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Business growth is your responsibility. As a service or asset provider you will have several routes to market and bidding for work will be one.

Planning your strategy, you have scrupulously researched your Opportunity Pipeline. You have graded and analysed opportunities relentlessly. You have built a plan around the expected timing of each one.

And then, sure as “eggs is eggs”, the customer changes the dates.

You have a clash. If you are lucky, you will be able to drop something, to fit your resource availability. But from experience, the clash will likely include strategic must win opportunities. Opportunities that must be converted to meet the business plan and strategy. Failure to address them will put you and your business back months, maybe even years.

We all know the importance of wise investment and bidding for work is no different. You don’t bid just because there are opportunities out there. You bid to win! You must make your investment pay returns.

Your dilemma is palpable. You must make a decision. But what are the alternatives?

You can rely on the goodwill of your team. Ask them to “Double Down” and put in some extra effort. This is often the solution adopted, but can you guarantee the outcome? Is your investment well placed? Will you win, when you are loading your team, increasing the pressure and pushing them to the limit?

Reaching out to consultants is an option but you will have concerns about this.

How will outsourcing enable me to win when I have so many worries?

Looking at your questions and what causes them to be asked may help.

1. Costs will be too high

This is a perception usually based on the consultant’s day rate. The immediate analysis is to multiply by 240 days to get a Full Time Equivalent (FTE) value. This is of course not only crude but not entirely accurate. But it is a simple measure even though it omits the benefits of permanent employment (holidays including bank holidays, bonuses, other employee scheme benefits pension, sick, maternity/paternity leave, etc.).

What can you do about it? Consider how you engage the consultant. Do you need them all the time? Could you engage them for discrete phases of the programme, on an “as needed” basis. Engage the consultant to deliver tasks that they add value to. This can help reduce pressure on your team, improve the quality of the outputs and enable you to maintain your win rate.

You could buy a service. List the tasks that need completing, define the deliverables and contract with the consultant based on the performance of these. The benefit of this is you are transferring the risk of delivery to the contractor.

If you feel that having cover for the whole period of the bid reduces the risk, consider using the contractor on a part time basis, for instance 3 days a week. This could be developed further, reducing to a maximum call off number of days, for periods when there is lower activity. You set the requirement, the contractor responds to this, optimising your investment and providing resource flexibility to meet the demand.

Another way to manage your costs is to share the “win risk”. We all make investments in bidding for new work. You could ask them to work on an incentivised basis but be realistic and propose something that you would be prepared to accept.

This may whittle down the contractors willing to take this risk. You may lose some good practitioners, but you may also weed out those that are not confident in their ability.

However, you will have to be in a winnable position. You are likely to be asked for a Capture Plan and win strategy to evidence the groundwork you have done. I have turned down work where I believe the bid is not winnable and therefore a waste of money. Good consultants will provide evidence of why this is their opinion, and most will advise you to “no bid” the opportunity.

Finally, long term relationships can be built on trust and knowledge of each other. Strategic Partnering is a way of engaging over the long term and reaping the benefits. Immediately the consultant can see an agreed potential income stream which should provide a level of cost control for you. The consultant can become a part of your team, overcoming many of the worries outlined here. You can use them to build your bidding capability, train the team and improve your processes. There are many benefits to this on both sides, but the relationship will need managing and all parties must avoid complacency. Regular reviews of performance, an open debate on how the support works with the organisation and early addressing of negative feedback are essential to making the partnership work.

Bid support consultants can save you money and time by taking care of the complex and time-consuming bid process for you. They can also bring best practice and increase your chances of winning by writing high-quality bids that showcase your strengths and value proposition. By outsourcing your bid writing to experts, you can focus on your core business activities and avoid the opportunity costs of losing contracts to your competitors.

2. Consultant quality

If you don’t know a consultant, your first foray into finding one may be an internet or LinkedIn search. You will read about them in their posts, see comments people have made and maybe even be lucky enough to read some reviews. But this will all be at arm’s length.

Your worry could be whether they have the skills & experience necessary to contribute to your bid and ensure it wins. However, consider why you are supplementing your team.

