Confidence in Tendering: How One Small Word Is Sabotaging Your Bid Team
There’s a particular word that’s been bothering me.
If you’re in the bidding world, you know there are plenty of words that really annoy us. Words like “world class”, “synergies”, “unsurpassed”. These and many others are the usual hyperbolic suspects that show up in bids when someone is trying to sound impressive and ends up sounding like a brochure.
But those aren’t the words I’m stuck on right now. The word is “just”.
I went hiking recently and getting read to go, I popped into a hiking store to grab a beanie and gloves. Together they came to $139, which is not nothing.
I get to the counter and the guy says, “That’s just $139.” And I felt my brain do that thing it does when it latches onto a word and refuses to let go. Just?
No. It’s $139 of hard-earned money, after tax. It’s time. It’s effort. It’s an investment in staying warm and healthy on a track. It’s not “just” anything. And as I stood there paying, I realised why that word irritates me so much. Because I hear it all the time in tendering.
Not in the documents. In the people. “I’m just the bid writer.” “I’m just the bid admin.” “I’m just the coordinator.” “I’m just the graphic designer.”
No engineer walks into a tender kickoff and says, “I’m just the engineer.” No senior exec says, “I’m just the person in charge of strategy.” Yet the people who are often holding the whole thing together are the ones shrinking themselves down to a footnote.
It needs to stop. Tendering is a team sport. A messy, high-pressure, high-stakes team sport. And every role in that process is fundamental to whether you win or lose.
A writer is not “just” a writer. A writer takes complex technical information and turns it into something a human being can understand. A writer builds a narrative. A writer creates clarity. A writer helps the client feel safe choosing you.
A graphic designer is not “just” a designer. They present the solution and the strategy in a way that makes sense at speed. They guide the eye. They reduce cognitive load. They make the difference between a submission that feels heavy and one that feels effortless to read.
A coordinator is not “just” a coordinator. They herd cats like nobody else on earth can herd cats. And I have cats. They are impossible to herd. Coordinators manage people, deadlines, documents, egos, chaos, and the constant moving target that is “final content”. They keep the machine running.
You are not “just” anything. Here is the thing about the word “just”. It seems harmless. It sounds polite. It sounds like you are being humble. But it diminishes you. It trains other people to diminish you too. It quietly tells the room that your contribution is optional, when in reality, it is often the reason the bid gets out the door in the first place.
So this is my plea to anyone who works in bidding.Remove it from your vocabulary. Because you need to remember who you are in this process. You need to own the value you bring. You need to take up the space your role deserves.
Tenders are not won by one person. They are won by a team of people who respect the craft, respect the process, and respect each other. And that starts with how you speak about yourself. You are essential to the win.
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[00:00:00]
[00:00:44] Deb: So there's a particular word that's been bothering me lately. Everyone in bidding those, there's heaps of words that really annoy us. There's world class, uh, synergies. That's definitely one. Um, anything hyperbolic that [00:01:00] just exaggerates the circumstance. Uh, unparalleled unsurpassed. But the word that's really been bothering me lately is the word just, I'm going hiking.
[00:01:11] In about a week and I went into a, um, hiking store and each a very small beanie. 'cause I have a pinhead, like a kid. Um, and very small gloves. 'cause I have little hands like a kid. And together they were $139. That's a lot of money. Yeah. But I get to the counter and the word is that's just $139. And I thought of actually saying to the guy, no, no, it's not.
[00:01:38] It's 139 of my hard earned dollars after tax. It takes a lot of effort and it's not just anything, and I'm making an investment in keeping healthy on a hiking track, and I went into this spiral as I paid internal. It was this internal monologue of the word just, it kills me. It [00:02:00] diminishes so much. The context in bidding is, I hear it all the time, from people that diminish themselves.
[00:02:11] No engineer ever came onto a tender and said, I'm just the engineer. No senior executive in charge of strategy ever came onto a tender and said, oh, I'm just the senior executive in charge of strategy. And yet I've had bid writers say, I'm, I'm just the bid writer. I've had bid admin say I'm just the bid acting.
[00:02:38] I've had bid coordinators say I'm just the bid coordinator and I've had graphic designers say, and this has been going on for 25 years. I'm just the graphic designer. Stop. Stop diminishing the roles that you play in a bid. Stop saying that you are just [00:03:00] anything. You are fundamental to winning work. You are fundamental to the process and the effort that goes into tendering.
[00:03:10] You are not just anything. A graphic designer presents the solution, the strategy in a way that's compelling to a client. A writer articulates it. A writer forms narratives. A writer brings complex technical information to an audience in an incredibly accessible way. A coordinator herds cats like nobody else on earth can herd cats, and I have cats.
[00:03:34] They're impossible to herd. You are not. Just anything. So my plea out to those people that work in bidding is to stop. Remove it from your vocabulary. Remember who you are and the contribution you make to winning.
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