3 Things To Do If Your Tender Deadline Is Extended
As a Bid Manager, there have been times in my life where if I had found a magic lamp the first thing I would have done is asked for a deadline extension. Forget world peace, solving the food crisis, or getting my favourite band to re-form and play at my birthday partyall I wanted was another two weeks to let me write that bid.
When it arrives its more glorious than sunrise over the ocean in Bali... but what you think is a collective sigh of relief can sometimes be the sound of your bid dying. Its far too easy to do things when an extension arrives which actually make your bid worse.
I dont want that to happen, so here are three ways you can turn that extension from a momentum-killer into a bid super-charger:
1. Dont stop
Every time one of our customers gets an extension, the first thing they do is put the bid down and get on with their day jobs for a day or two to deal with all the crises that have arisen while they have been working on the bid. Its only natural to try and fight other more pressing fires, but this really is the worst possible thing you can do.
They gave you an extension because they realised its going to take longer to write the bid they want. If they gave you four weeks and made it into six, that means they are expecting six weeks of effort from your team. So if you down tools for a week and come back to it later, I can pretty much guarantee that you wont be delivering what they expect.
No matter how hard it is to make happen, every person dedicated to that bid needs to stay dedicated to it, especially if they are people who are dedicated to producing bids for your business. Because if they let up for even a moment on this one, it will impact all the subsequent bids that they work on.
2. Dont slow down
The first thing to do when that extension lands, is to get the entire bid team together and update your plans for writing the bid. But dont move your targets, add some brilliant new ones.
If you were going to have a response finished by Monday afternoon, then still finish it by Monday afternoon. Because then you can have it objectively reviewed in detail to spot ways it can be improved, then rewrite it with the extra time they have given you.
Always assume your competitors were better prepared, and remember that this means they will be submitting something which has been reviewed and improved twice or even three times. This is your chance to catch up and create something which will blow them out of the water.
Weve talked at length here before about how a bid is never finished, and how every review and draft makes it better. To put this as simply as possible: first drafts lose.
An extension should be a guarantee that nothing goes to the buyer as a first draft, because if you have already made time to write it then youve now been granted the time to review it and improve it.
3. Do more
That extension might actually mean that you now have access to people and data you couldnt get together in the original time frame. Look back on your initial plans for the bid.Were there case studies or interviews you couldnt do because someone was on holiday? If so, now is the time to go get them.
Maybe this extension brings a senior manager off the bench, making them available for a strategic review. Maybe it gives you time to chase down one of your existing clients to get that gold-plated testimonial. Regardless, this extension doesnt just mean you can improve what you were already saying, it means you can say more.
So when you are all sat together after hearing about the extension, ask everyone involved to add to a wish list of things that would make this bid even better. Then charge someone with going and finding those things.
Doing these three things every time you get an extension is what turns a great bid into an exceptional bid, and here at Tenders-UK, thats what were aiming for every time.
When it arrives its more glorious than sunrise over the ocean in Bali... but what you think is a collective sigh of relief can sometimes be the sound of your bid dying. Its far too easy to do things when an extension arrives which actually make your bid worse.
I dont want that to happen, so here are three ways you can turn that extension from a momentum-killer into a bid super-charger:
1. Dont stop
Every time one of our customers gets an extension, the first thing they do is put the bid down and get on with their day jobs for a day or two to deal with all the crises that have arisen while they have been working on the bid. Its only natural to try and fight other more pressing fires, but this really is the worst possible thing you can do.
They gave you an extension because they realised its going to take longer to write the bid they want. If they gave you four weeks and made it into six, that means they are expecting six weeks of effort from your team. So if you down tools for a week and come back to it later, I can pretty much guarantee that you wont be delivering what they expect.
No matter how hard it is to make happen, every person dedicated to that bid needs to stay dedicated to it, especially if they are people who are dedicated to producing bids for your business. Because if they let up for even a moment on this one, it will impact all the subsequent bids that they work on.
2. Dont slow down
The first thing to do when that extension lands, is to get the entire bid team together and update your plans for writing the bid. But dont move your targets, add some brilliant new ones.
If you were going to have a response finished by Monday afternoon, then still finish it by Monday afternoon. Because then you can have it objectively reviewed in detail to spot ways it can be improved, then rewrite it with the extra time they have given you.
Always assume your competitors were better prepared, and remember that this means they will be submitting something which has been reviewed and improved twice or even three times. This is your chance to catch up and create something which will blow them out of the water.
Weve talked at length here before about how a bid is never finished, and how every review and draft makes it better. To put this as simply as possible: first drafts lose.
An extension should be a guarantee that nothing goes to the buyer as a first draft, because if you have already made time to write it then youve now been granted the time to review it and improve it.
3. Do more
That extension might actually mean that you now have access to people and data you couldnt get together in the original time frame. Look back on your initial plans for the bid.Were there case studies or interviews you couldnt do because someone was on holiday? If so, now is the time to go get them.
Maybe this extension brings a senior manager off the bench, making them available for a strategic review. Maybe it gives you time to chase down one of your existing clients to get that gold-plated testimonial. Regardless, this extension doesnt just mean you can improve what you were already saying, it means you can say more.
So when you are all sat together after hearing about the extension, ask everyone involved to add to a wish list of things that would make this bid even better. Then charge someone with going and finding those things.
Doing these three things every time you get an extension is what turns a great bid into an exceptional bid, and here at Tenders-UK, thats what were aiming for every time.
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