows, Managing Director, Tender Training College

The lack of client feedback on tenders is a constant challenge for businesses bidding for work.

Why did your company lose? What could it have done differently or better?

Often the silence after submitting a tender can be deafening, given the hard work that goes into responding and the stakes at hand.

Even if your company isn’t the successful proponent, it would be good to know where it went wrong.

According to according to the Federal Government, which awards around 60,000 contracts annually, there are commonly avoidable mistakes all bidders make.

It released its dos and don’ts of tendering* to help tenderers avoid some of the mistakes that may impact on their success.

The dos of tendering are:

- Prepare responses against the evaluation criteria and address all elements of each criterion
- Seek to understand the mandatory requirements and terms and conditions
- Demonstrate your organisation’s ability to provide the required services and provide factual and focused responses using examples
- Provide sufficient detail on any assumptions being made
- Quantify and qualify responses, eg:
  - ‘up to 24 hours’ – this could actually be only five minutes
  - ‘we will save you 50%’ – of what, when and how
- Ask questions if unsure of the meaning of something, ask the tender team for clarification. They are there to help
- Leave sufficient time to lodge your bid on AusTender.

The don’ts include:

Assume that the tender evaluation team knows about your organisation and its capabilities – this is particularly relevant to incumbent suppliers. Tender teams can only evaluate what is submitted in written responses and obtained through verification activities
Submit broad, vague or repetitious statements, or irrelevant marketing information
Cut and paste information from previous tender responses without checking if the information is relevant to the current tender
Assume there will be a second opportunity to provide pricing -submit the best offer the first time.

I recommend keeping the dos and don’ts handy as a checklist when preparing your next tender.

Alternatively, we can provide a review of your next draft tender against these key criteria. Find out more here: https://tendertrainingcollege.com.au/review-my-tender-online/

*https://www.finance.gov.au/blog/2016/02/11/common-mistakes-in-tender-response

Hundreds of pages, with multiple attachments, schedules and appendices… it must be a tender document!

By Kate Burrows

Tender documents can be overwhelming on many fronts, especially when you are new to tendering or even a seasoned professional.

Often the document itself is a major contributor to this frustration and stress, especially if its hundreds of pages and in multiple parts, with various attachments, schedules and appendices.

On a recent $2 billion infrastructure tender I worked on, the bid team needed a diagram to understand the relationship between the many and various sections of the tender document. The diagram resembled a family tree!

For a business professional who is new to tendering, it can be difficult to wade through the tender documentation, and identify the most important and relevant sections for a question you need to respond to.

You may not be aware of:

What are the typical parts of a tender document?
What is the purpose of each section?
What relationship does each part or section play to one another?
What are the relevant requirements to the question you are answering?

So before jumping in and writing a response, business professionals should read the tender document and identify the relevant requirements that relate to their question.

For example, in a tender document for the design and construction of a new hospital:

The client has set out in Section A, Conditions of Proposal that the response needs to be written in Arial 11 font, supplied in pdf format and with no cross referencing
Section B, Conditions of Contract contains the responsibilities and obligations that the winning bidder needs to meet over the term of the Contract, such as the timeframe for building the hospital and the penalties if it is late
The client has determined in Section C, Specification that it wants the new hospital to be designed and built to specified standards and functional performance requirements.

Failure to understand and address the relevant requirements in your response may mean you score a low mark, or worse, fail to comply!

It sounds complicated and often is, but you need to navigate through a tender document and identify the relevant requirements to your question or questions. Then you need to ensure you address these requirements in your response.

Once you learn the tricks of the trade, you will gain the skills and confidence to ensure your tender response is compliant each and every time.

Do you need help putting together the pieces of the tender puzzle?

By Kate Burrows

I have been fortunate to form successful associations and even long-lasting friendships with many of my tendering colleagues of the last decade and more.

Not to mention consumed way too many slices of pizza with many of you around the conference table as a submission deadline approaches.

But with some $25 billion in successful tenders in my professional toolkit, I realised there was a more efficient, effective and engaging way I could help you improve your tender performance.

Enter the Tender Training College â€“ Australiaâ€™s first dedicated e-learning centre for tender training.

I am really very proud to be launching this venture because I know first-hand how it will empower business professionals to enhance their confidence and careers.

Over the years, I have repeatedly seen people with limited training or experience in tenders dropped into tender teams.

There’s no manual available. The deadline is looming and it quickly becomes a sink or swim state of affairs.

And I know how that feels, because that was me at the start of my tendering career.

You hope no-one notices you are frantically treading water, trying to stay afloat while you work out what the difference is between an EOI and an RFP, or how to comply with the tender requirements.

Fortunately, I learnt a lot from people who were already seasoned tender professionals and was trained as a tender coach.

Bid by bid, I saw there was a way to unravel the mysteries of tenders and tendering.

And a way to systemically and efficiently put the pieces of the tender puzzle back together to be successful, time and time again.

I realised there was a formula approach available to help people become more effective in tendering so they could spend more time doing the things that were important to them.

Hence, the idea for the Tender Training College was born.

With my team, we identified the key competencies and skills that were required to be a part of a winning tender team in the Australian marketplace.

We applied the best e-learning principles to my expert knowledge in tendering to produce a number of quality online courses to improve tendering performance and productivity.

Take our Introduction to Tenders and Tendering Certificate as an example. We go back to the beginning to understand the role that tendering plays as part of a government or companyâ€™s procurement process.

Why do clients even go to tender in the first place? What are they looking to achieve? How do they assess the responses?

