Why mums make great tender specialists
By Roshan Sahukar, Tender Specialist, Sydney
After an intense and rewarding year of tendering, it was lovely to take a break over summer and spend quality time with family, including my kids and a bunch of their younger cousins, a funny and loveable array of toddlers and teens aged from one to 15. The laughter and meltdowns and mayhem of the holidays reminded me a lot of some of the tenders I’ve worked on. It seems that tendering and parenting have a lot in common, which explains why mums (and dads, and aunts and uncles for that matter) make excellent tender specialists.
We’re calm in a crisis
Nothing much surprises the Tender Plus team. Between us, we’ve worked on hundreds of tenders: requests for proposal, expressions of interests, unsolicited proposals, you name it, we’ve done it. This means we’re ready for anything and can adapt quickly to the situation in front of us, much like we do in our home lives. We approach each problem with curiosity, clear communication and kindness—and our calm, clear-headed approach makes for many happy repeat clients. And happy families, too.
We have a high tolerance for the mental load
As with busy lives, tenders have many, many moving parts and a tender specialist is skilled at managing all the elements that are required to keep a bid on track. While a tender management plan is essential and a solid to-do list a must, we also have a knack for keeping track mentally, intuitively, of what’s ahead, and like a chess grandmaster or highly organised parent, we are usually thinking five moves in advance while doing eight things at once. Task-switching is where we shine.
Coaching comes naturally
A solid chunk of being a tender specialist is coaxing our clients through the tough times and empowering them to achieve. It’s not dissimilar to the kind encouragement and tough love we give our kids. When a project feels too hard or a solution seems out of reach, a pep talk is often helpful, followed by a workshop to break a tricky or complex question into manageable components and encourage team members to move forward, work on a solution, write that first draft. A good tender specialist is like a team manager, a coach and a cheer squad all in one: we want you to do your best.
We don’t waste mental energy on tantrums
Bidding is often stressful and can bring out the best and worst in people. Sometimes a team member will have a moment where stress and fatigue set in and a meltdown is inevitable. Perhaps a nasty email is fired off, or a terse word exchanged. Someone throws their toys out of the pram or refuses to share. Rather than getting caught up in the drama, it is in these tough moments that an experienced tenderer keeps their cool. We take a deep breath and remind the team that bids are messy and it’s important to support each other and to keep moving forward: ‘We’ve got this, team, keep going, we’re nearly there.’
We’ve heard all the excuses in the book
Convincing a reluctant subject matter expert to write a tender response can be like reminding a high schooler to tidy their bedroom or start that geography assignment. Thankless at best, occasionally yielding results. I’m sure, in this case, the dog really did eat your homework, but tender specialists get pretty good at recognising excuses and we can spot an empty promise a mile off. So, we’re not afraid to get real with you if you’re not pulling your weight on a response requirement. And there comes a point that we’ll simply grit our teeth and help you finish your chores. No excuses.
We pick our battles
Tender professionals and parents alike know that not all fights are worth having. Trying to get a tender response written before a solution is clear is like trying to get a three-year-old to eat their Brussels sprouts. While some things are non negotiable and we’ll stick to our guns in the key moments of a bid—review deadlines, for example—there are other times that we’ll let our clients call the shots. ‘This is not a hill I’m prepared to die on’ is a phrase you’ll hear a lot in the Sydney office.
We take you on the journey
One of the brilliant things about engaging Tender Plus on your next bid is that between us we have a lot of tendering experience. Chances are, whatever the situation, we’ve seen it before. And our proven and best-practice methods for creating a winning proposal make the journey worth taking – even if you start the trip in the back seat whining ‘are we there yet?’.
Need help to drive your next bid forward? Reach out to Tender Plus today to engage our Sydney, Brisbane or Perth teams for support in tender strategy, tender coordination, tender writing and more.
To read more about what our tender specialists bring to the table check out Tired of tendering alone? and 5 signs you need tender support.