Tender Presentation Coaching

For clear, confident, and competitive presentations that win

You have made it to the next round of tender requirements: the client presentations.

That is no easy feat, well done! Just like the tender submissions, your company will usually only get one chance at client presentations. That’s why our tender preparation services will help you maximise your presentation scores for a win.

At a high level, our tender consultants review statements made by your company in your presentations to clients. We score the believability, compliance (whether or not your company meets the tender requirements), and your competitive differentiation (for example, what’s faster, cheaper, or less risky for your client about your approach).

Our tender evaluators will also review how well your presenters interact with the audience, especially in the questions and answer sessions. And we do all this before your bid team presents to your client.

We’ll coach your team on:

structuring their presentation to address compliance, competitive differentiation and believability of statements.

delivering their presentation to attract and hold the audience’s attention

answering questions succinctly and without prompting follow-ups

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For 5 years now, we’ve engaged Matt to evaluate our must-win tender responses prior to submission. We’ve found him to be thorough in his comments, timely and helpful, and he is an important part of our wins

Jenny O’Driscoll @ Visionstream

Is tender presentation coaching worthwhile?

Preparing for the tender presentation is key to maximising your chances of winning the tender. It ensures your key messages of compliance and competitive differentiation are believable and backed with facts.  We coach all your presenters to prepare and deliver clear, concise and competitive tender presentations.

Not all your presenters will be experienced in presenting the tender and may easily be thrown by the evaluators, especially during the question and answer sessions. 

Our tender evaluators are also trained and experienced in business coaching, so we draw on these skills to prepare confident, well-spoken and ‘prepared for anything’ presenters – just what your company needs to influence your Clients evaluators to win the tender.

Our clients always find our tender preparation for presentation services worthwhile.  This prepares your team with a cohesive message and gives them the confidence to clearly communicate the tender criteria.

If your company is an incumbent in the tender presentation

Incumbent companies, that is, companies who are already providing the services to your clients, have a competitive advantage. They already have a relationship with the client’s decision-makers, the key influencers, and evaluators.

However, incumbents can also have significant disadvantages when it comes to tender presentations: people who had a significant disagreement or personality clash or had to deliver bad news to a Client’s decision-makers, key influencers and/or evaluators often need to be part of your team presenting to the Client.

Our tender preparation evaluators help your presenters to address things that have happened in the past in a positive way in their presentations and the Q&A sessions.

If your company must win the tender

When we say, ‘must win’, we mean ‘we must win this deal because it’s a good match for our capabilities and capacities, and it will underpin the success of our business for years’.

At a high level, our tender evaluators review presentation statements made by your company.  We score the believability, compliance (whether your company meets the tender requirements), and competitive differentiation (for example, what is faster, cheaper, less risky for your clients about your approach).

Our tender evaluators will also review how well your presenters interact with the audience, especially in the Questions and Answer sessions.

Read how we helped a Defence industry client re-win a complex, yet prestigious tender

FAQs

It is the process of testing-and-improving your Team’s tender presentation to your Clients evaluators before the Client meeting. As well, as coaching the team to respond clearly and confidently to Client questions.

When your company has been advised of a date for the tender presentation AND before the Team has started to write its PowerPoint slides. Also, if the tender is a must-win for your company. Call in our tender preparation for presentation evaluators to spend a day or two with your presenters to develop and deliver a cohesive message, that meets with your Clients compliance and competitive advantage,

If your presenters are inexperienced, not confident or you want to maximise your win ability. Also, if the tender is a must-win for your company.

  1. What is the Client’s likely formal decision-making criteria – what mix of experience, capacity, delivery timeframe, risks and cost will it be?
  2. What is your Client’s likely unofficial decision-making criteria? For example, what is their preference for a particular type of solution and/or delivery model; their preference for particular skills and/or accreditations – even particularly experienced people?
  3. What companies do the Client’s decision-makers regard as competent and credible competitors?
  4. What verifiable proof statements does your company have for its experience and capacities such as case studies, project lists and quotes or testimonials from previous Clients?

We will work with your team to –

  • Analyse your company’s tender response documents and summarising the key win statements (this is your competitive differentiation)
  • Get an understanding of the Client’s requirements for the presentation (compliance; Agenda items and timings)
  • Gather all the win statements about your companies experience and capacities
  • Our first Test-and-improve will be the first run through the presentation. We will evaluate your Team’s presentation, provide feedback on improvements, and provide coaching of the Team where needed.
  • Test-and-improve #2: this is the dress-rehearsal presentation, complete with feedback and coaching.

Yes, our tender presentation evaluators sign NDAs for each tender presentation we work on. We do not store any client documents. We work on a first in, first service basis, as we will only work for one bidder on each tender.

If we are given all the tender selection criteria and Agenda requirements, and a summary of the tender response (in particular, the win statements) then for a team of say 5 presentation speakers, we can complete two test and improve rehearsals, evaluation and comprehensive notes and feedback, and coaching in one day.

Yes, we have systems in place to ensure the value and benefit is achieved.

All types of companies have used and benefited from our tender presentation evaluations service. From the large right down to small companies – all organisations that are faced with a must-win tender.

The average years of experience of our tender presentation evaluators is 31 years

We have worked in over 20 industries, and in terms of tender work, it is more than 95% similar. Our tender presentation evaluators are experienced at picking out the compliance requirements and nuances of each tender and working how best your company can communicate these requirements during the tender presentation.

A strong tender presentation with confident presenters is the difference in winning the tender.