You will have Subject Matter Experts (SME) in your company, and they are most likely to provide the solution detail. This immediately answers the question around knowledge of the content of the bid and solution.

If the support you really need is bid process leadership, management, and knowledge of how to bid successfully, consider this as your aim and not having the detailed knowledge of your business.

It may be that you want help writing the content. This is a bidding skill that is developed over time. I will upset a few engineers here. I am in awe of their ability to design, build and set to work “things” but I am yet to meet many that can write compelling and grammatically correct text, answering the question and providing evidence. Harsh I know but bid writing is a learned skill.

Another worry could be that they don’t know your business. Again, although important, careful selection will reduce or remove this concern.

The onus is largely on you and your process to identify consultants that can help you. Look for proven success in bid winning. There are lots of people engaged in bids, but a smaller number that consistently deliver winning bids. Use the selection process to delve into this. You are seeking evidence of their ability. Take up references, ask how well they worked with the company. If you need them to get information from SMEs in your company, ask how they achieved this.

Other ways to reduce this risk include sourcing consultants who have worked with similar companies to yours. Consultants who have worked for you or competitors in the past. Test their knowledge and experience to help remove this worry. Check they are available because the good ones get snapped up very quickly.

In seeking help with the bid process remember to ask if they write responses after gleaning the detail from SMEs. The writing process is one of the most time-consuming elements of bid preparation. Often work is allocated to SMEs who don’t write bids regularly. They stare at the blank sheet for ages, unable to start or worried what people with think of their written work.

Bid writing specialists can cut through this task, quickly. They will interview the SME for content, write a first draft and get the content reviewed by the SME. Consultants do this regularly and have no problem with people critiquing their text.

Using this method releases your SME to focus on their day job, contributing to the business.

Bid support consultants have extensive experience and knowledge of various sectors and markets. They will work closely with your team to understand your business, your unique selling points, your customers and your competitors. They will also conduct thorough research and analysis of the tender requirements, the procurement process, and the evaluation criteria. They will tailor your bid to match the needs and expectations of the buyer and demonstrate how you can deliver the best solution.

3 Integration into your team

Bringing in new people is always potentially fraught with issues. The cost concern above will be in your mind, as will the question of how they will fit into your team. You need them to mobilise quickly, know who to speak with and understand your processes.

When you evaluate consultants, you could look for people who have experience in similar companies or who are known to your team. Again, take up references as they will have experience of the consultants.

When you on-board the consultant, have a thorough briefing pack prepared. Your Capture Plan will inform them about the bid. Add to this information about the company that will be useful. Organisation charts, people involved in governance, key processes they will use. If you have a new staff on-boarding process, use this for the consultant. It may not only inform them about the company, but it will include any mandatory training.

If you can, hold a bid kick-off when they start. This event is key to getting the bid team together and making sure the team knows who is responsible for what. Make it a serious but fun event, include a social event at the end to let the team get to know each other. Your team will already know each other, and experienced consultants will not need the social event, but it may help mobilise a little quicker, and the one luxury you don’t have in bids, is time.

4 How will they Communicate efficiently with the organisation?

To function day to day the consultant will work within your team. You are asking them to understand and contribute to your processes and get a winning bid out the door on time, not to mention to the required quality.

The bidding environment can be very stressful. From understanding the customers requirement, working to an exacting timescale, having the best possible solution, delivered for a price that is attractive and all wrapped up in a compelling and comprehensive proposal document. Bids can be a hot house!

Not only will the consultants have to contribute, quickly, they will have to do so diplomatically. This is another aspect you need to consider when engaging and asking referees. Can they tackle a difficult situation, without upsetting everybody? The team needs to be resilient and work its way through issues.

If your consultant is engaged to lead your bid, then you will have to consider how they interact with your senior team and directors. Again, they need to sometimes be diplomatic. However, a benefit of an independent within the team, is the ability to report things how they are. Honesty is a strength, providing it comes with solutions to problems.