Importantly, this course helps to demystify the different types of tender documents and give you a better understanding of the component parts of a tender document.

Where was this course 15 years ago when I needed it? Hereâ€™s hoping it gives those professionals new to tendering the knowledge, capabilities and confidence they need to shine.

And to those seasoned professionals, I look forward to many more years of working with you in this new venture.

I encourage your feedback to help the Tender Training College to continuously improve the skills and knowledge of the professionals in our marketplace.

Donâ€™t hesitate to email me your thoughts â€“ kate@tendertrainingcollege.com.au

Save time tendering and enjoy doing what matters the most

By Kate Burrows

Mike is a Safety Manager at a large engineering consultancy firm.

Mike hasnâ€™t been home â€˜on timeâ€™ all week.

He is desperate to join the family for dinner tonight.

But first he has to submit a response to a tender question for a Request for Tender (RFT).

The government client is wanting to procure engineering services for a road construction project. Mike’s question is asking for an overview of the companyâ€™s safety management system (SMS).

Mike knows he has provided an answer to an identical question in a recent tender, which the company happened to win.

He cuts and pastes the relevant bits from the earlier proposal and puts them in the template for this RFT.

He changes the name of the client and some of the information which is no longer current. He adds some content that reflects the current project.

Mike does a quick read over his response and hits the send button. He is pretty pleased that he managed to do it so efficiently and effectively, and that he can make it home in time before his children go to bed.

But Mike arrives at work the next day to an email from his boss, asking him to rewrite his response to meet the compliance requirements of the tender.

â€œWhat compliance requirements?â€ he asks himself.

â€œIâ€™ve answered the question, and we won that previous tender. What more do I need to do?â€

Mikeâ€™s problem is that he skipped one of the critical parts of preparing a tender response.

And it is a problem that I see in tendering time and time again.

In each tender, the client identifies compliance elements that will make your proposal non-conforming and potentially put your company out of contention if you donâ€™t address them.

They could be as simple as not following the ‘rules’ of the tender, such as the required format of the response document, or not submitting the tender on time.

But they also cover the requirements that are listed in the contract and or specification in the tender that outline how the good or services are to be delivered and to what standards.

In Mike’s case, the contract stipulated the SMS had to comply with certain statutory and regulatory requirements, which werenâ€™t addressed in his answer.

In fact, he had the wrong regulatory requirements included in his response.

Mikeâ€™s response also didnâ€™t include information about the safety policies and procedures that are required to form part of the SMS, as outlined in the specification.

While he thought he answered the question by providing an overview of the SMS, Mike’s answer was not compliant with the tender requirements.

So how does Mike even know where to look in the tender document for the compliance elements that relate to his question?

The first place is in the draft contract and or specification if the tender includes these documents.

Mike should have searched these documents for references to the SMS and identified what he needed to address in his question to make sure his answer was compliant with the requirements.

Had Mike completed the Develop and Write Winning Tender Content Certificate, he would have been provided with a step-by-step process that helped him to:

Identify the compliance requirements for his tender
Determine if his company was able to meet the requirements
Build a story that demonstrates to the client how the requirement will be met over the term of the contract.

It would have meant more time planning his response at the front end, but a more time efficient and productive outcome than having to rewrite his original answer.

The Develop and Write Winning Tender Content Certificate empowers business professionals like Mike to avoid common mistakes and improves the value of their contribution to the tender team.

It also means they can spend more time doing the things that matter the most, like spending more time with the family.

“Where do I register,” asks Mike?!

Training a new mobile era

By Kate Burrows

I grew up in an era when workplace training was done in a classroom, or for me specifically it was mostly done on the job.

As a cadet newspaper journalist, a senior journalist would sit beside me and check every single word for relevancy in any story I submitted.

In those days, you could also smoke in the office which gives you some hint as to the years of my wisdom and experience.

It was a rigorous and excruciating process. But I got to appreciate the value of each word, and also why smoking in the office should definitely be banned.

However for todayâ€™s workplace learning, training is becoming less seat-based and dictatorial as we seek more efficient and convenient learning environments, and individualised outcomes.

And unfortunately for newspapers, todayâ€™s information is being delivered in bite-sized, more digestible chunks as our attention spans adjust to an increasing digital and mobile environment.

The result is an increasingly relevant role for mobile elearning as a method to acquire new skills.

Smartphones, tablets, and even other devices like smartwatches will play an increasingly relevant role in eLearning on the job, according to Doceboâ€™s Leveraging the Natural Synergy of Mobility and Micro learning in eLearning report.

It makes sense – our phones and other devices have become our virtual offices.

Mobile elearning is particularly suitable for those business professionals who want to obtain or improve their skills at their own pace and at a time that suits them.

It provides them the option to progress their training while on the morning commute, or waiting for a coffee.

Mobile elearning is particularly relevant for business people who want to learn specific skills and competencies that will help them improve their performance and productivity in tendering.

For example, HR Associate Mary needs to learn how to ensure her tender responses are compliant against the tender requirements.

Mark, who is a Finance Manager, wants to learn how to better structure and write a tender response.

Mary also wants to do the Introduction to Tenders and Tendering Certificate for some much needed background and context in tenders.

Neither of them can afford to spend a day or two out of the office and in a classroom where the course material is generic, and not targeted to meet their specific knowledge levels and skill requirements.

Fortunately for Mark and Mary, the Tender Training College can offer them online courses that match their individual requirements, and which they can complete on their mobile devices â€“ when it suits them.