About Bidsmithery™

Bidding, without the mystery

We help good organisations show evaluators just how good they actually are, without turning the process into a dark art.

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Melissa Howard, founder of Bidsmithery
Melissa Howard, founder of Bidsmithery
“I kept seeing good organisations lose to companies that simply knew how to write a better bid.”
Meet Melissa

I learned bids from the inside out.

Before Bidsmithery™, bidding was woven through senior leadership and service-delivery roles across healthcare, the NHS and education. I was helping win the work while still being responsible for the people, service and delivery behind the promises on the page.

That experience was broader than bids alone.

Leadership, service delivery, business strategy, marketing, coaching and mentoring all shaped the way I approached them. It meant looking at the whole business, not just the answer in front of me.

Then I moved onto the buyer side too.

Procuring services and evaluating submissions brought the whole picture together. I could see what makes an evaluator trust an answer, what gets lost when teams are too close to their own business and what simply cannot earn a mark unless it actually makes it onto the page.

Experience 15+ years around bids, delivery and evaluation
Results 80%+ win rate across supported client submissions
Value won £103m+ successful contracts supported over three years
Why the evaluator view matters

You get to see the bid before they do

When you are close to your own organisation, it is very easy to read what you meant instead of what is actually there.

01 Spot what is missing

Find the evidence, detail or explanation the evaluator will need before they are the one noticing it is not there.

02 Bring the strongest bits forward

Make sure the things that genuinely differentiate you are visible, specific and doing useful work on the page.

03 Make the process make sense

Understand why something works, so your team gets better at doing it again rather than relying on bid-writing folklore.

Melissa Howard Melissa
Keith Howard, Head of Client Success Keith
Family-led

A small team who actually know your world.

Bidsmithery™ is family-led, with a small core team and trusted specialists around us. You know who is working with you, and the people you speak to know the bid, the deadline and what is happening next.

Melissa Howard Founder, strategist and evaluator-side reviewer. Melissa brings together delivery experience, commercial thinking and the buyer perspective to spot what is easy to miss when you are close to your own bid.
Keith Howard Head of Client Success, and Dad. With 30+ years across the military, police and NHS, Keith is calm, organised and ridiculously good with clients. They love him. He keeps the moving parts moving and makes sure nobody is left wondering what is happening.
Chris, Nat and the wider team Helping with onboarding, documents, deadlines, communication and the practical details that keep client work running smoothly behind the scenes.
Trusted bid associates Hand-picked specialists supporting training, consultancy and additional bid expertise where their experience genuinely adds value.
Our social value

Making bid expertise, careers and opportunity easier to access

For us, social value should create something useful: access to expertise, a way into a career, or a practical answer somebody can take away and use.

VCSE access Different rates for charities, CICs and other VCSE organisations under £1m turnover.
Routes into bid careers We want more people to see bidding as a genuine career option, including people returning to work, changing direction or who may never have come across the industry in the first place.
Work that fits real lives We want to create opportunities for people traditional workplaces can overlook, including neurodivergent people, parents, people returning after time out of work and those who need flexibility to do their best work.
Apprenticeships We are working towards creating apprenticeship opportunities too, giving people a supported route into bids while they learn the commercial, writing and evaluator skills the job actually needs.
Bid office hours Free open Q&A sessions where charities and CICs can bring a live bid question, opportunity or sticking point and get a practical steer from someone who understands the evaluator side.
Professional mentoring and learning session
A route into work should not depend on whether somebody fits neatly into a traditional workplace.
Recognition

Turns out, other people have noticed too.

We are proud of both finalist recognitions, but the Customer Service one hits differently. Being good at bids matters. Making the experience of getting there feel good matters too.

FINALIST
Enterprise Vision Awards 2026 Finalist
2026 Enterprise Vision Awards

Customer Service Finalist

FINALIST
Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2025 Finalist
2025 Great British Entrepreneur Awards

Finalist

Construction plans and project paperwork
Construction
This wasn’t written for us
“
I don’t know where you found her, but Melissa’s excellent. Just going through her suggested wording now and it’s really clear, relevant and shows a real understanding of what’s needed to strengthen a bid.
EW, Director Feedback sent internally to the Managing Director, then passed on to us.
Got a bid coming up?

Let’s look at it before the evaluator does

If you have a live bid and want an experienced second pair of eyes before submission, tell us what you’re working on and where support would help most.

You keep ownership of the bid. We help you see what the evaluator will see.
Talk to us about your bid

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© 2026 Bidsmithery™

© 2026 Bidsmithery™ | Expert Bid & Tender Review Services