Whilst the first and most immediately obvious step in improving poor articulation performance in a submission is to subject it to a rigorous editing process, there’s almost always a greater issue at play.

That issue is the largely non-client-specific (at least, not convincingly specific) and generally “same, same” nature of the content . . . the supplier-focused “brochureware” that results from an unclear, uncertain or absent bid strategy. Or an insufficiently documented one.

In almost every bidding enterprise I’ve worked with, writers have previously had to either rely on little more than workshop notes, together with existing generic content, to inform their response sections. For the most part, they’re forced to interpret and piece together in their own minds, the intended underpinning strategy and guiding themes supposedly resulting from planning sessions.

In many cases, they’re faced with making up the content themselves without any guidance.

It’s critical to recognise that producing a client-focused submission requires more than a simple emphasis on writing techniques and editing processes (e.g. flipping sentences around to commence with the client organisation’s name versus the bidder’s).

If writers are given a comprehensive and user-friendly bid strategy blueprint to guide them, and along the way their outputs are nurtured by the appointed strategist within the group, their writing should, by default, adequately convey the bid strategy. And it should do so in a client-focused manner.