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Tag: uk tenders

The Keys to Finding & Winning Publishing Tenders

Posted on by John Hudson

Here’s how to find and win publishing tenders

Looking for publishing tenders? You’re in luck! At Creative Tenders, we know all about publishing tenders. So, if you have questions, we will be happy to answer them. In this blog, we will cover what publishing tenders are, where to find them, and how to win! Keep reading, you don’t want to miss out…

What are publishing tenders?

For those that are unsure, publishing tenders are contracts that require some form of printing and publication services. A company or organisation may require the following to be printed/published:

  • Magazines
  • Books
  • Articles
  • Newspapers
  • Leaflets
  • Brochures
  • Posters
  • Invitations
  • Academic works
  • Electoral supplies.

Do you offer any of these services? Do you want to bid for contracts to expand your business? There are plenty of opportunities out there, which is why it’s so beneficial to tender for work. Looking for contracts allows your business access to opportunities you wouldn’t know about otherwise. Keep reading if you want to know where to find the perfect publishing tenders for your business…

Finding publishing tenders with Hudson Discover’s Creative Tenders

Most of us will turn to a search engine such as Google when we need to find something. It is the wizard that has all the answers to our questions. But when you search for ‘publishing tenders’, you’ll find yourself swamped with countless sites to visit. Each site will feature information differently. Most will not make it easy for you either.

You’ll likely have to read lengthy tender documents to get to the key details of each tender. This could be the deadline date, location, budget, or perhaps an element that dictates whether or not you are eligible. Imagine reading over 50 pages to find out you aren’t eligible for a tender, or the deadline is too soon. That is a lot of time wasted!

There are easier ways of finding publishing tenders…

What is Creative Tenders?

As one of Hudson Discover’s 11 sector-specific portals, Creative Tenders makes it easy to find opportunities.

These portals were designed to make it simple to find tenders suitable to your preferences. For example, you can use filters to search for tenders based on location, keywords, dates, and budget. You may be familiar with tender portals, so what makes ours different?

Well, each of our portals are updated daily by Opportunity Trackers that don’t use CPV codes. These codes are used to identify contract opportunities, but they can often have errors. This means that we will never miss a tender due to the wrong code.

Every day, we will send you a tender notification of all the new opportunities you may be interested in.

Want to save even more time looking for publishing tenders? Try Discover Elite

What if you could streamline the process even further?

The good news is – you can!

Sign up to Discover Elite via your chosen portal where a dedicated Account Manager finds live bids on your behalf. They’ll speak with you weekly to discuss opportunities that may interest you. This is especially helpful for those with little time to spare due to busy schedules.

Upgrading to Discover Elite will ensure you never miss a tendering opportunity even when you’re busy!

The Ultimate Time-Saving Tool offers your business:

  • An annual subscription to a maximum of two Discover portalsof your choice.
  • Up to five bid breakdowns per month to help you make your bid or no-bid
  • Weekly phone calls with your Account Manager to discuss viable leads and tendering opportunities.
  • Award and pre-market engagement notices monitored on your behalf.
  • Public and private buyer portal management including registering, password management, downloading documents and assessing viability based on your bid strategy.

Examples of publishing tenders found on our portal

Publications Production with End-to-End Print Services

Swansea University – Wales – Budget: £1,000,000

 

Contract for Publishing Guidebooks

National Museum of the Royal Navy Hartlepool – South East – Budget: £85,000

 

The Provision of a Publications Dispatch Service

Department of Social Protection – Republic of Ireland – Budget: £200,000

 

The Provision of NIHR Journals Library: Production Services

University of Southampton – South East – Budget: £7,000,000

 

South Devon College ITT for the Design of Publications

South Devon College – South West – Budget: £60,500

4 tips to win publishing tenders from expert Bid Writers

  1. Make sure your answers are clear, concise, and relevant
  2. Don’t use technical jargon as this can confuse the buyer
  3. Ensure you proofread your proposal before submission, so it is of the highest standard
  4. Use writing and language skills to keep the buyer engaged with your bid.

