The 7 personalities of a bid team
Roshan Sahukar, Tender Specialist (Sydney)
If you’ve ever been on a tender team, you’re probably familiar with the situation: your company has gathered its finest subject matter experts to pull together a tender response that will (fingers crossed) win a lucrative job. You’re all from different parts of the business and each of you has an important role to play in the bid. The challenge will be to work together to deliver a successful tender response. If you’re lucky enough to have engaged a tender consultancy such as Tender Plus to assist, we’ll manage the bidding process and keep your team on track. As tender specialists, our aim in Week 1 of the bid is to get to know your team and work out how we can get the best from you as contributors.
In our role as tender coordinators and tender managers the people we work with are different for every bid. Though we may not have met before, it’s very likely that we’ve met someone like you during our many years of tender management. We don’t mean to take anything away from your individuality, but tendering is our bread and butter and our structured process tends to reveal your true colours in the workplace.
So, let’s meet seven of the many personalities of a bid team.
1. The bid queen
This personality has many names, not all of them kind: dux, head prefect, teacher’s pet, but there’s no denying the bid queen lives for tendering and is therefore a tender specialist’s dream. Found in the front row of a bid kick-off meeting, notebook in hand, this self-confessed tender nerd likes nothing more than the smell of just-released RFT documents, still warm from the printer. If you want to motivate a bid team to start writing content, this straight-A student is the best place to start. Her enthusiasm is contagious and she has a knack for rallying her teammates with her penchant for RFTs. The only thing that makes her crown slip a little is her perfectionist tendencies. If she’s not careful she can find herself creating a bottleneck in the process because she is constantly seeking to better her own tender response. However, her talent for getting things done is a secret weapon for a bid manager who can help her shine her golden glow over the areas of the bid that need it most.
2. The social butterfly
Usually assigned to the bid team because of their niche expertise, the social butterfly plays a small but crucial role in the bidding process and, once they’ve done that, spends the rest of the time having a chin wag. They work the office like it’s a cocktail party, flitting from desk to desk and having a lovely time of it all. More cynical team members will look down upon this personality. But what the social butterfly lacks in having actual, tangible work to do for most of the bidding process they make up for in their ability to bring a team together. Cohesion within the bid team is a big part of tendering and the social butterfly is usually the one initiating lunches and team drinks and site visits that help to strengthen the team mentality. Their general availability and willingness to chat also makes them a great sounding board to drag into a meeting to get a fresh perspective on a nagging problem. They are usually more than willing to help resolve an issue and have a lovely way with people – plus, their sociable nature means they are well connected and know who to ask. While more diligent team members will roll their eyes at the social butterfly, there’s no denying they bring a collegiate vibe to the office that becomes beneficial when the going gets tough around submission time. And they’re lots of fun at the bid submission party.
3. The eel
As their name suggests, this personality is a slippery one. While they give a friendly first impression and do want to be helpful, they tend to startle on approach. I’ve had one SME literally hide from me in the bid office. As he spotted me approaching his desk he cheekily ducked behind his colleague’s workstation and disappeared out of sight entirely. While it made me laugh at the time, this personality appears to avoid actually doing the work. It’s not laziness, though; I think sometimes it’s as simple as not knowing how to start. So as tender writers, it’s our job to help them do just that. This person benefits from a bit of gentle hand holding and will delight you with some high-quality insights if treated sensitively and with respect. They perform best when working collaboratively, so sitting down together to work on a returnable document is often the best approach. They can be super helpful in the right conditions, and they know their own value, and as tender specialists we’re not scared to march them into a meeting room and keep them there until we get an answer to our question. Not that we generally advocate for hostage situations in the tendering business but left to their own devices the eel may not perform to their potential. But they will surprise you with their productivity once you manage to corner them.
4. Copy-and-paste king
While we definitely don’t recommend the copy-and-paste method of bid writing, for many reasons, this person can be a handy one to have around if they can curb the Ctrl-C. Their impressive memory for the ghosts of tenders past means they’ve likely done it before and can channel their past experience into writing a strong and considered response to the tender requirements. The issue with this personality is that the last bid they worked on is, without fail, infinitely superior to this one, and rather than think about the requirements of the current tender, they’d much prefer to defer to the material they produced for the last bid. They begin every sentence with “Last time, we…” But if we can convince them that tendering is ripe for continuous improvement, we tender specialists can get the best out of this personality by using their valuable tendering experience for the benefit of the wider bid team.
5. The encyclopaedia
We’ve all worked with this personality. He loves the sound of his own voice. He could talk underwater, and would, given half the chance. His stories begin not at the beginning but well before breakfast the previous day. Most tender writers have encountered a subject matter expert like this: extremely knowledgeable, sure, but with little self awareness and no sign of a mute button. He has much knowledge to dispense but struggles to get to the point. This is where the talents of a tender specialist are so valuable. For us, the key to managing this personality is to set boundaries early on. Because the encyclopaedia’s vast experience means he really does have a lot to offer. To get to the gold we might ask specific questions, rather than an open-ended “what do you think?”. Or say up front we’re looking for a short response: “Just briefly because we’d like to hear from everyone”. Another technique is to specifically ask for the main point: “what do you see as the key issue here with regard to X?” We’ve even been known to gently tease them about talking too much. Something like “no one ever described you as a man of few words” might let them know, in a kind way, that we just need them to get to the point, and if it lands well this approach is usually met with a knowing chuckle and a more productive working relationship. The thing is, the encyclopaedia knows a lot about a lot and, if we can tap into this wealth of knowledge, our tender response will be all the better for it.
6. The unsung hero
Probably a tender writer’s favourite personality is the unsung hero. A quiet achiever, this team member simply gets on with the job, without looking for accolades or acknowledgment (ahem, bid queen). The unsung hero keeps things ticking along in the shadow of some of the bigger personalities in the bid team. They are infinitely reliable and their consistent and methodical approach fills a tender coordinator’s heart with gratitude. The unsung hero responds to emails in a timely manner and arrives at team meetings five minutes before the start time. They’ll encourage and assist their teammates, add helpful resources to a group chat, follow up on meeting actions unprompted, and offer to look into something that’s not necessarily their job. They are kind and courteous – and calm in a crisis – and will always do their share of the work and more. I always try to acknowledge this individual during the bid process, because, while the unsung hero generally flies under the radar, you’ll never, ever find them hiding under a desk.
7. Last-minute dot com
Relaxed to a fault, this team member will leave everything until the final hour. Oblivious to the volume of work ahead of them or the emails left unread, this person will pop out for a lunch break the day before the bid is due, ignoring the missed calls and ever-more-urgent emails that are congregating in their inbox. This individual is a tricky one to manage. A close cousin to the eel, they know they perform best when the clock is ticking, but the challenge for the tender consultant is how to trick them into being on a deadline to get more of the work done early on. Bids are not made for last-minute scrambles. They are huge and unwieldy beasts and benefit from a consistent approach to get the work done. The last thing we want as tender coordinators is to be uploading documents minutes before the deadline, and while this does happen, we’ll do everything we can to avoid this scenario. Including setting false deadlines for our finish-line focused friends. The good thing about this personality is that they often do their best work under pressure, so when you give them a deadline – even a false one – they will stick to it and impress you with productivity under pressure.
Who are you?
Did you recognise yourself in the mix? Personalities can be complex, and you might see yourself in some, or all, of these types, depending on the situation. It might be less a case of which one are you and more like, which one are you today? Whatever your personality or your business, our team of tender coordinators can help you win work. Click here to learn more about the talented Tender Plus team.