Make bidding easier for the people who have to do it
We help bid teams, subject matter experts and people who have found themselves responsible for tenders build a way of working that is clearer, more consistent and easier to keep doing without everything sitting with one person.
You want people to become more confident and capable across live bids, not just attend one training session.
Team Development is probably the right place.There is a specific skill or problem you want the team to work on.
Look at Bid Training →The issue is process, roles, bid/no-bid decisions or the wider bid function.
Look at Bid Consultancy →You need an evaluator-led review of the bid in front of you.
Look at Bid Review →The team can do the work, but bidding still feels harder than it should
One person knows how everything works
The process lives in somebody’s head, so every deadline depends on the same person remembering, chasing, reviewing and fixing.
People have been promoted into bidding without being shown how to do it
They are capable, but they are piecing the role together from previous bids, templates and whatever somebody has time to explain.
The business has grown faster than the bid function
More opportunities are coming through, more people are contributing and the old informal way of working is starting to creak.
A team that knows what good looks like and can get there more consistently
Team Development is about building capability into the day-to-day work. We work alongside the people doing the bids, using real opportunities and real problems so the learning sticks to the job rather than disappearing after a workshop.
People know what they are responsible for and when somebody else needs to be involved.
The team gets more confident deciding what matters, what evidence to use and what the evaluator needs to see.
Feedback gets more consistent because reviewers have a shared understanding of what they are looking for.
Knowledge is spread through the team so deadlines do not become a bottleneck every time one person is busy or away.
Built around the team you actually have
A two-person bid function does not need the same thing as a large international team, and somebody six weeks into a Bid Manager role does not need the same support as an experienced team trying to improve consistency.
Bid Manager mentoring
Practical support for somebody new to the role, newly promoted or coming into bidding from a completely different background.
- Live bid sounding board
- Planning and prioritisation
- Reviewing their work with them rather than taking it over
- Building confidence in the decisions behind the bid
Team capability programme
Ongoing development across several months for teams that want to improve how they plan, write, review and learn from bids together.
- Skills and capability baseline
- Focused training where it will make the biggest difference
- Live-bid application between sessions
- Review and feedback as the team develops
New team or role set-up
Support when you are creating a bid function, changing responsibilities or asking people to contribute to bids in a more structured way.
- Role clarity
- How work moves through the team
- What good looks like at each stage
- Practical handover into the new way of working
Embedded support
A regular external sounding board for teams that are capable internally but want experienced input while they build consistency.
- Regular check-ins around live opportunities
- Guidance on difficult bid decisions
- Review of recurring issues and patterns
- Support that reduces as the team becomes more self-sufficient
Start with what the team needs, then build from there
Understand the starting point
We look at the team, roles, experience, current way of working and where people are getting stuck.
Agree the priorities
We focus on the things that will make the biggest difference rather than trying to improve everything at once.
Work alongside the team
Training, mentoring, live-bid support and feedback are used where they are most useful.
Reduce the support over time
The aim is for the team to need us less as their confidence, judgement and internal capability grow.
You do not need a huge bid department to build a stronger bid function
We work with organisations where bidding sits with one person, small teams where everyone wears several hats, and larger businesses with experienced bid functions that want more consistency across regions, writers or subject matter experts.
The point is to make the way you bid fit the people and capacity you actually have, rather than copying a process designed for somebody else.
“I’d only been a Bid Manager for about three months when we brought Melissa in, having come into the role from a completely different job. She never made me feel stupid for asking basic questions. She explained why things were done a certain way instead of just telling me what to do, and I learned more in a few sessions with her than I had in those first three months of trying to wing it.”
Support that can flex with the team
Team Development is usually scoped around the people, the starting point and how long you want us alongside you.
Mentoring & development
For one person or a small team that needs regular practical support while capability grows.
- Agreed development priorities
- Regular mentoring/check-in sessions
- Live-bid sounding board
- Feedback on work and decision-making
- Support that adapts as confidence grows
Team development programme
For wider capability building across a team, function or changing bid set-up.
- Starting-point review
- Development plan for the team
- Training/mentoring mix around the priorities
- Live-bid application and feedback
- Progress review and next-step recommendations
We have different rates for eligible charities, CICs and other VCSE organisations below £1m annual turnover, so the standard pricing above may not apply to you.
Before we build anything around the team
Bid Training is a focused session around a specific skill or problem. Team Development is more ongoing and is usually built around how somebody or a whole team applies that learning across their actual role and live work over time.
Yes. That is one of the most useful times to bring us in, especially when the person has come from another role and there is nobody internally with the time or bid experience to train them properly.
No. The aim is to help the team become more capable themselves. We can work alongside live bids, review work and help people make decisions, but we do not want the organisation to become dependent on us to keep bidding.
Yes. For mature teams the focus is usually different: consistency, review quality, onboarding newer people, improving SME contributions or building capability across a larger or distributed team.
Build the skill into the team, not around them
Tell us who is involved in bidding now, what is changing and where things keep getting stuck. We can work out the right level of support from there.
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