Here are the first five of the 10 mistakes that I have most frequently, across the course of my more than two decades as a bid strategist and writer, witnessed bid teams making.

Each one of these practices is, in its own right, damaging to a bid’s success.    Collectively, however, they as good as guarantee that the only hope you have of winning is either a cut-price approach or an absence of viable competition.

Ready?

  Errant Practice No. 1 :

Seeing bid strategy planning sessions as either (a) unnecessary, or (b) something to be rammed through in a half-day workshop (a quarter of which is taken up by coffee breaks).

Wherever a solid bid strategy has not been formulated and articulated, the resultant EOI, RFP or RFT response will almost certainly constitute little more than directionless, “salesy” waffle. It is also almost guaranteed to be supplier-centric versus client/customer-focused.

It is also highly likely that, without strategic alignment of the service provider’s/supplier’s strengths with the client or customer organisation’s very specific needs, the bidder will feel tempted to compete on price more than would, or should, be necessary.

  Errant Practice No. 2 : 

Allocating overly tight  little 30 or 45-minute time slots to critically important concerns like competitive intelligence.

I frequently witness bid managers (i.e. those I have not yet worked with!) distribute bid planning workshop agendas that allocate a half-hour to competitive analysis.

Quite simply – that’s absolutely crazy. If you have a field of, let’s say, five very viable competitors, 30 minutes will buy you discussion time of six minutes per competitor. To think that the threat/s posed by each individual competitor, and the potential opportunities their weaknesses might offer you, can be covered off in six minutes is either incomprehensibly foolish or incomprehensibly arrogant. Or both.

  Errant Practice No. 3 :

Failing to think carefully and strategically about whom should be part of the bid strategy planning sessions.

Simply filling the room with the “available” demonstrates no thought as to what a bid manager is trying to achieve.

Getting some "acceptable number of bums on seats" does not automatically equate to producing strategic insights into the client organisation, the project, or the competition.

  Errant Practice No. 4 : 

Allowing know-alls to run the show.

Bid managers who allow the loudest participants to dominate in bid strategy workshops do everyone, and the quality of the eventual submission, a grave disservice.

Participants whom haven’t the personality or the desire to force their way into the conversation to make their input, simply won’t bother.

The resultant bid strategy is at risk of being founded upon the limited knowledge base and perspectives of the few.

 Errant Practice No. 5 : 

Believing it unnecessary to properly document bid strategy.

Almost without exception, bid writing teams are left to knit the threads of a supposed strategy together from the bullet point-style content of flip sheets pinned up around the workshop room.

If it’s not documented, it’s not a strategy.

In this (very common) set of circumstances, bid writers are armed with little more than a loose collection of supplier-centric “key messages”. And that, in turn, is why most submissions end up being little more than what I call, “brochureware”.

The Most Counter-Productive Bidding Practices – PART 2.