How to recession-proof your business through tenders

If you are looking for a way to make your business more resilient, improve your cash flow and generally get a better night’s sleep as a small business owner, consider whether you can win your next contract by tendering, writes Rebecca Skagestad, Director at Tender Advice.

Winning a contract through a tender often means long-term, predictable revenue – giving you the stability and certainty to employ, innovate and grow. And the government doesn’t stop purchasing goods or services during a recession.

You might think tendering is just for large companies with big sales teams and accredited management systems like ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. It’s true, responding to tender documents can be complex and difficult. Some ask for a lot of paperwork to demonstrate your capability, and unreasonable requirements that cannot be met by a small business.

But local councils in particular are working to simplify the process to encourage more small businesses to tender. And the Federal Government has made a commitment to boost the amount of small and medium businesses that can benefit from government spending contracts, and procurement officers at all levels of government are actively looking for ways to incorporate more local small businesses into their supply chains.

Many large tenders also require that large organisations incorporate smaller businesses into their supply chain as part of their delivery plan.

This provides an excellent opportunity to either respond to a tender in your own right, or look upstream to the businesses that are winning tenders that you could subcontract to.

How to win big business and government tenders

The key to winning a tender is to get your paperwork right, follow the instructions carefully and know how to present your strengths and advantages. Give examples in your response of how you do things on your other contracts, or how you plan to do things on this one.

Tender briefings often give some great hints on how respond to the tender and what they are looking for, and the procurement contact is available to answer questions (usually in writing) if you need some more guidance.

State governments also have some good tips on their websites. The NSW Government provides free tender training to small businesses through TAFE, and other states provide guidelines and templates to help you provide the documents they ask for in a tender – like business continuity plans, risk management and local participation plans. The workers’ compensation organisation in each state (WorkCover, WorkSafe) has useful information to support your health and safety responses.

We know as a small business owner you are already working more than 110 per cent in your business, so carving out time to work on tenders is challenging. But it is so worth it if you secure ongoing, stable work for years to come.

Sometimes it takes a few tenders to get your tender responses up to the standard needed to start winning, like getting health and safety, quality documentation, case studies and CVs in place, and understanding what pricing is needed to win. But once you know how to tender and you ‘crack the code’, you will find yourself winning tenders again and again.

I think tenders are often overlooked as one of the most powerful sales and marketing capabilities a business can build. Tenders talk directly to qualified clients who are telling you in their documents exactly what their challenges are. You usually only have a few competitors on most tenders. And when you win, you secure ongoing work and demonstrate to other potential customers that you have a strong record of performance and can be counted on to deliver.

Tenders help you get ‘big name’ customers onto your client list and keep your client list growing.

As a first step, register your business on your state and local council’s tender register so you receive notices of upcoming tenders. Then start looking at what they are asking for to see if their requirements fit with your business.

Happy tendering!

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