Summary

We have reached the end of our blog on publishing tenders. Here is a recap of everything we covered:

What are publishing tenders?

Here are some examples of products needed as part of a publishing tender.

  • Magazines
  • Books
  • Articles
  • Newspapers
  • Leaflets
  • Brochures
  • Patient identification bands
  • Posters
  • Vouchers
  • Product packaging
  • Invitations
  • Academic works
  • Electoral supplies.

To find publishing tenders, you can use the Creative Tender’s portal. By upgrading to Discover Elite, an Account Manager will find tenders on your behalf.

4 tips to win publishing tenders from expert Bid Writers

  1. Make sure your answers are clear, concise, and relevant
  2. Don’t use technical jargon
  3. Ensure you proofread your proposal before submission
  4. Use writing and language skills to keep the buyer engaged with your bid.

Need help writing your next tender?

If you don’t have the resources or time to write a winning bid, why not outsource it? Our sister company, Hudson Succeed, boasts an 87% success rate and have over 60 years of collective bidding experience. They offer four bid writing support packages to help you on the path to success. Whether you’re new to tendering, or simply need someone to proof your written response before you submit – we can help.

Tender Ready

Our Tender Ready programme is designed for those who have never tendered before. This 4-week programme works with you to ensure you have everything in place to tender successfully.

Tender Improvement

Tender Improvement can help if you’re already tendering but aren’t seeing success from your current efforts. Our Bid Writers will assess your previous submissions and supporting documents. They’ll give you feedback and guidance on how to improve, helping you to secure your next tenders.

Tender Mentor

If you’ve written a tender and need someone to proofread it – Tender Mentor is for you. A Bid Writer will double-check it’s in line with the specification and free of any grammar or spelling mistakes.

Tender Writing

If you’ve found the perfect tender but don’t know where to start – we can help. Send the specification over to us and our Bid Team will do the rest. They’ll let you know what they need from you and provide you with a full breakdown. They’ll even submit it on your behalf, leaving you more time to focus on your business.

We also source opportunities for sectors including:

Book a free live demo with Creative Tenders to see how we can help your business grow.

Contact us for more information.

Check out some of our other blogs:

A Guide to the Bidding Process in Event Management

Posted on by John Hudson

10 Top tips for the bidding process in event management

Would you like the bad news or the good news?

The bidding process in event management comes with both good and bad news. Event management is an incredibly underrated industry in terms of the complexity and effort it takes to thrive. Many people outside of the industry may feel that managing an event is an easy task. However, as you will likely know, there is a lot more to event management than meets the eye. Planning, budgeting, and logistics are just a few of the hidden skills you need to thrive.

The bad news: nothing worth having comes easy. Starting the bidding process in event management is not something your business should take lightly. You will need to put in some time and effort to see results.

The good news: the bidding process in event management isn’t all that bad. You may find you already have the skills needed to submit successful bids. Once you have some basic knowledge, tendering can become your organisation’s best friend.

What is the bidding process in event management? 

The bidding process in event management can feel like a daunting challenge. From finding the perfect tender to writing the bid, it can be tricky to know where to start.

A basic process within procurement is where the buyer will release an invitation to tender (ITT). This ITT will detail a project the buyer requires support with. It is then the supplier’s job to submit a bid to demonstrate their company’s capabilities. The bidding process in event management often requires details from suppliers which demonstrate their ability to organise a successful event.

When a business begins its tendering journey, the first hurdle is usually understanding the above process. The next task is to develop a bidding process in event management.

Top 10 tips to consider within the bidding process in event management

  1. Read the ITT

One thing to consider when entering into the bidding process in event management is reading the ITT documents. This step is severely neglected and can cause critical time and effort to be in vain. Make sure you have noted the location and budget to ensure you are suitable for the project. Have the key dates handy so you can see if the work will affect other commitments. By properly digesting this information you will have both the confidence and competence to succeed.

