Business Writing With Buzz

Rosemary Gillespie - Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Once you've read all the Request for Tender (RFT) supplied by your prospective client, the chances are that you will have many questions.

Sometimes your prospective client will be open to your inquiries as this helps them to correct any omissions and / or errors in their RFTs, clarify the conditions of tendering or refine the scope of services. This was precisely the case with a large Commonwealth Government tender we assisted a client with recently. 

Asking questions reduces the risk of you making too many assumptions about what the client wants. When you do this, you risk the worst case scenario of misunderstanding the client’s needs.

Larger organisations and all government bodies are also very keen on ‘complying tenders’. So, if you are unclear about any questions asked in the RFT or the tender process, ask for clarification. Otherwise, your tender may not fully comply and you could be evaluated as “a non-complying tender”. This means your tender will not be considered, even after all your hard work.

Asking questions – and ensuring that your tender responds properly to the client’s questions – ultimately ensures that your considerable investment in preparing a response is not wasted, and that yours is deemed to be a “complying tender”.

Who Do I Talk To?
RFTs include details of a contact person to whom you can direct your questions. The client wants to track all queries and to provide considered and prompt responses – and ‘one gateway’ is the management process that ensures that enquiries are answered. Ultimately this may ensure that the tender process is not corrupt.

It is vitally important that you contact only the nominated person so you cannot be eliminated from the process for soliciting.

Pertinent Questions
If you have a question, ask it! If the client’s response prompts other questions, ask them!

All government organisations and some private and public ones will periodically circulate questions asked by prospective tenderers with answers to all registered tenderers. That way, you can see the concerns and queries of other tenderers.

The Earlier The Better
The earlier you ask your questions – the better! This gives you the maximum amount of time to prepare your tender. Check the RFT document – it will often provide you with a ‘cut off’ date for asking questions – after this, you are on your own. Don’t risk being left in the dark with a big question dangling – unanswered.

Think Outside The Square
When preparing your response to the RFT, you might want to consider asking questions about the project to stakeholders other than the client, and these may be mentioned in the RFT.

Early engagement with these stakeholders will give you a real sense of who you will be working with / against in delivering the project. Asking open questions to identified stakeholders could just give your tender the winning edge of understanding.

I Need More Time!
If you want to ask for an extension of time for lodging your response, don’t wait until the day before the tender is due. In all but the most unusual of circumstances, your request will be denied.

If, however, the client’s responses to tenderer’s questions change the scope or services required, ask for an extension and outline the reasons why. If the client considers that the majority of respondents do require more time, then a request for a reasonable response will often be favourably considered.

For more help with tender writing, contact Rosemary Gillespie on 02 9314 7506 or 0411 123 216.

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Rosemary Gillespie - Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Tendering is all about finding a great match. Businesses and governments want to ensure they engage a supplier who meets (or exceeds) all of their requirements – and they will usually have many suitors.

You, as the potential and successful suitor, need to evaluate if you should respond to the tender opportunity and, if so, ensure that your proposal will be the most favourably evaluated.

First - Check Your Eligibility

There are usually a swag of tender documents, especially if your prospective client is a government organisation. The one to read first is the Request for Tender (RFT). This outlines the scope of services the client is seeking and their selection criteria – among other important information.

All government RFTs and those of many public and private companies will include the contract you will be expected to sign if you are successful. With government RFTs, this is usually called the Draft Deed of Agreement. It is vital you read this carefully to check you can accept all the terms.

Ask yourself:  Are the terms and conditions of the contract acceptable to you? Are they commercially fair?

If not, consider your options. There will usually be a form for you to complete to confirm your compliance with each contract clause. If you are not comfortable with a clause, this form is your opportunity to suggest an alternative. Remember, however, government organisations are more comfortable with businesses that comply with a Draft Deed of Agreement in its entirety.

Now is the time for you to be brutally honest about your ability to undertake the project:

Do you want to work for this client? Have you heard good reports about them? Can you demonstrate that you meet all of the selection criteria or a large part– with additional bonuses?

