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25 Aug 2011
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Tendering guide for SMEs – How to prepare a tender template

by Julia Filed under: Knowledge

Writing tender responses or proposals is time consuming, however the most important thing to do the right way if you want to win new contracts. Be time efficient by learning what to include in a tender template so that you can get more proposals in by that deadline!

If you are a small to medium business offering services then this simple guide will help you to prepare a tender template. Here’s what you need to include:

Template design

A simple design with a header and footer not only makes the document look professional but shows your brand identity and makes you more memorable. If you have one, use your logo in the header and your contact details in the footer.

Front page

Using your template design or colours create a smart front page with the name of the buyers company, organisation etc. and the title of the contract or tender.

Contents table

This is a time saver for the buyer who has to read endless contract proposals, so help them out by including one.

Introduction

Every business needs an introduction that explains who you are and what you can provide for the buyer. Spend some time on this and make it striking. First impressions are of course important!

Main section

The main section will be be the hardest part and will take up the most time. Even if you only provide one type of service, each job will be slightly if not very different. The best solution to this is to collect past tenders or look at typical questions you would be asked. By doing this create and A-Z of of useful facts and answers. Put absolutely anything in there that may be of slightest use.

I use my A-Z daily! Instead of re-writing answers you can just edit and tailor what you already have!

Your working environment

A simple summary on how you manage your projects or services. What approach do you take to managing the work, do you have specific methods of doing this? For example, we use an online application (Basecamp) to manage our projects in the most efficient way possible, allowing us (and the client) to have as much information at hand at any given moment.

Staff CVs

Buyers will need to know that you have the right skills and experience amongst the staff, so here’s your chance to show of your wonderful team members.

Statements and policies

The majority of tenders (especially government/public tenders) will ask to see that you are compliant with laws and regulations. Having these policies collated together in one document will save time and hassle. Even if they are not asked for they are always important to include!

Firstly you should have an environmental policy and an equal opportunities policy, they are standard for businesses to have so if you don’t then seek help on how to write them.

You may be accredited with the ISO9000 Quality Management Policy, if so include it. If not then you should have a statement written up for your business, almost every buyer will ask to see this. If you have the time then I would suggest seeking advice on how to gain the ISO9000.

If it is of relevance, you need to ensure that your company is compliant with the Copyright Law and Data Protection Act 1988 and it may be worth checking out if you need to be registered with the Information Commissioners Office under this act.

Testimonials and case studies

The best way to prove that you have what it takes to do the job is to provide examples of past work, and if you have testimonials that’s just the icing on the cake. Word of mouth in my opinion the best form of marketing, having a client testifying how brilliant you are/were can give the winning edge.

Try to include case studies for all of your work that way when using the template you can delete the ones that aren’t relevant to the contract you’re tendering for. For examples of case studies take a look at “Our work” page.

When writing tenders it’s important to answer the questions in the specific order that they are asked in. Many tenders fail to do this and wonder why they are never shortlisted or selected!

Remember this template is only a rough guide to help you prepare tenders and that each one needs to be tailored to the specifics of the contract. The idea of this is to ensure you have the majority of information ready at your fingertips.

19 Aug 2011
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Using WordPress: Adding & editing posts

by Dale-Anthony Filed under: Knowledge

When adding a blog post or news story to your website you’re writing a post. Posts are automatically displayed in date order showing the most recent first. Posts often have a comments area below them and are included in a RSS feed for your website.

With WordPress it’s very easy to add and manage posts, you do so from the WordPress admin area which we looked at in our previous WordPress post.

Adding a new post

Once you’ve logged into the WordPress admin area click the Posts button and then Add New, this will take you to the add new post screen. From here it’s fairly straightforward.

There are two things that all posts need before you can publish them: a title and the content, however it is also good practice to keep your posts organised by assigning categories and tags.

The first thing you should enter is a post title, this goes into the first text area. Secondly you should add your content, when adding the content you can either write it directly into the editor or paste existing copy into the editor.

Note: if you paste content into the editor it is important you remove any formatting, otherwise the pasted content may cause the layout and formatting of the website to change. To avoid this rather than pasting directly into the content area first press the ‘Paste as plain text’ button () and then paste your content, doing this will maintain the style and layout of your website.

After you’ve added content to the editor you can format it using the WordPress formatting bar.

Next you’ll want to assign your post to a category and add relevant tags.

Categories – Each post in WordPress is filed under a category. Thoughtful categorization allows posts to be grouped with others of similar content and aids in the navigation of a site.

Tags – A tag is a keyword which describes all or part of a Post. Think of it like a Category, but smaller in scope. A post may have several tags, many of which relate to it only peripherally. Like Categories, Tags are usually linked to a page which shows all posts having the same tag. Unlike Categories, Tags can be created on-the-fly, by simply typing them into the tag field.

Using the categories block in the right hand column tick the categories you’d like to assign the post to, if you’d like to add a new category simply use the ‘+ Add New Category’ button.

Add tags in the post tags block, you can separate tags by using commas. Don’t forget to press the add button once you’re done!

Now that you’ve added the content and assigned categories and tags you’ll probably want to check out how the post is going to look on the website before you publish it for the world to see. You can see how the post will look on your website by clicking the ‘Preview’ button in the top right hand column.

Finally once you are happy with the post you can publish it to the website by pressing the ‘Publish’ button.

If the post isn’t quite finished you can ‘Save Draft’, this will allow you to return to the post later to continue editing.

You can also schedule a time for the post to be published to the website, if you do this the post will automatically show on the website at the date and time you specify.

Editing or deleting a post

There are times when you will want to make changes to something you’ve already posted, and in some cases you may want to delete a post all together.

To modify an existing post click All Posts under the posts menu in the WordPress admin area, this will take you to a screen that lists all of the posts on your website, if you hover over one of the posts you’ll see a small menu, from this menu select the action you’d like to carry out.

If you choose to trash the post it will remove it from your website and also from the WordPress admin area all together, if you click edit you will return you to the post editor where you can make the necessary changes, when you’ve finished editing your post don’t forget to hit the update button, this will immediately publish the changes you have made to your website.

In our next WordPress post we’ll take a look at adding images, links and videos to posts or pages.

18 Aug 2011
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Using WordPress: Introduction

by Dale-Anthony Filed under: Knowledge

After launching a new website one of the most common questions we are asked is how the client can update and maintain the website themselves, so we thought it would be useful to put together a series of posts dedicated to how to use WordPress.

WordPress is a content management system that lets you easily update the pages and blog posts on your website. We sometimes build websites on the WordPress platform to give you the freedom of updating content yourself and to make it simple for you to keep things up-to-date.

All content is managed from the WordPress admin area which you can access from any web-browser, you can usually get to the admin area by going to yoursite.com/wp-admin, from here you can login with the username and password we would have provided you with.

The Dashboard

Once you’ve logged in you’ll see the WordPress dashboard which shows you an overview of the content and activity on your website including some stats, a list of pending comments, your recent draft posts and a list of the most recent incoming links.

On the left hand side of the page is the navigation, these link to the different sections that give you control over the content on your website.

In our WordPress series of posts we’ll focus on how you can update content and maintain your website. In the next post we’ll look at adding and editing blog / news posts.