The Handoff: Why Sales and Bid Team Overlap is the Key to Better Writing

TLDR: Better tendering doesn't just come down to better writing. It comes down to a better handoff between the sales and bid team.

Whether your role is solely writing proposals or wearing multiple hats to meet with clients, develop win themes and write proposals.

One truth still holds - bidding and sales should not be a disjointed process.

If your bids are technically sound but still falling flat, the problem likely isn’t your writing. It’s the effectiveness of the sales → bid team transfer.

A good transfer between teams appears as an overlap that allows sales themes to be clearly translated and organised for the bid writer to begin.

What A Good Transfer Looks Like

The Sales Team's Extended Role

The salesperson's responsibility doesn't end when they walk out of the client meeting. Their job extends into the writer's domain by translating information gathered during client meetings into key insights for the writer.

Use these steps to improve your hand-off

1. Map client conversations to win themes

After every client interaction, capture: 

• Problems they explicitly stated
• Customer terms and language used
• Opportunities they hinted at
• Any potential outstanding concerns mentioned by the client
• Specific requirements to address

Capturing this information is likely not new to you. But what might be, is that the win you're hoping for comes from how well this information can be translated to the bid-writer while retaining as much context as possible.

A good question to ask is:

“Could I give this information to the bid writer and expect them, using only the insights to write as if they were in the client meeting?"

If yes, then you’ve done enough.

2: Transfer this insight to the bid writer through:

• Call recordings
• Post-meeting notes identifying sales themes that clearly connect client statements to your company's value proposition
• Additional background information on the client and key decision-makers, company culture and recent news that might impact their priorities

Note: This is the most important part. The information MUST make it into the hands of the writer with a decent level of context, not just a two sentence email stating "client wants better efficiency".

The Overlap Between Sales and Writers

This isn't about creating longer handoff meetings or a more time-consuming process. It's about effective information transfer to prevent your bid from sounding generic.

Sales professionals must translate findings so the bid team can write as if they were in the room.

Bid writers must write as if they are salespeople, mapping each problem to a core solution and clearly articulating the sales themes throughout the proposal.

The Bottom Line

When sales and bid-team roles extend into each other's domain, the result is proposals that demonstrate genuine understanding of client needs, not just technical competence.

This begins with the sales team nailing the handover by transferring critical client insights and the writer translating them as if they were in the salesroom with the client.