How to choose a tender writer

1. Will you tell me not to bid?

The most valuable advice a consultant gives you is often no. If every tender you show them is winnable, they are selling hours, not outcomes. Ask for an example of a job they talked a client out of.

2. Do you read the evaluation criteria before quoting?

Price without reading the rubric is a guess. A serious consultant wants the RFT, the addenda and the scoring weightings before naming a number.

3. Who writes it, and do I meet them?

Plenty of firms sell you a director and deliver a junior. Ask who holds the pen, what they have written in your sector, and whether you deal with them directly during the bid.

4. What is your experience of the price side?

Non price criteria and pricing are not separable. Someone who understands quantities, programme and procurement writes a methodology that is defensible. Someone who does not writes prose.

5. How do you handle returnables and lodgement?

Most disqualifications are administrative, not editorial. Ask who owns the returnables checklist and who presses submit on the portal.

6. What happens if we are shortlisted?

Interviews and evaluation board presentations decide shortlisted bids. If the engagement ends at lodgement, you are on your own for the part that closes the deal.

7. Do you build reusable assets, or start from scratch each time?

A consultant who leaves you with a maintained bid library reduces your cost on every future tender. One who rewrites from zero every time is charging you twice for the same content.

8. How is this priced?

You want a fixed written scope and figure before work starts. See how we price tender work for what a straight answer looks like.

9. Can I speak to a client in my sector?

Not a testimonial on a website. A phone number. Ask what the consultant was like in the last 48 hours before a deadline, because that is when you find out who you hired.