Completing tender documents – Stay calm

Through our experience in the tender environment, we have encountered a lot of entrepreneurs who get nervous when they must respond to a tender or bid document. We have witnessed people doing stupid things. They are so afraid that they will do something wrong when responding to a tender that they end up making silly mistakes.

Our advice – STAY CALM!

Many of the entrepreneurs responding to a tender or bid document are well experienced in their business environment but when it comes to responding to a bid document, they strike a blank. Suddenly they forget how to do costing or which services they provide.  We know the tender process can be daunting at times, but it is of utmost importance that you or the people in your organization that respond to the bid, must stay calm and focus on the work at hand.

We have encountered entrepreneurs that asked us how much they should charge for a specific product – the product they have been selling for the last ten years!  Our answer is usually something towards: “Stay calm, what do you usually charge for your product?  Now think about that and the fact that, should you be awarded this tender, you will sell a lot of your product. So, you can either charge your normal price or you can charge a bit lower”.

Since most tenders are on tight deadlines, completing and responding to these tenders are stressful to say the least.  The average person will get stressed out when they must complete a tender within twenty-four hours.  That is the time when you make mistakes and you leave out crucial details to your response.

We say: Remember to stay calm. Ensure that you have a tick list of all the material that must accompany your response.  In our Tender Manual, which is available on our website www.howtotender.co.za, there is a tick list which you can use to ensure that you do not forget anything in your response to the bid. In fact, this tick list can be used up to ten times.

Be prepared – ensure that all the documents that must accompany your tender response such as Tax Clearances and B-BBEE Certificates are up to date and that you have enough copies of everything.  If you leave it up to the last minute to gather all the necessary documents that must accompany your response, you are going to panic and to tell you then to stay calm would not work.