  1. Do your research

Often within an ITT, the buyer will include some background information about their organisation. It doesn’t hurt to go the extra mile and find out more about the buyer. Businesses often want their employees to be passionate about the business and align themselves with their values and goals. The relationship between buyers and suppliers is no different. Knowing more about who you are requesting to work with will give you a greater insight into their decision making. This way, you will know precisely why and what the buyer is asking.

  1. Be realistic

As previously mentioned, it is important to understand the scope of work for your desired tender. It can be easy to lose sight of reality when you see an attractive opportunity. The job itself may suit your business but the location may be too far afield. You may be attracted by the budget but have other commitments in the start and end date periods. If you find yourself not meeting any requirements you must take a step back and be realistic. Don’t waste time on a bid which you cannot feasibly secure and complete. You are making life harder for yourself and wasting time that could be used securing the perfect opportunity.

  1. Don’t put yourself down

On the other hand, it is also crucial you do not put yourself, or your business down. It is easy to feel that, as a small or medium enterprise (SME), you will not stand out against bigger suppliers. The UK government currently has a target to spend more with SME’s. Their target is to spend £1 in every £3 with small and medium businesses. This means that public sector buyers are looking to establish relationships with smaller organisations. So, you still have every chance to secure work, even if you’re a small business.

  1. What is your USP

Having a unique selling point is essential. You must relay to the buyer what makes your business stand out from the competition. What makes you unique and what can you offer the buyer that no other supplier can? Perhaps it’s the experience in that particular type of event or your specialist resources. You may even have better working relationships with suppliers and vendors compared to your competition. Having some knowledge of your competition can be used to your advantage. Try and think from the buyer’s perspective. If you were making the decisions, what would you value in an events company?

  1. Create a bid library

Each tender you submit a bid for will be unique. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t keep your bid documents for future use. Supporting documents such as health and safety policies and case studies can be used multiple times. Keep these filed away as part of your “bid library”. Some documents may need adjusting to suit the tender but having the outline can save a lot of time. This will ultimately result in a more efficient bidding process.

  1. Be methodical

Tendering is a structured process. You must set yourself tasks and deadlines to complete the work needed. It may be worth having an internal checklist of deadlines if more than one department is involved. Make sure to give yourself plenty of breathing space for errors or delays. Many events have an aspect of complex time management, scheduling and coordination. Use these skills to your advantage within the bidding process in event management.

  1. Social Value

Social value is becoming an increasingly important factor which buyers are evaluating in their tender scoring. Our Hudson Insight Series has revealed a stronger emphasis on social value within the procurement world. At the time of writing this blog, the UK has very recently left the European Union. With this change came a change in procurement procedures. The government’s green paper gave an in-depth look at the changes which were being made. Buyers will now be encouraged to consider social value more within their bid evaluation. This means your bid should have a focus on how you help your employees, as well as the wider community. As of January 2021, government buyers have placed a 10% weighting on social value within your quality response. Make sure you stay ahead of the curve and have your social value responses prepared.

  1. Reflect on previous feedback

If you have previously submitted a bid and have not been successful, don’t feel disheartened. Ask for feedback on the unsuccessful bid and use it to your advantage. Your feedback will clearly show your bid writing strengths and weaknesses. It may be that your pricing was too high, or your quality response lost some marks. Take the time to study this feedback and make sure you learn from any mistakes. This will ultimately improve your bidding process in event management.

  1. Get a second opinion

Whether you are solely responsible for your bid or you’re working within a team, mistakes can be made.  When you work closely on a project it can be hard to take a step back. You may not notice spelling or grammar mistakes, or you could have even left out important information. For almost two decades our team of bid writers at Hudson Succeed have been responding to tenders. They know better than anyone the importance of taking a step back to make sure your bid is error-free. Make sure you leave enough time to ask for a second opinion and make the necessary changes. Whether this is through a team of professional bid writers, or a colleague, you will benefit from their feedback.

Can I get support with my bids?

With all of these factors involved with the bidding process in event management, it is natural to need some support. You may want a professional to guide you through the process. You may also look to completely outsource this process. At Hudson Succeed, our team of bid writers thrive in creating successful bid responses. Our team also hold an 87% bid success rate. Last year alone, they secured direct contract wins totalling over £300million for our clients. So, next time it comes to working on your next bid, why not consider a bid management consultant to support you in the process?

