How to Find a Good Tender Writer, and Prove to Yourself They Know Their Business

You have decided you need a tender writer. Maybe you want to hire one onto your team. Maybe you want to bring in an outside consultant for the next bid. Either way, you are now facing a difficult question: how do you tell a good one from a confident one?

It is a fair worry. Tender writing is a specialist skill, and most business owners have no easy way to judge it from the outside. The person in front of you writes well, talks well, and sounds sure of themselves. None of that proves they can win you work.

Here is the good news. You can test for the real thing. You do not have to take anyone's word for it.

I have spent decades on the other side of the table, reading, marking and comparing bids, and then years since helping businesses write them. So let me walk you through what actually separates a good tender writer from a good talker, and the practical ways to prove it to yourself. This works whether you are hiring someone or engaging a consultant.

First, a good writer is not the same as a good tender writer

This is the mistake I see most often. People assume tender writing is a writing job. It is not.

A tender is not an essay, and an evaluator is not an audience you are trying to impress with prose. Evaluators score your response against published criteria, point by point. They can only award marks for what you actually address, in the language they used, with proof they can believe.

So the core skill is not fine writing. It is reading the buyer. A good tender writer knows what an evaluator fears, not just what you want to say. They know how a response is scored, how compliance works, and how to turn your everyday strengths into something an evaluator can mark. Plenty of talented writers cannot do this. It is a different job.

Keep that in mind as you look. It changes what you are looking for.

What about a good salesperson, or a good marketer?

The same trap catches two other people you might reach for: your best salesperson and your best marketer. Both look like obvious choices. Both bring something useful. Neither is a tender writer by default.

Take the salesperson first. A good one understands buyers, draws out what worries them, and knows how to make a case. That instinct is worth a lot in a tender, up to a point. The trouble is the habit that comes with it: the pitch. Selling is persuasion in a room, read off a face, adjusted in the moment. A tender is none of that. The evaluator is anonymous, scoring you on paper against fixed criteria, and no amount of charm reaches them. A salesperson who oversells, promises big and skips the proof will write a confident bid that scores poorly.

The curiosity transfers. The pitch does not.

Now the marketer. A good one knows how to position you, find your point of difference, and make your value visible. That matters in a tender, where showing why you are different is half the battle. The danger is the polish. Marketing rewards the memorable claim, the clever line, the brand language. Tenders punish all three. "Market-leading, world-class, fully committed" earns nothing from an evaluator marking against criteria. Marketing speaks to many people at once. A tender answers one specific set of questions, in their order, in their words. A marketer who writes to impress instead of to answer will produce something that reads beautifully and scores badly.

So here is the honest answer. The best parts of both are genuinely useful, and the worst parts are actively costly. A salesperson's read on the buyer, and a marketer's grip on your difference, will strengthen a bid when they are disciplined by evaluator logic and backed with evidence. Neither is trained to answer the question on the page or to prove a claim a buyer can score. If you draw from sales or marketing, hire or engage for the tender skill first, and treat the sales or marketing instinct as a bonus, not the qualification.

The attributes of a good tender writer

Here is what genuinely matters. Look for these, in a hire or a consultant.

They think like an evaluator. The best tender writers have either sat on evaluation panels or learned to think like someone who has. They start from the buyer's risk, not your sales pitch. Ask them what a buyer is really afraid of, and a good one will have a clear answer.

They answer the question on the page. A good tender writer reads the criteria before writing a word, then answers each one directly, in order, in the buyer's own words. If a criterion has three parts, they cover all three. This single discipline lifts more scores than any amount of polish.

They lead with evidence, not adjectives. "Fully committed to quality" wins nothing. Anyone can write it. A good tender writer replaces every claim with proof a buyer can score: case studies with numbers, a transition plan, testimonials, a Gantt chart, real data from work you have delivered. Watch for this instinct. It is one of the clearest signs someone knows their craft.

They dig for your hidden strengths. Often the thing that wins a bid is something you dismissed as ordinary. I once spotted that an architecture firm's very low staff turnover was the deciding factor in a complex tender. The client had not thought it relevant. A good tender writer is curious about your business and hunts for that gold. A weak one just writes down what you hand them.

They are honest with you. A good tender writer will tell you what you need to hear, not what closes the sale. They will say when a tender is a poor fit, and they will outline what you would need to win rather than promise you a win you cannot get. Honesty before the engagement is a very good sign of honesty during it.

They are organised and hit deadlines. Tenders close at a fixed time, with no mercy for a late upload. A good tender writer works to a schedule, compiles the final version days before close, and leaves room for the portal and compliance checks. Ask how they manage the run-up to a deadline. Vagueness here is a warning.

