JCI Belfast had a great event at Youth Action NI on ‘Effective tender response’ facilitated by external trainer, Garnett Wolseley. Members were able to listen and benefit from Garnett’s extensive experience in submitting and consulting on bids for multi-million pound private and public sector contracts. Garnett focussed his presentation on several key areas:

• Answer the questions: Where you are asked to provide a certain piece of information – provide it, where you are asked a specific question, answer it! In tenders there is no room for waffle or usually salesy language
• Qualify your entries: When seeking out tenders to bid for, make sure and read the entry requirements, if you don’t fit what they are looking for then don’t waste time and resources putting together a bid when you have no chance of winning.  Garnett told us a story of a company spending around £100,000 only at the last minute pulling out because they realised they couldn’t afford the public liability requirement!
• Be organised: It sounds simple but plan your activity and make sure you are finished at least one day in advance. It takes focus and resources to submit a successful tender, make sure to delegate effectively and give people enough notice if you require additional resources.  As most tenders are now submitted online then make sure that you understand the practicals of submission and you are not let down by technology.

New member, Thomas Copleand, said ‘What a brilliant workshop, I didn’t know a lot about submitting bids prior to coming along but I thought there might be a lot of transferrable skills & I was right!’ Local President, William Redpath, said of the event ‘JCI is primarily a personal development and training organisation and we were delighted to be able to offer Garnett’s insight and experience to our members as part of our personal development programme.  Keep your eyes out for our next workshop on leadership in March’