Many companies and recruitment consultants underestimate the unique personality traits and skills of tender specialists, including tender managers and tender writers.
If a company advertises a tender manager role with low level administrative duties included, you can bet they don’t fully understand, or appreciate the complexities of this demanding role.
If a company expects their tender writer to write a technical methodology from scratch without direct education/experience working in that discipline, they are setting the tender writer (and tender response) up for failure.
Some tender specialists focus more on delivering tender management services, whereas others specifically focus on tender writing. If you’re lucky, you will source a tender specialist who is skilled in both management and writing, with graphic design skills as well.
Personality traits and skills of an effective tender manager
The following key skills and traits are what I believe an effective tender manager should have:
- Negotiation skills. Managing big egos and tailoring communication styles to different stakeholders and personalities when negotiating critical and timely tender inputs. While managing big egos can be a challenge during a tight tender timeframe, it’s critical to get people working as collaboratively as possible throughout the entire tender process.
- Comprehensive scheduling skills. Scheduling skills can be applied by using Gantt charts, Excel Spreadsheets, Microsoft Project and SharePoint etc. It’s important to have an eye for intricate details, while also keeping in mind the over arching tender deadlines and availability of tender resources.
- Accountability. It’s important for a tender manager to remain accountablethroughout the entire tender process. This is applicable to every single tender contributor. It’s useful to outline key tender role responsibilities and expectations from the outset and ensure people remain accountable for their inputs throughout the tender process.
- Ability to multi-task – constantly. Communicating with multiple stakeholders and working on different tasks with competing deadlines is essential to a tender’s success. It’s also tiring, but it’s vital for a tender manager to effectively multi-task throughout the tender process.
- Ability to delegate in a timely manner. An effective tender manager won’t waste time fiddling about with the front cover design when they have critical tender milestones to meet. They will brief and delegate this task to a skilled graphic designer who can design more effectively and much faster. It’s important to give key tender resources sufficient notice and clear briefs rather than dropping work on them at short notice.
- Level headed. The ability to work accurately and calmly under pressure and within tight time frames. This is particularly important in the lead up to the deadline when tensions are high and nerves frayed. People have their own ways of dealing with stress, but it’s not a great reflection on a tender manager to curse at the computer and be rude to people – even if they blame their behaviour on being stressed.
- Tolerance, combined with tenacity. Tenders are typically stressful and many people don’t always react well to stress. It’s good to be tolerant to some extent, but also tenacious enough to ensure you get the right information from the right stakeholders at the right time.
I’ve been told throughout my tender career that I’m too nice to stakeholders. Being cranky doesn’t come naturally to me, so I’m not going to start forcing that characteristic on my stakeholders just to intimidate them into meeting deadlines.
I have found that being too nice has actually earned me a lot of respect throughout my career. Typically, stakeholders deliver tender inputs to me on time as they like and respect me – also, they don’t want to inconvenience me! I may be nice, but I am sufficiently tenacious and firm when it comes to chasing information from stakeholders. I’m also not a fan of working over time just because stakeholders haven’t managed their time poorly.
Personality traits and skills of an effective tender writer
Of course some personality traits and skills of an effective tender writer are similar to those of a tender manager. However, here are some specific personality traits and skills, which I think a good tender writer should have:
- Good writing skills. The obvious skill, but successful tenders are often written in a language and style that suits the client’s information needs. Some of the evaluators may not be technical experts, so it is advisable to write in a plain English, easy to understand style.
- Good proof reading skills. Some people get ‘word blind’, so it’s good to have strong proof reading skills so that typos, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors are picked up and corrected. This will help with the readability of your tender.
- Ability to write a good story. Tender Writers not only need good writing and proof reading skills, but also good story telling skills. From the Executive Summary through to the pricing section – a good tender writer will paint the picture in the client’s mind of what you will deliver, the solution/methodology that wins over your competitors and why you are the right supplier of the required goods or services. Including a winning strategy throughout your response will also help a tender writer formulate the story in a more relevant and persuasive style.
- A stickler for details and compliance. Demonstrating compliance in the tender response will ensure that any mandatory or desirable criteria is met and reiterated throughout the response – increasing your chances of winning that contract.
- Good investigative/research skills. A good tender writer will seek to fully understand both the client’s issues and needs, but also your company’s Uniques Selling Points (USPs). They will typically research the client by reading their website and case studies of previous projects your company has completed for them. It’s also useful for the tender writer speak to people within your company who have an established client relationship and can give them a more in-depth viewpoint of the client’s issues and needs.
- Commitment. Irrespective of how well a tender submission is managed, sometimes it’s impossible to work within the hours of 9am and 5pm every day of the tender process. A tender writer who is committed towards submission and doesn’t complain about overtime is ideal. Of course overtime should be kept to a minimum where possible (here comes that key buzz phrase ‘work life balance’!). However, it’s less demoralising for the tender writer if overtime isn’t a result of poor tender planning, management, or stakeholders not providing tender inputs on time. It’s also a nice gesture to shout those working overtime a free lunch, dinner, or taxi fares if they have been working until late in the office.
You’ve found a great all rounder if you can source and hire a tender specialist who is accomplished across all of the aforementioned personality traits and skills. However, if you can source a tender specialist who is also skilled in graphic design and translating solutions/technical information into logical and aesthetic graphics you’ve hit the tender jack pot!
Not only will this broad skill set reduce your need to hire an external graphic designer (if you don’t have any, or enough internal graphic designers), but it will help reduce overall tender budget costs. A tender specialist with graphic design skills will enhance a cohesive response. They will have a greater understanding of the solution/methodology than a graphic designer who has limited experience in designing for tenders, or is unfamiliar with the specific tender response you are working on.
Did you know Janmac Tenders also provides graphic design services? Contact us to see how we can help visually improve your tender responses.
So what do you believe are key personality traits and skills of an effective tender specialist? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
