In A ‘Too-Tight’ Bid Timeframe, Capitalise on Individuals’ Strengths

When you’re under the pump with a short submission timeframe, your best default strategy for getting a top-notch bid out the door in good time is to “go with the current” in terms of people’s natural talents, advises Jordan Kelly, bid strategist and coach.

Kelly says people can be coached in their areas of weakness to a reasonable degree but rarely will they be great in those particular aspects of bid production:  people generally gravitate back to the aspects in which they naturally excel and endeavour to avoid those in which they don’t.

The first step is to accurately identify the priority skills required for each part of the submission and the process, giving careful consideration to which individuals possess these.

Really think about each person and who (rather than what) they are; “day job” position titles can be misleading in the context of a bid, Kelly warns. She says that often, the strengths and weaknesses you’d assume of an individual in a particular role just don’t import across into a bid team environment in the way you’d expect them to.