Is now the right time to get involved with the bidding process in event management?

Due to the current climate, it is easy to feel disheartened within your business. At the time of writing this blog, the UK has gone into another national lockdown. Many organisation’s plans for expansion and growth have been pushed back and put on hold. Events have been cancelled and income has been lost. You may find yourself wondering if it is worth investing any more into your business.

To set your mind at ease let’s look at the facts. In 2017, UK spending on events was £39.1 billion. This contributed 35% to the UK’s visitor economy. As one of the largest industries in the UK, it is impossible to ignore the significance of the events sector.

The Scottish Government have recently released a guidance plan which reiterates the importance of the events sector.

We want a strong events sector to help drive Scotland’s economic recovery and future prosperity. Event organisers should therefore use this guidance to look forward and engage with trade union or workforce representatives early in their plans for restart to develop workplace specific plans for a managed transition away from current restrictions”

A new campaign is also being launched in the UK to support the events industry. #WeCreateExperiences aims to raise awareness of the importance of event management to the UK economy. The campaign will set the scene for the return of live events in 2021. Simon Hughes, the co-founder of the #WeCreateExperiences campaign, says:

Live events will return in 2021 and there will be pent-up demand. Businesses who commit budgets to events in 2021 will reap the rewards and steal a march on their competitors”

Perfect your bidding process

Over any event management life cycle, you will face unexpected difficulties. Your business has likely seen a shift in security measures following the increase in the national threat level. You may have also had to shift to a more digitally focused approach to events. Social media is now widely used to safeguard events and has given more visibility to smaller events. Having to change and adapt to the current climate is not unusual for an events company.

It is vital to note there are still events opportunities out there. You may need to shift from a word of mouth approach to a tendering process. The current situation may be the perfect time to perfect your bidding process in events management. Keep evolving your business with the times to make sure you have a steady stream of work in your pipeline.

Where do I find tenders?

If you are struggling to find event management opportunities, then Creative Tenders offers the perfect solution. We have been uploading record-breaking numbers of opportunities to Creative Tenders, even throughout lockdown.

As a member of Creative Tenders, you will have access to:

  • All the available events tenders within the UK, without needing to understand CPV codes.
  • A dedicated account manager.
  • 20 minutes of free consultancy every month with our bid experts.
  • The ability to filter by keyword, location and budget.
  • Discounted bid support with Hudson Succeed.

Book a free live demo with Creative Tenders to see how we can help your business grow

We source creative contract opportunities for sectors including;

Recent events management tenders we sourced include:

Provision for the service of Managed Open Access (MOA) for Winter and Summer Solstice at Stonehenge
English Heritage- Stonehenge visitors centre- South West- Budget: £480,000
21-12-2020

Provision of Management, platform hosting and delivery of virtual events
Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland- International- Budget: Undisclosed
16-12-2020

Grimsby Creates: Festival Director – Grimsby Festival of the Sea 2021
North East Lincolnshire Council- East Midlands- Budget: £10,000
07-12-2020

Visitor Programmes Production Company Framework
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew – London- Budget: £ 450,000
18-12-2020

Events Tender
Ordnance Survey- South East- Budget: £ 300,000
18-12-2020

WHAT IS A DYNAMIC PURCHASING SYSTEM? The DPS in Tendering!

Posted on by John Hudson

WHAT IS A DYNAMIC PURCHASING SYSTEM? The DPS in Tendering!

Here we go again – another term which is not well known in all industry sectors across the UK – a Dynamic Purchasing System.

As always, we are here to help you understand all these ‘niggly’ bits to tendering, to ensure you are prepared to undergo some serious business development planning across your sector and beyond!

You can see the different bidding terminologies applicable in our ‘Tendering doesn’t have to be complicated’ blog. 

In a nutshell – a Dynamic Purchasing System (or DPS for short) is basically a supply chain list where tenders or other bidding opportunities are published to specific members that have been successful in maintaining a position on that list.