During your selection process, consider as highlighted before, selecting consultants with experience of similar companies. Make their start smooth by preparing information about the organisation. Review your processes and documentation to enable them to read into the role. Be clear about your organisation cultural needs relating to values and beliefs, understand what type of person you are looking for.

5 It will need High involvement from me

When you engage someone new, you must spend time with them. You will need to tell them about the organisation, who to speak to and a variety of potentially time-consuming activities, when you just do not have the time.

Start the process by setting out how you want to manage the consultant. If you want to minimise effort, you will have to on-board them efficiently. You will need to pick a self-starter. You will need to engage an experienced consultant, who has done this many times before. You may have to pay a premium for this autonomous person.

Be clear how much time you can commit to. Tell the consultant. Set up review points. Ask the consultant for their input. You will start with an agreed management plan and commitment to time. After all the consultant is there to support your bid, not report on their progress by the minute.

Get an insight from referees as to the level of management needed. Find out if they are self-starters. Are they used to reporting their progress and how did they do it?

6 Protecting our confidentiality

All companies have something that is unique. It may be the way they price their services and products. It could be that they have a process that returns better results than their competitors. Or it may be Intellectual Property that sets them apart. Whatever it is, you want to protect yours.

Bringing in a third party opens you and your organisation up to risk of losing this edge.

To protect this asset, you could work with the consultant to build trust through long term relationships and strategic partnering. You could resort to a Non-Disclosure Agreement to keep sensitive information away from competitors.

Consider the relationship with the consultant. They trade on their success on assignments. They rely on being able to use customers as references for future work. This is possibly the strongest argument for this concern being unfounded. Consultants are professionals and will respect the sensitive nature of information.

7 Flexibility

You have a great team. They are committed to the company and will understand the need to put in the hours, reschedule leave and help get this critical bid in. Your worry is that consultants are not as flexible; they will just work their contracted hours. Are you sure this is your worry? Is it the control you have over the team that you are really referring to here? And the flexibility of the consultant may be that you don’t want to pay for additional hours. To overcome this concern, you need to be honest with yourself and determine what you are actually worried about.

When evaluating potential consultants, look for evidence of their commitment to win. Take up references and find out from third parties, what their reaction was to the need to be flexible and work additional hours. Consultants are motivated to get the job done efficiently. Most will pride themselves on an ethic of working to complete. To achieve this many consultants will go the extra mile to do a good job. Bid support consultants are very focussed on winning and will strive to achieve this. It is, after all, their selling point to others for further work.

Set out clearly your requirement for flexibility. If you need commitment to be available at unusual times, say so when engaging them. I have worked for teams that preferred to review progress at the end of the day, not everyone’s favourite time but because the requirement was clear and the reviews had total team buy in, they worked exceedingly well.

8 Understanding your processes

The new consultant will have to learn your policies and procedures. You feel they will make errors and slow the process down. In the bid environment, time is critical, and this could damage your win chances. Governance is possibly the process that trips teams up most, with availability of approvers being a challenge. Governance processes also can have nuances in the measurement of value and risk, leading to issues when seeking approval to submit.

These are valid concerns and ones that can often be overlooked. Hold a thought though, most companies have a similar governance process, it may be called a Gate process, or Major Bids process, but essentially, they are the same. Prepare and issue a summary, notify attendees, meet to discuss, approve or not and then complete the necessary documentation.

Prepare for this process by providing information in the on-boarding. Prepare a thorough briefing in advance and involve others, involved in bids, in its preparation.

One approach I have seen is to discuss with the consultant, a package of work for the on-boarding process. Can it be done at a reduced rate? Could you use previously engaged contractors who may be able to fast track the on-boarding? Can on-boarding be done remotely, reducing the need for travel and accommodation costs.

9 Untimely loss of consultants

It may occur to you that the transient nature of a consultant working for you could be catastrophic to your bid. Let’s be honest here between friends, they are day rate “tarts” and can be lured away with the promise of an extra tenner.

Although a concern, in most cases the personal commitment of the consultant and the need to be able to get references from you for future work, will negate this worry.

However, if you still think this is a risk, why not contract on the basis of them having “skin in the game”. Incentivise them to stay, maybe use a win bonus. Contract on the basis of milestone payments being linked to deliverables.

