Blog 23 - How High-Performing Bid Teams Drive Growth
The blog this week is from Jeremy
How High-Performing Bid Teams Drive Growth
In a packed room at Altura’s inaugural London Lunch and Learn session, Jeremy Brim—founder of Growth Ignition and a veteran of 25 years in the bidding profession—delivered a masterclass on how modern bid teams can become the strategic growth engine for B2B and B2G businesses.
Drawing on decades of experience across construction, consultancy, outsourcing, and professional services, Jeremy challenged the audience to rethink the role of bid teams—not as reactive writers, but as proactive strategists, influencers, and enablers of sustainable, profitable growth.
Here’s a deep dive into the key insights from his talk.
1. The Market Context: A Perfect Storm or a Golden Opportunity?
Jeremy began by acknowledging the turbulence in today’s market. From political instability and delayed infrastructure pipelines to the disruptive rise of AI, the external environment is undeniably complex. But within this complexity lies opportunity.
In the UK, the introduction of the Procurement Act and a renewed focus on industrial strategy are creating a more transparent and structured public sector landscape. For businesses that know how to navigate it, this could be a golden era.
“We’re entering a time where pipeline data is more accessible than ever. For bid teams, that’s a game-changer.”
The private sector, while less transparent, is also ripe for disruption. With better research tools and data availability, businesses can now make more informed decisions about where to focus their efforts.
2. The 80/20 Rule: The Hidden Truth About Profitability
One of the most powerful revelations Jeremy shared was that in 19 consecutive client engagements, he discovered a consistent pattern: 80% of profit came from just 20% of clients.
This insight is both a wake-up call and an opportunity. Many businesses are unknowingly investing time, energy, and resources into low-value, one-off clients while neglecting the high-value relationships that drive their bottom line.
Characteristics of High-Value Clients:
Engage early and collaboratively
Offer repeatable, programmatic work
Operate within your geographic and operational sweet spot
Align culturally with your teams
Provide opportunities for innovation and co-creation
Characteristics of Low-Value Clients:
One-off projects with no forward pipeline
Poor communication and adversarial behaviours
Misaligned expectations and high delivery risk
Often outside your core geography or capability
“If your people don’t enjoy working with their people, that’s a red flag. Culture fit matters more than we give it credit for.”
3. The Strategic Role of Bid Teams: From Service Function to Growth Engine
Too often, bid teams are treated as tactical responders—brought in at the last minute to polish a submission. Jeremy argued that this mindset is outdated and damaging.
Instead, high-performing bid teams are embedded in the strategic core of the business. They help shape the pipeline, facilitate influence on client relationships and drive informed decisions about where to play and how to win.
The Growth Ignition Framework:
Jeremy introduced a powerful model that links strategy to execution:
Business Plan – A 3–5 year vision grounded in market research, client segmentation, and strategic priorities.
Marketing Plan – Aligned to the business plan, targeting only those clients and sectors that fit the strategic direction and that feature in the pipeline.
Key Account Plans – One-page plans for top clients, focused on deepening relationships and unlocking client value.
Capture Plans – Campaigns to shape and influence specific opportunities before they go to market, ideally for negotiation / direct award.
Bid Execution – Bids only pursued when the odds of winning are high and the opportunity aligns with strategic goals.
“If you’re writing bids to strangers who don’t know your team, you’re probably going to lose.”
4. Capture Planning: The Missing Link in Most Businesses
Capture planning is the art of influencing a client’s thinking before a procurement begins. It’s about building relationships, shaping requirements and positioning your business as the obvious choice.
Yet, most businesses either don’t do it—or do it too late.
Jeremy shared how some of his clients are now completing a pre-mortem bid/no-bid assessments a year in advance of tender, identifying gaps and taking proactive steps to close them. This approach transforms the bid process from a gamble into a strategic campaign.
Capture Planning in Action:
Identify three to five key pursuits 12–18 months in advance
Map stakeholders and build relationships
Co-create solutions with the client - building trust and shaping the specification
Influence procurement strategy and approach, ideally shaping a negotiation on value
Use “pre-mortems” to assess win probability early
“Capture is where the real work happens. Bidding should be the final 20% of the journey—not the start.”
5. Data, Insight, and the Power of Pipeline Clarity
High-performing bid teams are data-driven. They don’t just track win rates—they analyse them. They don’t just report on pipeline—they shape it.
Jeremy emphasised the importance of clarity in pipeline and performance data. Without it, leadership can’t make informed investment decisions in people and innovation. With it, businesses can become self-fulfilling prophecies of growth.
Key Metrics to Track:
Win/loss ratios by client, sector, and bid type
Cost of sale and ROI on bidding activity
Client profitability and margin contribution
Bid team performance, process compliance and stakeholder engagement
Pipeline maturity and conversion probability
“If your board can’t see where the revenue is coming from and have confidence in conversion rates, they can’t invest and you won’t win consistently. It’s that simple.”