As quoted in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, “[a] DPS should be set up for identified types of requirement, which may be divided into categories of products, works or services.”

This could be any organisation or group of organisations, who wants to outsource work in either one or more service areas [or LOTs] and rather than having 50-100 applications come through for the [potentially many] tenders they publish, they start by narrowing down a set-list of applicants onto their own DPS.

Differences between Dynamic Purchasing System & General Tender processes

The main differences from the typical tender process are that a DPS is to:

  • be run as a completely electronic process (no paper or posting required here)
  • allow new suppliers to join at any time (meaning that if you have been unsuccessful at securing a place – you can always try again in the future)
  • and show longevity in its run (we’ve come across DPS’s which are open for 10 or more years)

All that suppliers would need to do, is register their company onto this DPS online, click which service area they are interested in delivering and undergo a Stage 1 submission in order to secure a place. Once secured, Stage 2 is the actual tendering of the works in question.

For example – A Housing Association could create a DPS for their outsourced Creative activity, which includes a range of service areas/LOTs – i.e. Branding, Printing, Website Hosting etc. They would publish this DPS opportunity to all and then undergo multiple stages to narrow down the process of awarding the work via the ‘most economically advantageous tender’ (MEAT).

Stage 1

In the average UK tender process, a lot of suppliers may be asked to complete a Pre-qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) to help the buyer narrow down their list of Invitations to Tender (ITT). This is now being taking over by a ‘Selection Questionnaire’ on many portals. It’s similar with a DPS – the supplier has to get onto the DPS in order to be Invited to Tender for works and they do this by completing a Stage 1 application process that heavily resembles a PQQ, with maybe a few additional questions thrown in.

Like a typical PQQ-to-ITT process, securing access to the DPS reflects a ‘weed-out’ procedure, with the buyer ensuring they progress all applicants who demonstrate greater strengths in their financial, technical and professional capabilities.

Stage 2

Once you are successful and Stage 1 is complete – it is complete. You do not have to re-do any capability and competency-based questions. Every time a tender is published in relation to your service area, as part of this Dynamic Purchasing System, you are automatically invited to tender and answer all questions specific to that service!

Once on the DPS then a range of tenders will then ensue (as and when required), allowing the buyer to streamline a more technically-focused evaluation on the responses collated.

Where we stand in all of this!

Our Tender Connect platform, which will be launching within the next 12-months, has many traits of a Dynamic Purchasing System, in that a buyer, let’s, for example, say a Design agency on our Creative Tenders portal, seeks a professional company who can support their financial/accountancy needs. All that the Design agency would do is:

  • Log on to Tender Connect
  • View a list of our Professional Tenders subscribers, which encapsulates a large list of Accountancy firms
  • Publish their ‘private opportunity brief’ to a filtered list of suppliers
  • Receive responses, evaluate and award

The reason we filter this list is to avoid publishing opportunities that bare minimal relevance to our suppliers. And to streamline the process for our buyers, helping them publish specific competitive opportunities to the most competent suppliers.

So, if you ever come across a DPS that contains services specific to your offering – get on board.

Our Tender Consultants can help you succeed!

HAVE YOUR SAY! What do you want to know? Creative Tenders

Posted on by John Hudson

HAVE YOUR SAY! What do you want to know? Creative Tenders

Every month – we want to hear from YOU!

Creative Tenders wants to get to know you as a customer and understand your thoughts, processes, and problems when it comes to UK tendering.

Our vision has remained the same since DAY 1:

We want to help businesses effectively discover contract opportunities that are out there, help them to succeed with their tendering efforts. We love to support like-minded organisations to procure through guided support and innovative inter-trading, and help deliver crucial economic results that helps conglomerates invest in what’s best.

As part of our impending launch for Tender VLE, we are wanting to find out your ‘pains of procurement’. So, we can deliver you FREE training and support in order to maximise your chances of tendering success.

This questionnaire features 5 short questions, which takes around 2 minutes to complete.

This is your chance to be heard and tell us your opinions on procurement, what you want to know and/or what you want to understand better!