If you are ticking all of these boxes, get set to start.

If not, consider another response strategy. One is to put together a team in which your role might be the Principal Consultant or a Sub-Consultant. This can be a winning strategy.

Tick Off the Selection Criteria

Clients include selection criteria so they can measure your capabilities. They usually include:

General – such as how you comply with the Draft Agreement and your risk profile

• Technical – such as your demonstrated past experience, ability to perform the requirements, and others, such as your commitment to environmental sustainability and OH&S
• Commercial – such as your organisation and its financial capacity, pricing and insurances

Formal tenders and government tenders will be assessed by a selection panel. To be successful, you must clearly demonstrate how your organisation meets all of the criteria.

Keep the list of the criteria handy when you write your response. It will remind you of what they are and to incorporate them into every section of your document.

By doing this, you will make it easy for the selection panel to ‘tick off’ your compliance and easily evaluate your ability to meet the selection criteria.  

You might also consider including any qualities in addition to the identified selection criteria – but be careful that they have a direct relationship to the project or client’s overall business.

One final note: assume nothing. The selection panel cannot evaluate your proposal on what you consider to be ‘general knowledge’ or ‘individual relationships’. You should include this in your proposal as it will – at the very least – facilitate the evaluation process.

Response In…

Once you’ve lodged your tender, you are now in the evaluation period.

The selection panel is responsible for evaluating all the responses. Members may be employees of the client, independent experts or a combination of both. This process can take many weeks as it may involve a number of meetings of the selection panel and interviews with tenderers. Be prepared to respond to queries and / or present to the panel during this time. Scores are adjusted – and re-adjusted - during this process.

Finally, at the end of the evaluation process, the (re-) evaluated scores are put together and given a final evaluation. The Chair of the selection panel will provide a report and a recommendation and follow due process to enable the winning tenderer to be accepted.

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

Businesses and government organisations that issue RFTs want good responses – and have their eyes on future opportunities. If you were unsuccessful with your response, then the RFT may outline a debriefing process.

This is your opportunity to meet the client and hear first-hand about your tender’s strengths and weaknesses – and how you can improve your response for the next opportunity.

For more help with writing tender, ring Rosemary Gillespie on 02 9314 7506 or 0411 123 216.

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Rosemary Gillespie - Thursday, September 16, 2010

Anyone who missed the recent election must have been hiding under the proverbial rock, or willfully avoiding it altogether. If the latter is the case, we at Proof Communications sympathise because at no other point in the political calendar is the main purpose of communication – to impart information clearly – so casually abused, with the use of political double-talk, repetitive slogans (moving forward, anyone?) and ‘officialese’ at an apparent all time high. Or low, depending on your point of view.

You’ll know officialese when you hear it; it’s bureaucratic, hard to follow and mostly meaningless. Consider these examples from the excellent Bendable Learnings by Don Watson, author and speechwriter for former Prime Minister Paul Keating: ‘front-end strategies’, ‘leveraged solutions’, ‘the execution of deliverables’ and (our favourite) ‘synergy-related headcount reductions’, which was Nokia Siemens’ way of saying in a media release that they planned to fire a few people. It’s management-speak designed to hide either the horrible truth… or the fact that the speaker is utterly clueless about the subject. Which gives us an excellent insight into why pollies use it so much!

Officialese isn’t just a convenient tool for misinformation used by silver-tongued politicians. It’s also a disease that, if left unchecked, can spread rapidly and infect your business writing. Look at all your business communications – that’s everything from e-mail correspondence to reports and tenders – and ask yourself: is my meaning clear? Have I used industry jargon when talking to a customer who may not understand it? Am I using unnecessarily complex words when a simple, everyday alternative would work just as well?

We’ve talked about ways to make your business writing clearer in Proof Communications newsletters before but, unlike our Prime Minister’s favourite slogan, some things can bear repetition. Here’s a quick refresher on writing clearly and effectively:

1. What am I trying to say?
Identify the purpose of your communication or ‘key message’, as well as all the supporting information you need to convey.

