By James Lopez, Bid Strategy Lead, Glaxtons Consulting
The fastest way to raise your win rate is not to write better bids. It is to stop bidding for the wrong ones. Every tender you pursue costs real time and money, and every weak bid you submit drags down your win rate and your team morale. Disciplined qualification is the highest-return habit in bidding.
This is the bid or no-bid framework we use. It is free, it takes fifteen minutes per opportunity, and it will save you far more than that in wasted effort.
Bidding for everything feels productive and is quietly destructive. It spreads your best people thin, produces rushed submissions, and normalises losing. A supplier that bids for six well-qualified opportunities and wins three will beat one that bids for twenty and wins three, on cost, morale, and reputation with buyers.
Score each question from 0 to 3 and total out of 30. Treat any mandatory-requirement failure as an automatic no-bid regardless of the total. As a rule of thumb, a score above 22 is a strong bid, 16 to 22 is worth a conversation about how to strengthen your position, and below 16 is usually a no-bid unless there is a strategic reason to invest.
Deciding not to bid is a legitimate, often profitable, decision. It frees your best people to win the opportunities you should win. Record the reason, and where relevant tell the buyer you are not bidding this time and why. Buyers respect suppliers who qualify seriously, and it keeps the door open for the right opportunity later.
It is the disciplined decision about whether a specific tender is worth pursuing, made before you commit time and money. A good framework scores the opportunity against factors such as fit, experience, capacity, price, and probability of winning.
Score the opportunity against a consistent set of questions covering mandatory requirements, relevant experience, the incumbent, buyer relationship, price, capacity, evaluation weighting, deadline, profitability, and any signs of a pre-decided outcome. Treat any mandatory failure as an automatic no-bid.
Yes. A no-bid is a legitimate and often profitable decision. It protects your win rate and frees your best people for the opportunities you should win. Record the reason and, where relevant, tell the buyer politely.
By concentrating effort on winnable, well-fitted opportunities, you submit fewer but stronger bids. Suppliers who qualify hard almost always report higher win rates and better margins than those who bid for everything.
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The wider public sector playbook
Consultant vs In-House
ROI comparison and analysis
How to Answer Tender Quality Questions
Score higher when you do bid
First-Time Bidder Guide
Step-by-step guide for new bidders
How Much Does Bid Writing Cost
Understand the investment
Bid Health Check
Personalised diagnostic in 5 minutes
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