6. Marketing and Bidding: A Strategic Alliance, Not Siloes
Jeremy didn’t hold back in critiquing traditional marketing. Too often, it’s B2C in style or focused on vanity metrics and generic content. Instead, he called for a specific B2B/B2G hyper-targeted, insight-led approach. Account Base Marketing.
What Works:
Content and events tailored specifically to your top 10 clients
Thought leadership from delivery teams
Strategic use of LinkedIn to build personal profile
Roundtables, breakfast briefings, and workshops to engage early and socialise our delivery people with clients
“On average five people read the bids you submit. Who are they? Your total addressable audience that actually counts in a year might be only 50 people. Why are you marketing to 5,000?”
He also noted that bid teams reporting into marketing functions often underperform—suggesting that the two functions should collaborate closely, but retain distinct strategic mandates and reporting lines.
7. AI in Bidding: Beyond the Hype
AI is transforming the bidding landscape—but not just in writing and content generation. Jeremy highlighted a range of use cases that high-performing teams are already exploring:
Client and market research
Storyboarding and compliance checking
Performance analytics and win/loss analysis
Social value mapping and community insights
Knowledge management and content mining
However, he also issued a stark warning: don’t use public AI tools like ChatGPT for sensitive content. The risks to IP and client confidentiality are significant.
“Some firms now treat public AI use as gross misconduct. Be smart. Be secure.”
8. Culture, Leadership, and the DNA of High-Performing Teams
At the heart of Jeremy’s message was a call to build bid teams with purpose, clarity, and spirit.
Traits of High-Performing Bid Teams:
Clear roles and responsibilities
Strong sponsorship from senior leaders
Trusted relationships with subject matter experts
A culture of continuous improvement and shared learning
Entrepreneurial mindset focused on value creation
He also introduced the concept of “senior terrorists”—leaders who parachute into bids late and derail the process. Instead, he called for leaders to be visible, engaged, and supportive from the outset.
“When your senior leaders come to you asking how to win a deal 12 months before tender —that’s when you know you’re winning.”
9. The Bid/No-Bid Decision: A Strategic Lever
Jeremy emphasised that 85% of the reasons for bid losses are known to bidders before they submit the tender —the red flags are there, but businesses ignore them. He urged teams to be more disciplined and data-driven in their qualification processes.
Best Practices:
Use structured bid/no-bid criteria
Assess opportunities early and often
Track and learn from past decisions
Be brave enough to walk away
Reinvest saved time into capture of other pursuits and client development
“There’s never a bad time to stop bidding something. The opportunity cost is real.”
10. The Future of Bidding: From Tactical to Transformational
Jeremy closed with a vision for the future: bid teams as entrepreneurial hubs at the heart of business strategy. Teams that don’t just respond to opportunities—but create them.
He encouraged attendees to:
Share these insights with their leadership teams
Use data to influence decision-making
Invest in capability development and tools
Build a culture of trust, learning, and ambition
“Bidding is where the cutting edge of business happens. Let’s treat it that way.”
Next Steps and Resources
To support the community, Jeremy shared several free resources:
The Bid Toolkit – A free digital bid process platform with training videos, templates, and tools
The Red Review Podcast – The world’s leading podcast on bids, proposals and winning work
Free Webinars and Drop-Ins – Regular sessions on key topics
LinkedIn Group – A space to share insights and connect with peers
He also encouraged attendees to connect on LinkedIn, share their experiences, and help raise the profile of the bidding profession.
Final Thoughts
The Altura Lunch and Learn session was more than just a talk—it was a rallying cry. A call to arms for bid professionals to step up, shape the future of their businesses, and lead from the front.
Because in today’s world, winning work isn’t just about writing—it’s about strategy, relationships, insight, and courage.
Thanks again to Altura for hosting the session.
Catch up on the full Lunch & Learn session! It's available here in both video and audio formats
Other Resources
We’re on a mission to help companies like yours win more work.
Here are some other free resources that should help you too. Feel also free to share them with friends and colleagues:
Bid Writing Training - Learn to write winning tenders here.
Writing Crown Commercial Services Bids - Learn to tackle the challenges of writing CCS tenders here.
The Bid Toolkit - We make winning simple.
Our free work winning Podcast, the Red Review, can be found here.
You can also follow Jeremy on LinkedIn for hints, tips and insights here.
100% Typo Guarantee—Our blog posts are free-range. It was hand-crafted with love and sent out unfiltered. There was no review queue, no editorial process, no post-post revisions. Therefore, I can pretty much guarantee that there is some sort of typo or grammatical error or literary snafu. Got a business to run and a four year old to Dad. Sorry.