Whilst the first and most immediately obvious step in improving poor articulation performance in a submission is to subject it to a rigorous editing process, there is almost always a greater issue at play.
That issue is the largely non-client-specific (at least, not convincingly specific) and generally “same, same” (competitively speaking) nature of the content . . . the supplier-focused “brochureware” that results from an unclear, uncertain or absent bid strategy. Or an insufficiently documented one.
In almost every bidding organisation I’ve worked with their writers have previously had to either rely on a combination of a “strategy document” that amounts to little more than meeting notes, together with the essence of existing generic content, lightly customised; and/or they are forced to interpret and piece together in their own minds the intended underpinning strategy/guiding themes resulting from planning workshops; and/or they are faced with making up the content themselves without any guidance.
It is critical to recognise that producing a client-focused bid document requires more than an emphasis on writing and editing processes (e.g. flipping sentences around to commence with the client organisation’s name versus the bidder’s, and/or eliminating the number of mentions of the bidder’s name.
If writers are furnished with a comprehensive and user-friendly guiding document, and along the way their outputs are nurtured by the appointed strategist within the group, their writing should, by default, adequately convey the bid strategy – and should do so in a client-focused manner.
Â