2. Get yourself a gorgeous body.
Structure is crucial to clarity. As a rule of thumb, every paragraph should contain a unique point that contributes to your overall message.

3. Spell-check your work.
Your computer’s spell-check function doesn’t understand jargon, so it’s an excellent way of identifying industry-specific terms, as well as misspellings.

4. Honesty is the key.
Have you used ‘antediluvian’ instead of ‘old-fashioned’ because you think it makes you sound smarter? Not only do you risk alienating your customer, you might just run out of words. As CS Lewis said, “Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” Save the posh words for the cryptic crossword.

As the American Plain English Foundation says: “Though no one knows the total cost of poor communication, the information we do have suggests it's high. While writing in plain language isn't easy, it pays off in positive results”.

So stop the rot: inoculate yourself against the spread of officialese before it costs you a customer!

Resources:
www.plainenglishfoundation.com
www.plainenglish.org
http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/default.aspx?page=book&id=9781741669046

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Rosemary Gillespie - Sunday, May 02, 2010

Your business is a singular collective noun.

What do I mean?

I recently edited a marketing document for a thriving business that got its grammatical position as a singular collective noun correct from the first draft.

I admit I was surprised. Why?

Well, it’s very common for writers (both professionals and in-house staff) to describe the company (or organisation) they work for in the plural. This is something I see constantly, and it's incorrect. A business, company or organisation is a single entity. It is a singular collective noun.

For example, we often read, “TWP are the biggest online publishers”. It should say, “TWP is the biggest online publisher”.

Or, “RST have won the biggest government tender”. It should say, “RST has won the biggest government tender".

Remember though, it’s correct to use the plural when writing about your business as “we”. So, it’s fine to say, “At RST, we have the best tender writing team in Australia”.

 

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Rosemary Gillespie - Sunday, March 14, 2010

Clients often ask me, “What do you think about bullet lists?” The question usually comes when they are writing a proposal or a tender, or copywriting a website or brochure. They come to read their work, only to realise it’s full of endless bullet lists.

I find B2B documents with lots of bullet lists hard to read and tend to skim over them. By zoning out, I probably miss some key messages.

Yet bullet points are great when they are used well. Here are 5 tips to make your bullets more readable.

1. Turn a bullet list into numbered list, just like this one. Numbers make the list seem more important, and more likely to be read.

2. Put a box around the bullet points, with or without shading, or just use shading. Highlighting your bullet points makes them stand out for your readers.

3. Bold or underline some of the key words for emphasis and to attract your readers’ attention.

4. Make each bullet point a stand-alone sentence so your readers get the message quickly. It saves them having to refer back to the lead-in sentence.

5. Start each bullet point with a verb in the present tense, where possible. That’s what I've done in this list. It’s punchier and faster to read. 

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Rosemary Gillespie - Monday, November 16, 2009

When you're cooking up marketing or business development materials (brochures, profiles, flyers, email, tenders, proposals) it's tricky to get the recipe right. Between your two main ingredients - a capital letter and a full stop - there are different flavours of words, and occasionally a dash of commas, to give you a sentence. Not a very tasty one perhaps, but one you can mix until you get the flavour right.

How do you get the flavour right? With good editing.

Here are 5 tips to great editing:

1. Read your work aloud. You'll hear where it doesn't flow.

2. Leave it to bake for long enough. If you have time, leave it overnight. In the morning read it afresh. You will recognise your good work, and the parts you need to revisit.

3. Add some new ingredients. Seek alternatives for the words you keep repeating.

4. Reduce the fat content. Cut out unncessary words. Adjectives (these are mostly really lovely words ending in -ly) and parts of the verb 'to be" can often be cut. For example, instead of "...the magnificent views are carefully framed", edit to "frames the magnificent views".

5. Use present tense to makes your work shorter, and livlier. Instead of, "You will receive three issues for free when you...", try "Receive 3 issues free when you...", or "You receive 3 issues free when you..."

For more help, download our free guide Do You Make These Mistakes in English? or call Rosemary on (02) 9314 7506

 

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