If something doesn’t make sense – tell us!

We will try and get this across in a simple yet effective fashion!

CLICK HERE to take part!

WE SOURCE CREATIVE CONTRACT OPPORTUNITIES FOR AREAS INCLUDING;

Book a free live demo with Creative Tenders to see how we can help your business grow. 

Top five reasons for tendering

Posted on by John Hudson

Top five reasons for tendering

 

We’re often told by companies that we work with, that they don’t tender as it takes too long, they’re never successful, they don’t have the time…etc. etc.

Tendering is a powerful way to generate new business, so powerful in fact that many businesses use this as their sole route to winning new business. We think every business should at least try tendering.

We understand why businesses are put off from the long, in-depth process you have to follow. But, spending the time upfront to learn how to tender could be vital to the success and growth of your service based business.

Our Growth Director, Jill has been winning work via bid writing for well over a decade, and she is sharing with you below, her top five reasons for tendering in creative and digital agencies.

1. You don’t need to sell the need for your service

Responding to tenders means businesses have already established the need for your services and have allocated a budget to carry out the work.  This reduces the need for selling the benefits of the services, and establishing the benefit of investing in XYZ.

Responding to a tender means you’ve just got to prove that you’re the best fit for their business.  Surely it’s worth a try? Just make sure you follow a strict process of what you will and won’t apply for.

2. The project has clear start and end dates

When tendering the client usually outlines when they would like the work to start and end, meaning you can work your studio time around this.  When selling directly B2B we often have projects on hold waiting for content / imagery etc. We’re not saying this won’t happen with tendering, but your client is likely to be more prepared.

3. Budget signed off in advance

As the budget has already been allocated, you know what constraints you’re working within, allowing you to best advise your client where to allocate spend.

4. Clarifies your offering to clients

You won’t always be successful when tendering, but completing a tender document often gives you additional clarity on other areas of your business. It also teaches you how you can productise service offerings.  It also allows you to benchmark your fees against what people expect to pay.

5. Research

Tendering allows you to see how businesses are spending their marketing budgets.  This helps you to better understand where you should be spending your own marketing budgets and what services are the most popular.  If you see an influx of social media tenders and this is an offering your business provides, read the Invitation to Tender documents. You should then align your service descriptions to ensure it is suitable for the market you’re selling into.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your 12 months’ commitment

Posted on by John Hudson

Your 12 months’ commitment.

We’re often asked by companies who are interested in our system why we ask for a 12 months’ subscription.  There are multiple reasons for this so I thought I would sum it up in a quick blog.

First and foremost, we believe that in order to get a true reflection of any business development activities you have to give it a decent run.  All of us who have been through the tendering process know the in-depth process of sourcing potential opportunities, responding by the deadline provided and waiting whilst the decision is made on the successful provider.

By giving monthly access to the system, we’re saying that we expect our businesses to start winning work immediately and they will find the perfect opportunity for their business on day one.  We can’t and we don’t make that promise.  Every business is different, and every business has different requirements of what they’re looking for and industries in which they want to work.

It is also industry standard to commit to 12-months subscription for this very reason.  It’s to give you a decent run at seeing a good return on investment.  Also this gives us a chance to work with you as an outsourced business development partner.

We’re very open on our website, with lots of ways to get in touch, and we encourage people to get in touch to see a live demo of the system. This allows you to see the types of creative contracts in the UK we have on our system. For ease we have supplied examples of past tenders across various creative sub sectors which include:

When people have signed up, we contact them after their first month to ask how they wish to be account managed.  Some clients like to be emailed every single time a suitable tender comes onto the system. However, others prefer to use the system alone and be contacted once a month to check everything is ok.  We’re happy if you’re happy.

We’re always happy to stay in touch…

Our subscribers are informed on day one of sign up, who their account manager is and their contact details for getting in touch.  We’re only ever a phone call away Monday-Friday 9-5, and you’re always likely to get a response out of hours as our team are very keen on developing positive relationships.

