On the one hand, responding to public tenders can be an arduous, time-consuming process and if you’ve ever ‘gone in blind’ before, you’ve likely come out the other side with nothing to show for it but a big fat “no thanks” and a lot of time down the drain.
It’s unlike any other way of winning work, and it takes time not just to respond to opportunities, but to figure out which ones are even right for you. But if you put that time in, the benefits can be significant.
When you win a public sector tender, you’re going to get:
The opportunity to properly control project scope
Sure, any project can run away with itself if you let it, but with public sector projects, you’re much more likely to find your client is eager to define scope early in the project, and retain just enough wriggle room to ensure a quality end product, NOT to try and get things for free. They’ll positively love you for using change controls and impact assessments, and understand that additional requests might incur additional time and money.
As long as you put the work into client expectation management, and properly document decisions and scope, you’ll get to the end of the project having only delivered what you agreed to in the first place.
Better budgets
No more £1,500 websites. Most public sector clients don’t even have to go out to tender if their project budget is less than £8,000, so it’s rare to see a project under that amount, though it does happen – my first ever public tender project win was £4,500 for a small college intranet, for example. But here’s the thing, even when the budgets are small, so are the expectations of what they’ll get. For that intranet, I explained they’re mostly paying for my expertise in content planning and user testing, and the actual site would be built using a WordPress theme and plugins.
By comparison, for your typical small, local client, £4,500 might represent every penny they have, and their demands will be huge. There’s no comparison.
Budgets on public sector projects are much healthier and realistic against their expectations, meaning you can deliver a high quality project, with less rush, and make more profit in the process.
For guidance, for small and solo teams, we expect projects with budgets between £10,000 and £50,000 to be winnable. More is possible (and I’ve done it), but much beyond that and the requirements tend to require bigger teams and expertise.
Better clients
This isn’t a personal attack on any client of any size, more a comment on their ability to be more professional and available. Typically, public sector clients will have a dedicated team member or even full team for the project, meaning you can speak to people when you need them, and they’re fully focused on the tasks at hand. They’re also more organised and objective about the project, and generally more willing to trust your expertise as the supplier when you tell them something they might not want to hear.
In short, they on a professional basis, they’re just easier to work with.
Better payment terms
No ‘can I pay you next week’ or waiting for your client to be paid before you get your money: public sector projects are budgeted and as long as you deliver against agreed milestones, you’ll get paid when you’re expecting to get paid. It really does help with cashflow to know your money is coming in when you expect it to!