• Do you deliver frontline services?

• Was your organisations’ total income between £50,000 and £10 million with at least 60 per cent coming from taxpayer-funded sources?

If you have answered yes to these questions and deliver the majority of work in England you are likely to be eligible for a grant from the Governments’ Transition Fund.

Transition Fund Grants are between £12,500 and £500,000. The deadline for applications is 12 noon on 21 January 2011.

Interested but pushed for time?

We can help you to secure funds by developing a competitive application.

Tricolor specialises in bringing positive change to organisations in the public and third sector and can help you to put forward a competitive business case for governmental financial support.

We offer affordable, friendly advice and support. If you could commit to employing us should your application be successful, we may even be able to complete your application for free.

If you’re not eligible for The Transition Fund but want to discuss how your organisation can best adapt to the changing political landscape and different funding environment please contact us for an informal and free chat, by emailing us on info@tricolorassociates.co.uk

We are less expensive than you think, and experienced and friendly to boot so why not drop us a line.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. We hope that we will be able to help you to secure a better financial future.

Click here to view the transition_fund_application form but please make sure you visit the Big Fund website to check your eligibility first.

I’m sure we’ve all have had some negative experiences whilst tendering in the past, but for the most part, working on our tenders, whether successful or not, has actually benefited our business.

I believe that there are a number of key issues that make tendering so onerous, particularly to small organisations.

1. Vocabulary
2. Rigidity of expectations
3. Clarity of brief
4. Death by technology

We’ll talk about all of these in just a moment, as firstly I wanted to point out that all the blame should not be placed upon the organisation issuing the tenders. In my opinion, the primary reason businesses fail to achieve acceptable tendering success rates is because they do not invest in the process of tendering nor do they perceive putting tenders together as their PRIMARY marketing and business development and winning work tool.

In sectors like construction and property development, where tendering is the norm, the people who are in charge of the tender response process are either management level marketing and business development staff or it’s outsourced to tender- writing professionals like ourselves at Tricolor. The reason for this is that these tenders are for many businesses the apex of the B2B relationship process.

Receiving a tender opportunity or a pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) is the sign that the business relationships that have been honed and developed have reached a point where those in charge of distributing work opportunities already believe that the business in question may be capable of handling the job. It is then about NOT sending back a tender that is half-baked or pulled together at the last minute by the admin team.

Tenders are not an administrative duty – they are your future. Deal with it (and quickly!)

Going back to the hurdles thrown down that were mentioned earlier – the question remains: how should smaller businesses cope with the peculiarities of the tender process? Our advice is… communicate, communicate, communicate. And if you’re in doubt about investing time and effort into your tenders, then you’re not ready to participate in the process yet because to stand a chance of winning, you have to be 100% committed.

Taken together the four barriers vocabulary, rigidity of expectations, clarity of brief, and ‘death by technology’ (e.g. bidding portals that looking like the controls for the Starship Enterprise) are incredibly daunting. Sometimes it might feel like the tender briefs are written by robots what with NUTS codes and online tendering portals that aren’t exactly the easiest to understand.

However, these barriers may not be as bad as they first seem.

Most tender issuers provide a two-way feedback system of Q&As and some also offer ‘Open House’ opportunities for tenderers to meet with the client and ask the pertinent questions face to face. These are invaluable opportunities that should not be missed.

But they are are missed and do you know why?

Because no one read the tender when it arrived on their desks. They look at the due date (4 weeks away, no problem) and then put it into the pile for later. This “later” is usually the week before the due date, when the Q&A session has closed.

My advice to you? If an unsolicited tender opportunity – e.g. one that’s come to you not just because you search the OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union) everyday – lands in your inbox, open it immediately. Or send it to someone who can read it for you and highlight the key dates, issues and what kind of response would win work.

Whichever way you choose, make sure you develop a RED | ORANGE | GREEN system of checkpoints that you analyse the tender against to make sure it’s a good fit for your business. For example, how much is it worth compared to your turnover? Is it geographically positioned in an area your business can easily service? Have you got a track record in these types of services or working with this client in the past. Obviously, if you get a lot of reds, it’s probably not the job for you. Lots of oranges, weigh it up carefully whether this project is winnable and if it isn’t, will going through the tender process anyway improve your business in other ways? Lots of greens – go for it!

So… in summary – when taking on tenders, remember the following:

• Timeliness and planning
• Appropriateness
• Marketing – this is your chance to shine.

Follow our blog and monthly e-newsletter to get more advice on marketing, business development and fundraising. Sign up at the bottom of the page or follow us on Twitter – @sarah_dowd

After a long discussion in the summer sunshine, my father turned around to me and said ‘you’re not going to turn that sale, Sarah. No matter what you say, he’s got it in his mind that Facebook advertising doesn’t work for him.’

I’ve been pondering it ever since. Was it just me not being able to convince him of the benefits of Facebook for his business or was there really a genuine concern that this kind of marketing is a lot of hype and no heart?

I think the root of the problem comes down to what people understand a) about the Internet and b) how people, especially those in different generations, communicate differently.

Point a – it’s a scary thought but most people haven’t a clue how the web works, how web pages are designed, the psychological impact and drives that alter the patterns of people’s online behaviour. To be honest, I probably only have a limited understanding of the technology, however, what I do understand is that most people now use the Internet to build relationships.

Point b – Relationships with each other, with their service providers, with brands they purchase, music they like, hilarious videos they watch. The internet and you are a two way street, not a broadcasting tool. To get the most out of it for your business, you need to interact with it.

Now this does take time, but not as much as you think and it absolutely generates results. There is fantastic software available like HootSuite which can help you merge your social networking into one easy-to-use device and help you send updates to all your networks at the same time.

So looking back – what I really wish I had said was this:

In the digital age, people are still looking for other people to talk to. To get advice from, get hot tips, recommendations on what hotel or bar to visit and what recruitment agency has really impressed them. However, if you’re not there to talk to, how can you give people the right answers, meet their needs and get them to choose you over your competitor.

But I tell you what… rather than warble on about the importance of developing 1 to 1 relationships with customers, why don’t you try it for yourself and click on our Live Chat button on the Tricolor dashboard and see where the conversation takes us.

More great stuff here from the Queen of social networking, Sue Butcher:

http://www.justprofessionals.net/