Once you’ve been introduced to your account manager, they will ask several questions about the type of work you’re looking for.  This information is shared in our weekly sales meetings which gives the Creative Finder sales team a brief of what types of opportunities you want to see on our system.  We’re so much more than a technology platform, so asking people to commit to 12-months’ is essential for us to see a return on the time we invest into our customers.  As business owners we know you will understand this concept.

We’ve so many happy customers in just the short 3 months we’ve been live, we save agencies so much time by searching over 1,000 websites every single day to source new tenders. With our Creative Finder sales team, we know given the period of time we’re asking you to commit, that we can help you grow and play a part in your proactive business development activities.

Our founders John and Jill are always happy to answer any questions our customers or prospective customers have about our services. Please don’t hesitate to contact them anytime on their direct email addresses john@creativetenders.co.uk and jill@creativetenders.co.uk.

Look forward to working with you in the future.

10 Stages of Tendering

Posted on by John Hudson

10 Stages of Tendering

Our Growth Director Jill, has been writing bids for over a decade, and she is often asked what makes her so successful.  It’s important to understand that when she first started tendering, she also made the common mistakes made by all, but she soon realised she had to create a process and stick to it.  Creating consistency and building knowledge.

She developed her 10 stage process which she still uses to this day.  Here goes…

1. Develop a checklist

Don’t just assume that every project is right for your business.  If you are clutching at straws for suitable experience, it’s probably not for you.  Create a checklist with 5-10 questions to ask yourself when deciding if to bid for a project.  Mark these questions between 10-20% depending on the number of questions developed.

2. Searching for suitable tenders

Searching for suitable tenders takes time and commitment.  Did you know, we scrape over 1,000 websites every day to populate our portal with suitable public and private sector opportunities?  No agency has the resource or time in-house to do this.  Searching for tenders is critical for agency growth and a great source of new business, so make this process as streamlined as possible by signing up to Creative Tenders or another suitable portal.

3. Review against your checklist

Once you have sourced relevant tenders, score them against your checklist.  If you don’t score 80% or above, don’t tender for the work, put your sales efforts into other activities.

4. Roles and responsibilities

For those tenders that score 80% or above, agree roles, responsibilities and deadlines between the sales team, ensuring you’re not leaving things till the last minute.

5. Research

Research really is king when it comes to tendering.  You need to look into the tendering organisations business, look at what they’ve done in the past, read the tender document from front to back, and compile a thorough understanding of what they are trying to achieve, who their key buyers/audience are and who they are competing with.

6. Complete draft one of the tender

Draft one is critical as its about putting all of your thoughts down onto paper.  It’s important to see this as the first draft as you’re bound to think of additional/relevant knowledge and experience as you’re producing the response.  Make sure that during this stage you’re answering the information that is being asked of you, and make it 100% relevant to the company your bidding to.

7. Amend, edit, review

The review process should take a while, it’s not about proof reading at this stage, it’s about ensuring you’re answering the right questions, that the response has been correctly levelled against the scoring criteria of the tender and that you’re happy with the message the tender response gives about your business.

8. Sleep on it

Once you’ve edited the response, sleep on it.  We’ve all been there when we’ve submitted our tender response and instantly thought ‘I should have included XYZ’.  It’s important to plan your time ahead to give you this important down time before the response is due.

9. Proof read

Only then should you proof read your response for spelling and grammatical errors.  During this stage you should also ensure you’ve kept to any word count or font suggestions from the Invitation to Tender document.  After you’re happy with the response, ask someone else to read it, it’s hard to see mistakes with our own content when you’ve read it so many times before.

10. Submit

Submit your response, giving yourself plenty of time before the deadline is due.  Consider how long this might take when using online public sector tendering platforms, as they are not always as straightforward as they may first appear.

 

 

 

 

 

Creative Tenders Team Profiles – John Hudson

Posted on by John Hudson

Creative Tenders Team Profiles – John Hudson

When did you start working in the creative sector?

12 years whilst I was still at University.

What is the biggest change you’ve seen in the sector in the last ten years?

