Do I Need a Bid Writer?
Often not. If the tender has a small number of scored questions, you already hold current policies, accreditations and relevant case studies, and someone in the business can write clearly about what you do, you can write it yourself and many companies should. A bid writer is worth paying for when the scored question set is large, the evidence base does not yet exist, the deadline is close, or previous submissions have scored just below the threshold for reasons nobody in house can diagnose.
Key facts at a glance
- Write it yourself if
- Few scored questions, evidence already current, someone in house writes clearly, and the deadline is comfortable
- Get help if
- A large scored question set, no evidence base, a close deadline, or repeated near misses you cannot explain
- Do not hire anyone if
- You fail a mandatory requirement, or the expected value of the contract does not cover the cost of bidding
- The number that decides it
- Scored questions multiplied by word limit. That is the volume of skilled writing, and it is not the size of the tender pack
- The hidden cost of in house
- The management time of whoever writes it, which is usually the person who can least afford to lose a fortnight
- What should exist afterwards either way
- A reusable library of responses and evidence, so the next tender starts at roughly 60 percent rather than zero
When you do not need a bid writer
The tender is small and simple. Four or five scored questions at 500 words each, asking about things you do every day. If someone in the business can write plainly and has a week, write it yourself and keep the fee.
Your evidence is already in order. Current policies, live accreditations, three relevant case studies with real numbers, audited accounts, insurance at the required levels. Most of the work in a first bid is assembling that material. If it exists, the writing is the easier half.
You have won this type of work before. If you have a successful submission for a comparable contract, the fastest route is usually to adapt it rather than to commission a new one from scratch.
You fail a mandatory requirement. No writing fixes a turnover threshold, a missing accreditation or insufficient insurance. What you need is readiness work or a different opportunity, and a consultant who takes the instruction anyway is not worth hiring.
The numbers do not work. A £120,000 contract at 6 percent margin is £7,200 of gross profit. Spending several thousand pounds chasing it makes no sense at any win probability. This is the case nobody in the industry likes to state, and it is more common than the industry admits.
When it is worth paying for
The scored question set is large. Twenty questions at 1,500 to 2,000 words each is 30,000 words of writing that has to hit published criteria. That is not something to fit around a day job, and the quality drops visibly when people try.
There is no evidence base yet. If the policies, case studies and accreditations do not exist, the job is building an evidence base and then writing from it. That is a bigger piece of work than most first time bidders expect, and it is where the fortnight goes.
The deadline is close. Compressed timescales are where in house attempts most often fail, usually not on the writing but on the portal, the mandatory documents or an unnoticed clarification deadline.
You keep scoring just below the threshold. This is the clearest signal of all. If your submissions come back at 60 to 65 percent and you cannot see why, the problem is usually evidencing rather than capability, and it is very hard to diagnose from inside your own writing.
The opportunity is strategically important. A framework place that gives you four years of call off opportunities is worth treating differently from a single contract, because one application decides several years of access.
Your time is worth more elsewhere. If the person who would write it is the person who wins your other work or runs your delivery, the real cost is not the fee. It is a fortnight of them not doing their job.
The honest arithmetic
Take the contract value. Multiply by your margin. Multiply by a realistic chance of winning. That is the expected value of the submission.
A £2m contract at 8 percent margin is £160,000 of gross profit. At a one in four chance, expected value is £40,000. Against that, a fee of a few thousand pounds is a small fraction, and the real question becomes whether professional support moves you from one in four to one in three. If it does, it has paid for itself several times over.
Now run it on a £150,000 contract at 5 percent margin. That is £7,500 of gross profit, and at one in four the expected value is under £2,000. Nothing justifies a professional fee there, and writing it yourself may not be justified either once you count the management time.
The same calculation is what tells you when not to bid at all, which is the most valuable use of it.
The middle options most people do not know exist
A review rather than a rewrite. You write the draft, someone scores it against the published criteria as an evaluator would and tells you where the marks are being lost. This is the cheapest form of support and often the highest return, because it catches problems while you can still fix them.
Help with the hardest sections only. Social value is typically 10 to 20 percent of the marks, is scored against a model most technical writers were never trained on, and is where otherwise strong submissions routinely leak marks. Buying that one section is a small engagement.
Readiness work without a bid. Closing the accreditation, policy and insurance gaps that would disqualify you, so you are eligible for the next several opportunities rather than this one.
Library building. Turning one submission into reusable evidence so the next three are faster. This is the thing that changes the economics of bidding, and it is rarely what people ask for.
If you decide to write it yourself
Read the award criteria and weightings before the specification. They tell you where the marks are, and they are usually a page or two inside a very large pack.
Register on the portal on day one. Not at the end. Registration and verification take longer than anyone expects, and a finished bid you cannot upload scores nothing.
Answer the question that was asked, not the one you wish had been asked. Evaluators cannot award marks for anything outside the published criteria, however impressive.
Be specific. Name the standard, the certificate number, the audit date and the person responsible. Generic assurance scores nothing; evidence scores.
Do not skip social value because it looks soft. It is often the cheapest marks available to you, because your competitors are treating it the same way.
Keep everything you write. The second tender should not start from a blank page.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a bid writer?
Often not. If the tender has a small number of scored questions, your policies, accreditations and case studies are current, and someone in house writes clearly, you can write it yourself. Professional support earns its fee when the question set is large, the evidence base does not exist, the deadline is close, or you keep scoring just below the threshold without knowing why.
Can I write a tender myself with no experience?
Yes, and many companies win their first contract that way. Evaluators score the submission in front of them against published criteria, not your bidding history. The things that catch first timers out are usually procedural rather than editorial: portal registration, mandatory documents, and missing the clarification question deadline.
How do I know if a bid writer is worth the money?
Multiply contract value by your margin by your honest chance of winning to get the expected value of the submission. If the fee is a small fraction of that and support materially improves your win probability, it pays. On low value, low margin contracts it usually does not, and a consultant worth hiring will say so.
What if we have bid before and keep losing?
That is the single clearest case for bringing someone in, particularly if scores come back in the 60s and the feedback does not explain why. Repeated near misses are almost always an evidencing problem rather than a capability problem, and it is very difficult to see from inside your own writing.
Is there anything cheaper than a full bid writer?
Yes. An independent review of a draft you have written is the smallest engagement and frequently the highest return. Buying only the hardest section, usually social value, is another. Readiness work to close eligibility gaps is a third, and it benefits every future bid rather than one.
Should I hire a bid writer or train someone in house?
Depends on sustained volume. If you will bid regularly, building in house capability is the better long term investment and external support is best used for overflow, specialist sections and review. If you bid occasionally, training someone who then uses the skill twice a year rarely pays back.
What should I never pay for?
A guaranteed win, because no provider controls an evaluation panel. An uncapped percentage of contract value on a multi year contract. And a bid for an opportunity where you fail a mandatory requirement, which no amount of writing can fix.
Send us the tender and we will tell you if you need us
Bring the deadline, the scored questions and what you already hold by way of policies and case studies. If you can write it yourself we will say so, and if the opportunity is not worth bidding for we will say that too. Call 020 3668 5488.