When you're preparing a tender submission, the natural instinct is to focus heavily on what you’re saying—after all, that’s where you demonstrate your capabilities, experience, and offer. But if you’ve ever lost a bid despite having the best technical solution or the most competitive price, there’s a good chance the issue wasn’t what you said—but how you said it.
In a competitive tendering environment, especially within government and institutional contracts, presentation, tone, and clarity matter more than many businesses realise. A good submission meets the requirements. A winning submission makes those requirements easy to assess, compelling to read, and confidently delivered.
So let’s break it down: what really matters more in a tender - what you say or how you say it?
The content (what you say)
Let’s start with the obvious - substance matters. If you don’t have the capability, qualifications, or relevant experience to deliver on the contract, no amount of great writing is going to save your bid.
Strong content in a tender includes:
Detailed methodology showing how you’ll meet the scope.
A team with relevant experience and qualifications.
Robust safety, quality and environmental systems.
Evidence of past success (e.g., case studies, KPIs).
A clear understanding of the client’s objectives.
Value for money, innovation, and risk management.
This is the foundational layer of any good response. If the core offer is weak, the rest doesn’t matter. But having the right content isn’t enough on its own.
The communication (how you say it)
This is where many good businesses fall short. Their content is strong—but it’s buried in wordy paragraphs, littered with jargon, or presented in a way that’s hard for the evaluator to follow.
How you say it includes:
Clarity and conciseness.
Logical structure and easy navigation.
Plain English and client-focused tone.
Clear headings, bullet points, and summaries.
Visual consistency and professional formatting.
A great tender isn’t just informative - it’s reader-friendly. It understands the evaluator’s time constraints and helps them quickly find what they’re looking for.
Why “how” can make or break your submission
Let’s imagine two submissions:
Company A lists their experience in a paragraph with dense text, limited formatting, and vague outcomes.
Company B presents the same experience in a concise table with project names, outcomes, KPIs, and a short paragraph explaining relevance.
They both did the work - but Company B made it easy to understand and aligned it clearly with the tender’s priorities.
Evaluators want to give you the best score possible, but they can only do that if your submission makes it easy for them to find and interpret the information. That’s where writing, formatting, and layout come into play.
The role of tone and language
Tenders are often read by panels of people with mixed expertise, including procurement officers, technical specialists, operations staff. You’re not writing a legal brief; you’re telling your story to a time-poor, mixed-skill audience, so it’s important to use a tone that’s:
Professional, not robotic.
Confident, not arrogant.
Plain, not technical (unless required).
Client-centric, not self-congratulatory.
Instead of saying:
“We are a highly regarded provider of end-to-end facility maintenance solutions.”
Try:
“We maintain over 50 buildings across mulitple locations, achieving a 96% compliance score in independent audits.”
Show, don’t just tell.
Case studies: the ultimate combo of what + how
Case studies are one of the best ways to blend strong content with strong communication. A well-written case study provides:
Relevant experience (what you’ve done).
Specific results and outcomes (how well you did it).
A story format that’s easy and engaging to read (how you said it).
When done well, a case study becomes a proof point that builds trust, not just a paragraph of background noise.
Final verdict: it’s both - but don’t underestimate the “how”
Yes, the technical content matters. Yes, you need to tick all the boxes. But don’t ignore the role of presentation, tone, formatting, and structure. Because when every competitor has similar capabilities, the winning submission often comes down to who said it better.
A clear, compelling, well-structured tender helps evaluators do their job—and that gives you a serious edge.
Need help saying it better?
TenderWise helps businesses across all sectors create persuasive, professional tenders that don’t just meet the brief - they stand out.
From editing and formatting to full-service tender writing, we’ll help you say it right, and give you the best chance to win more work.
Here at TenderWise we can help with that! Just give Pauline a call on 0400 514 579 or shoot an email to pauline@tenderwise.com.au and we’ll get right back to you!