The right approach to tender for new business

Helen Westgate, Director & Founder

Tenders are always a difficult process for any creative agency, not least because in the first instance you are asked to submit your ideas and recommendations in writing. This means that every word and every sentence in the proposal takes on far more significance than if you were able to present in person.

With all of this in mind it amazes me how more agencies seem so unaware that this written document is the first and very important stepping stone to forging what could be a really commercially important relationship with a potential client.

One of the most common minefields in this process, where you can see these “trip ups”, is when you are required to submit questions on anything not covered in the original brief. This is always tricky as you don’t want to ask anything that will make you look as though you haven’t done your homework. But it is also just as important to phrase your questions in a way so that you come across as reasonable people to work with.

Some of the questions that agencies posed in a recent tender process took my breath away – one was “what was it about the agency that meant that we made the short list?” Why on earth would this agency think that the prospect would answer this? Particularly within the context of a round robin email containing all the answers which was sent out to all the competing agencies? Another agency question asked why the prospect was asking for so much speculative work as part of the required response? Had they never done a pitch before? And another wanted to know whether there was any point in them participating if they were going to have compete against bigger agencies. It all seemed a bit sulky to me!

Questioning the process is not what it is about. If you have taken the decision as a business to enter into the tender process then, in my view, energies should be focused on trying to come across as impressively as possible. Surely the whole point of the tender process, detailed and demanding though it may be, is that it gives the agency not only the chance to showcase their strategic and creative capabilities to the potential client but that it actually gives the agency team a platform to demonstrate that they will be reasonable professionals to work with going forward.

Being known as good people to work with should never be underestimated, even if this is only conveyed with the written word.

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