Blog 35 - Why Bidding Basics Matter: Winning Starts With Getting the Fundamentals Right
The blog this week is from Jeremy
Why Bidding Basics Matter: Winning Starts With Getting the Fundamentals Right
In the world of bidding, everyone wants to talk about innovation, differentiation, and compelling win themes. And yes—those things absolutely matter. But before any of that can make a difference, there’s a far more fundamental question to address:
Are you getting the basics right?
It may not sound glamorous, but consistently nailing the essentials is the foundation of every winning bid strategy. In fact, failing at the basics is one of the fastest, most avoidable ways to lose.
Let’s explore why.
The Bidding Phase Is the End Game—But Only Works if the Foundations Are Set
The bidding phase is where everything comes together. It’s the moment where all your upstream effort—capture, client targeting, marketing alignment, stakeholder engagement—finally pays off.
But even if you’ve done brilliant work earlier in the funnel, none of it matters if you can’t execute professionally at the end.
Winning bids must be:
Compliant (at the very least)
Compelling (ideally)
Clear, persuasive, and easy to evaluate
Yet far too many organisations fall at the first hurdle.
The Harsh Reality: Non-Compliant Bids Go Straight in the Bin
This isn’t theory; it’s the hard truth.
When I worked closely with YPO—the UK’s second-largest public sector procurement body—we analysed thousands of submissions every year. And incredibly:
| Around 20% of bids were rejected outright for non-compliance.
Not because they weren’t strong.
Not because the propositions were weak.
But simply because they failed the basics:
Missed deadlines
Wrong file formats
Exceeded word or character limits
Missing documents
Ignored instructions
Those bids never even got read.
And I suspect that failure rate hasn't changed much today.
Non-Compliance Isn’t Just a Lost Bid—It’s Brand Damage
Submitting a poor, incomplete, or non-compliant bid doesn’t just lose you the opportunity. It sends a message.
Word gets out quickly—across procurement teams, evaluators, and influencers—that your organisation:
Doesn’t follow instructions
Can’t deliver detail
Isn’t dependable
In the competitive B2B environment, reputational damage like that is expensive and long-lasting.
So yes—the basics matter more than you think.
Doing the Basics Well: What Good Looks Like
Here’s what “getting the basics right” actually means in practice.
1. Answer the Question—Fully and Directly
It sounds simple, but you’d be shocked how often bidders drift off into generic content or pasting in irrelevant boilerplate.
Every response must:
Answer the question completely
Map directly to the scoring criteria
Reflect the client's language and priorities
2. Storyboard Before You Write
A structured storyboard helps you:
Align content with evaluation criteria
Integrate win themes
Show clear, logical flow
Identify evidence gaps early
Great bids are designed before they’re drafted.
3. Play Back the Specification—Then Show Where You Add Value
Clients want to feel understood. Reflect their needs back to them, then highlight:
Where you exceed requirements
Where you add value
How your approach reduces risk
But only if the scoring criteria reward this.
4. Clarify Anything You’re Unsure About
Never guess. Never assume.
Use clarification windows to ensure you’re interpreting the specification correctly.
5. Don’t Write Bids to Strangers
You should already know the client—long before the ITT hits your inbox.
When you’ve invested in capture:
You understand their priorities
You can anticipate questions
Your responses feel insightful, not generic
Capture isn’t optional. It’s a competitive advantage.
6. Continually Improve
Especially on frameworks where mini-competitions repeat common themes.
Every submission should move you forward—not sideways.
Focus on Compliance First. Compelling Comes Second.
If you only remember one thing from this article, make it this:
| You will lose 100% of bids that are non-compliant.
So first, do an exceptional job of the SQ, PQQ, RFI, and compliance checks.
Then—and only then—layer in the compelling narrative.
Compliance gets you through the door. Compelling content wins you the contract.
Master the Basics, Win More Work
You don’t need a revolutionary bidding strategy to make a huge impact on your win rate. You simply need to stop losing on things that are entirely within your control.
Do the basics exceptionally well. Every time. No excuses.
That’s how you build credibility. That’s how you build a winning engine. And that’s how you deliver sustainable growth.
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.
Free Bid Writing Basics Training Video - Watch the video 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.