They have integrity. This one is not negotiable. A good tender writer will not lie, fabricate or embellish on your behalf. It is your reputation on the line, and a padded bid can cost you a contract or worse if the buyer checks. Anyone willing to make things up for you is a risk, not an asset.

How to prove to yourself they know their business

Attributes are easy to claim. So here is how to test for them, before you commit. None of this needs you to be a tender expert yourself. You are watching how they think.

Ask them to explain how a tender is scored. A good one will talk naturally about evaluation criteria, weightings, compliance and what makes an evaluator award or withhold marks. If they talk only about writing and design, they are a writer, not a tender writer.

Give them a real criterion and ask how they would approach it. Take one criterion from a tender you know, and ask them to walk you through their answer. Listen for whether they pull it apart, cover every element, and reach for evidence. This tells you more in ten minutes than any portfolio.

Ask about a tender they lost. Everyone loses some. A good tender writer will tell you about one plainly, and what they learned from the debrief. Someone who claims they never lose, or cannot reflect on a loss, is either inexperienced or not being straight with you.

Ask to see a real response, redacted. Look at an actual submission they have written, with client details removed. Read it as a buyer would. Is every claim backed by proof? Does it answer the questions directly? Or is it pretty, general and full of adjectives?

Watch whether they ask you good questions. A strong tender writer is curious. They will want to understand your business, your customers and what you do differently, before they talk about themselves. If they pitch at you without asking much, they will write a generic bid.

Notice what they promise, and how they price. Be wary of anyone who guarantees a win. Nobody honest can. Be careful too with success-fee or commission-only offers, which can hide whose interests are really being served. A good tender writer is transparent about price and clear that the outcome is never certain.

If you are hiring a tender writer onto your team

Bringing the skill in-house can be the right move, with a few honest checks.

Look for a portfolio of real submissions, not writing samples. Ask for references from actual bids and call them. Set a short practical test using a real, redacted criterion, and judge the thinking as much as the words. Probe their temperament. This work runs to tight deadlines and needs someone who will chase content from busy colleagues without folding under pressure. Check they understand your industry, or can learn it fast.

Be honest with yourself about volume. A good in-house writer needs a steady flow of tenders to stay sharp and earn their salary. If you only tender now and then, an employee may sit idle between bids and lose their edge. Match the hire to how often you actually go to market.

If you are engaging an external tender consultant

A consultant gives you senior skill on demand, without carrying a salary between bids. The checks shift a little.

Look for real experience in your sector, or in tenders like yours. Ask for their process and their milestones, and make sure it includes drafting passes, compliance checks and a final version well before close. Ask for references you can call. Ask how they price, and whether the fee is fixed. Ask what happens if you do not win, and listen for an honest answer rather than a guarantee.

Two questions are worth asking directly. Will you work with a competitor in our category and state at the same time? A good consultant handles that conflict openly or declines it. And what do we keep afterwards? The best engagements leave you with a reusable bid library and stronger capability, not just one submission.

The red flags are the mirror of the good signs: guaranteed wins, a vague process, no references, pressure to sign, and any willingness to fabricate. Walk away from those.

So, hire or engage?

A simple guide. If you tender often, have a steady pipeline, and can keep someone genuinely busy, hiring in-house may pay off over time. If your tenders are occasional or come in spikes, or you need evaluator-level judgement on an important bid right now, a consultant is usually the better fit. Plenty of businesses do both: they engage an expert to lift their first strong bids and build a library, then bring the skill in-house once the volume justifies it.

Whichever path you choose, the test is the same. Can this person prove they think like an evaluator, back claims with evidence, and tell you the truth? Everything else is detail.

If you would like expert eyes on a live bid, or a hand thinking through whether to hire or engage, that is what we do every day at BidBuddy. You can get in touch here.

TLDR

A good tender writer is not just a good writer, and not automatically your best salesperson or marketer either. A salesperson's pitch and a marketer's polish both score badly against fixed criteria, though the curiosity and the eye for difference are worth keeping. The real skill is thinking like an evaluator: answering the criteria on the page, leading with evidence, digging out your hidden strengths, and being honest with you. Test for it before you commit. Ask how a tender is scored, hand them a real criterion, ask about a loss, read a redacted response, and watch whether they ask you good questions. Be wary of anyone who guarantees a win. If you are hiring, check for real submissions, references and the temperament for deadlines, and be honest about whether you tender often enough to keep them busy. If you are engaging a consultant, check their sector experience, their process, their references, their price and what you keep afterwards. Hire when your volume is steady. Engage when it is occasional or the bid matters now. Either way, pick the one who can prove they know their business.