7 Top Tips For Winning Your Next Tender

Good estimates are vital for winning tenders. Set yourself up for success with accurate estimating software. We’ve got seven top tips for winning your next tender:

The key to a successful construction business is winning tenders. This allows contractors to build up more work and gain more clients, resulting in a boosted business. Winning tender bids is not always that easy though, and it requires a highly efficient process to achieve best results.

As the construction industry is so competitive, having an accurate high-quality bid is crucial. Eliminating errors and creating more accurate estimates is a must here. But, it also takes a bit more than that to help you to win a tender.

7 Tips for winning your next tender

The ability to generate more accurate bids with greater efficiency is a necessity for any contractor that wants to win more tenders. So, here are some tips to help you win your next tender and boost your success!

• Understand all tender requirements

One of the first things that any contractor needs to understand about any tender, is the specific requirements needed on the prospective project. In any tender, there can be loads of very technical information included in the tender.

For the bid to be a success, the client will need to be convinced that you can deliver on their requirements.

For a solid tender application, it’s essential that the contractor has a genuine understanding of the requirements involved and exactly what needs to be delivered. Being able to deliver on the minimum requirements is the first step towards a strong tender application.

• Be realistic on what you can deliver

Being able to present a well-documented and accurate tender is important, but contractors will need to be able to deliver on this tender if their bid is successful. Once the requirements are understood, contractors need to be confident that they can fulfil these before submitting the tender.

Submitting tenders that are unrealistic in terms of delivery can have a negative long-term impact on your business. It can lead to unhappy clients and a bad reputation. Always make sure that your business can confidently handle the requirements of the tender before submitting a bid.

• Reference examples

A good tender will refer to previous examples completed by the contractor. Being able to reference similar projects in the past will help the client to gain a better understanding of your work. This will help build a stronger level of confidence in your company and have a positive effect on any new tenders.

It will also help the contractor to create a more realistic understanding of what the project will involve, based on past experiences. Showing examples demonstrates your ability to undertake similar projects – something that all potential new clients are interested in.

• Provide accurate details

Tender requirements often expect specific details and contractors need to be able to accurately meet and supply these. They could include information on your pricing tables, insurance, company profile, capability statements or a range of other things.

Being able to fill in all the specific details needed for the tender is important and you should always check the details!

• Use estimating software

The best way to win a tender is by producing an accurate and efficient estimate. This is best done by using specialised construction estimation software. Estimating software provides an easy solution for contractors to come up with error-free bids faster, more accurately and with greater confidence.

There are many benefits to adopting estimation software – the main ones being greater accuracy and efficiency and better management. Not only does this make it more likely to win tenders, but it also enhances the construction process that follows. A fit for purpose software ticks all the boxes when tendering, allowing more time to be spent on administrative aspects of the bid.

• Understand your USP

Every business needs a unique selling proposition (USP) to stand out from the competition.

Contractors need to understand what their USP is in order to grab the attention of new clients. This could be the use of certain products, innovation, quality, trustworthiness, or other attributes. Including this in a tender helps to build your brand, as well as enhance your bid.

• It’s more than just the tender document

Submitting a tender is a process that involves more than just the actual tender document. Clients will form an opinion of you based on how you communicate with them straight from the start. Understand that the actual tender is important, but every other interaction with the client also adds to your bid.

Make sure that every client interaction is friendly, professional, and contributes to building a relationship that will help you to win a tender. So, arrive at any meetings or site visits on time, respond to emails quickly and be open with communication.

The Bottom Line

The construction industry can be incredibly competitive. So, submitting strong tenders to prospective clients is very important.

Using technology and estimating software is one of the easiest ways to provide accurate, efficient and trustworthy bids to new clients in order to win a tender.

The ability to estimate using first principles, pricing your Indirects, the use of subcontract comparisons, quantity take-off and markup functionality all allow accurate tendering and thus allowing the required bottom line to be created and maintained.