Once again, when checking references ask if the consultant stayed to the agreed end of the contract. Check their track record. It won’t entirely remove the risk, but you may be able to manage it, knowing their past performance.

I’ve mentioned Strategic Relationships already. This type of long-term engagement with consultants, provides a basis for trust and knowledge to be built between all parties. Savings can be made through reduced on-boarding, greater knowledge of processes and building knowledge in your company and its experience.

10 Fit with company culture

Consultants by the nature of their engagements operate independently when seeking assignments and this concerns you. They ostensibly are not part of a team and if you engage them, they could work against your brand.

This is a reasonable concern but when engaging them, ask about their values and beliefs. If you know what values you are looking for, this will help you to ask and secure the right person.

If you are bidding for work from a client and your company does not reflect the client’s culture, you could engage a consultant that does, to strengthen your understanding of the client and improve your bid. It’s just a thought.

Once again, the on-boarding and briefing pack will be important in getting the right consultant.

11 Mobilising consultants

I have seen this from the consultant’s viewpoint on many occasions. The process of getting approval and appointing the consultant takes companies a lot longer than thought. This leads many to discount consultants because it is all too difficult. Too long to find, appoint, on-board, and integrate and therefore not worth pursuing. It will be ages before they can contribute to the bid!

If this is your experience but you still believe using consultants can alleviate the pressures of must win bids clashing, then why not consider early engagement with the consultant before the emergency arises. Bring them on-board with no commitment, in advance of the bid starting. This lets you get all the briefing and preparatory work completed at your leisure. It is a form a strategic partnering, in that you are ready for the bid launch.

12 Risk

In all activities there are risks. When engaging bid support consultants, the risk of not performing is the greatest. Their key skills are selling value propositions, and in this I would include their own abilities, when it comes to successful bidding. We started this article with the situation of must win bids clashing and there not being enough resource to win. The last thing you want to buy is a pup!

When searching for consultants, look for proven winners. Consultants that can demonstrate their success. Take up references and get others’ opinions on the individuals. If you get the opportunity to speak with referees, great. If you can meet them, even better. You need truthful feedback. It is an important investment decision, treat it like one.

Another group that can provide invaluable feedback are bid team members that collaborated with the consultant. Ask the referee if they can provide additional background and access to the team.

When contracting with the consultant, define Key Performance Indicators (KPI), measures of performance that can help reduce your worries. KPIs that measure early performance in bids are challenging but one I have proposed in the past has been a team 360 review of performance. It can be quite telling and can also help identify team issues early.

13 Losing Control

Your concerns around losing control of the bid will be dependent on how you manage your bid teams. I have seen business development directors that just can’t let someone run their bid. You are engaging proven, experienced people, you need to trust them to do for you what they have done for others, WIN!

Presenting your company brand correctly can be achieved through the on-boarding process. Adhering to the corporate style guide, and maintaining your brand identity, can all be briefed at this time. Leaving them to later will incur additional work or a poorly presented bid being submitted.

To reduce this concern, share style and presentation guides. Make templates available. Provide previous bid examples. All will help inform the consultant and provide materials to answer any questions on presentation from the bid team. BUT take advantage of the experience being brought to your team. Ask the consultant for any improvements in the bid documents and look for best practice to include for the future.

Your opportunity to manage the bid progress will be at the regular progress reviews. Bring your experience to bare on the process. Even though you may have the best bid support ever, you can still improve on it.

Bid support consultants will not write generic or impersonal bids for you. They will use your existing branding, tone and style guidelines to ensure consistency and professionalism in your bids. They will also incorporate your feedback and suggestions throughout the bid writing process to ensure that your bids reflect your vision and values. They will also help you to highlight your achievements, testimonials, and case studies to showcase your credibility and reputation.

In conclusion

Engaging a bid support consultant has its worries but with good preparation, perhaps a long-term relationship and taking up references, you can reduce these to a manageable level. For this effort, you will get an expert in their field, who can considerably raise your probability of winning, critical new work.

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