Getting the most from your Tender Writing Training

Writing tenders for important contracts is not something that can be taken lightly or approached in a relaxed manner. In fact, for some organisations, writing effective tenders can be considered as ‘mission critical’ – the very future of the company rests upon the ability of those within the organisation to write effective, persuasive and winning tenders.
That is why, if your company is relatively new to the tendering environment or you feel any of your team lack skills in this area, it can be well worth investing in professional tender training. Although they usually form separate courses, tender writing training covers PQQ training too, so the training process can guide your team (or individual writer!) through the entire process, from start to finish.
Tender writing training is often offered by industry experts, particularly experienced, trained and professional tender writers. Many of these trainers will have developed their experience and knowledge within blue-chip companies and have extensive independent writing experience.

In order to ensure you gain the most value possible from your tender writing training, it is essential that you make time to check the credentials of your training company. Never be afraid to ask what experience trainers have, what kind of tenders they have written and most importantly, what their win rate is. You can gauge a considerable amount of information just by asking these questions. If the potential trainer shies away to telling you, for example, the value of contracts their tender writing has won, try someone else who is open and so proud of their track record that they are happy to tell anyone who will ask.
Ensure that any tender writing training you invest in has a clear structure from the outset. Whilst seminar style training can be informative and useful, it is better to know that clear training objectives will be met that will translate into tangible results once the course comes to an end.

Prior to attending your selected tender writing training, ensure you sit down with your team and identify any weak areas in tenders you are currently writing or have recently submitted. Your trainer can, if they are aware of where your weaknesses lie, offer advice and targeted training to help you overcome these problem areas. Also ensure that you attend armed with any questions you may have. Again, brainstorming with your team will cultivate the best results here. The more you ask and the more subjective your queries, the more you are likely to gain from attending the training. It is also worth taking along one of your own written tenders as many training sessions like to use real-life examples.

Overall, to get the most out of your tender writing training, ensure you identify prior to attending what exactly you want to take from the sessions. You will learn much that you haven’t thought of but if you have specific areas that are most important to you and your team, identifying them then ensuring they are covered during the training will ensure you gain value for money and long-term benefits from your tender writing training.