Everything moving digital and online, social media becoming more and more important for businesses, and online communities becoming more popular than offline events.

What made you stay in the creative sector?

The diversity and fast paced environment, I’m the type of person that needs to be kept on my toes, and the creative sector does that every day.

What is your biggest achievement in the sector?

Building a leading B2C videography business with 50% year on year growth.  For future achievements I am hoping Creative Tenders will become THE leading tender portal used worldwide by creative businesses and purchasing managers.

If you could describe the sector in 3 words what would you say?

Fast, dynamic and fulfilling (unlike my current diet).

If you could see anything happen in the creative sector, what would it be?

For smaller agencies to realise the potential in exporting.  Geography shouldn’t be an issue now when we do business with one another.

If you didn’t work at in the creative industries what would you do?

Probably a PE teacher, I like working with people and helping people realise what they are capable of.

What 3 skills do you think you need to be successful in this sector?

Approachable, open-minded, a good work ethic. If you have those 3 three things, drop me a line or send me your CV.

WE SOURCE CREATIVE CONTRACT OPPORTUNITIES FOR SECTORS INCLUDING;

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Creative Tenders – Officially launched – Website, Design & Marketing Tenders all in one place!

Posted on by John Hudson

Creative Tenders – Officially launched – Website, Design & Marketing Tenders all in one place!

The day has finally arrived, and the team at Creative Tenders couldn’t he happier. Creative Tenders officially launched.

We are now open for business. We have proactive marketing campaigns running in parallel recruiting new creative sign ups and new private sector opportunities onto our system. We have streamlined processes where we check over 1,000 tender websites daily to locate 100% of tenders available online that are relevant to creative sector businesses only, meaning two things you won’t miss a single tender, and you won’t need to search through hundreds of irrelevant tenders to find opportunities suitable for your business.

The system is running a start up cost of £12 per week for agencies and £6 per week for freelancers, but this cost is only for the first 100 registrations. Following the 100th registration, the full system fee is payable at £18 per week for companies and £12 per week for freelancers. So don’t forget the early bird catches the worm.

Website Tenders Launch

The site officially launched on Tuesday and by Thursday afternoon we saw the registration of our 10th user, and we are overwhelmed by the response from the sector.

If you are interested in seeing a demo of the system, you can organise by this emailing our Director of Sales Andrew Gibson or by phoning our office and speaking with one of our sales representatives.

Thank you for keeping up to date with Creative Tenders, we look forward to helping you grow your agency.

Sign up for a free demo of Creative Tenders and review the following creative contract opportunities:

Book a free live demo with Creative Tenders to see how we can help your business grow. 

 

 

Creative Tenders moves to Durham

Posted on by John Hudson

Creative Tenders moves to Durham

We are excited to announce that Creative Tenders will be moving to Durham in April 2016 to support its bid for high growth. The growing software company will be moving to the prestigious business park – City West at Meadowfield in Durham after signing a five-year lease for 1,600 square foot.

Managing Director John Hudson said “we are very excited to move the business to Durham. The new office space allows us to grow massively and will support with finding the right team, with the right experience to lead our business to become the leading creative tendering portal across the UK”.

He went on to say “if you are looking for a new challenge then Creative Tenders could be the business for you. We have a full list of open vacancies on our website ranging from sales executives to account managers”.

Creative Tenders Portal

The product is due to go live in February and the team believes that it’s the start of something very exciting for the creative industries. The team will launch UK wide from day one and Directors Jill and John a husband and wife team has heavily invested into the business and its product development.

Jill said “I have worked in the creative sector my whole career, and I always knew I wanted to streamline the way new business was secured, as no matter what agency I worked with they struggled to find quality leads and new business opportunities”

“Our new team will be forward thinking experienced sales and marketing representatives from the creative sector and will drive forward the agencies that sign up to our product. Following the signing of the new office lease we have everything we need to build a leading brand”.

We welcome feedback on our product so please contact Jill Hudson – jill@creativetenders.co.uk to discuss our business further.

Sign up for a free demo of Creative Tenders and review the following creative contract opportunities: