We’re often told by companies that we work with that they don’t tender as it takes too long, they’re never successful, they don’t have the time…etc. etc.
Tendering is a powerful way to generate new business, so powerful in fact that many businesses use this as their sole route to winning new business. We think every business should at least try tendering. We understand why businesses are put off from the long, in-depth process you have to follow, but spending the time upfront to learn how to tender could be vital to the success and growth of your service based business.
Our Growth Director, Jill has been winning work via tendering for well over a decade, and she is sharing with you below, her top five reasons for tendering.
Responding to recruitment tenders means businesses have already established the need for your HR or Recruitment services and have allocated a budget to carry out the work. This reduces the need for selling the benefits of the services, and establishing the benefit of investing in XYZ.
Responding to a tender means you’ve just got to prove that you’re the best fit for their business. Surely it’s worth a try? Just make sure you follow a strict process of what you will and won’t apply for.
When tendering the client usually outlines when they would like the work to start and end, meaning you can work your time around this. When selling directly B2B we often have projects on hold waiting for particular aspects. We’re not saying this won’t happen with tendering, but your client is likely to be more prepared.
As the budget has already been allocated, you know what constraints you’re working within, allowing you to best advise your client where to allocate spend.
You won’t always be successful when tendering, but completing a tender document often gives you additional clarity on other areas of your business, or how you can productise service offerings. It also allows you to benchmark your fees against what people expect to pay.
Tendering allows you to see how businesses are spending their budgets. This helps you to better understand where you should be spending your own budgets and what services are the most popular. If you see an influx of a particular tender, For example an increase in Recruitment Tenders, HR Consultancy or Recruitment Frameworks and this is an offering your business provides, read the Invitation to Tender documents and align your service descriptions to ensure it is suitable for the market you’re selling into.