Monday Apr 4

It's not how much you say, it's what you say

"47,000 words - not enough detail." This was feedback recently experienced by an organisation on failing to win a tender.

Actually, including all the appendices, the wordcount was very much bigger - but still not enough detail.

So, should they have written more? Actually, by simply stripping out extraneous material they would not only have reduced the wordcount but also exposed much detail that had become obscured. People who evaluate tenders don't necessarily have the time or the inclination to wade through pages of unnecessary blurb - weeding out the irrelevant stuff just to isolate the information they asked for in the first place. Tender responses need to be written succinctly and to the point.

My tip, therefore, is this. It's not how much you say, but what you say. Read and re-read your answers.

• If it doesn't address the question, don't say it.
• If it doesn't answer the question, write an answer that does.

By the way, writing a 250 word response can be more difficult than writing a 2,500 word response!