Today we received a call from a regional firm seeking our assistance with writing a tender for a local contract. Something that we would have been delighted to assist them with, but on this occasion had to say no. The reason for this is simple, we do not write for two separate clients who are bidding for the same tender – and on this occasion our services had already been booked by another firm. Even if we had assigned separate writers to each client, the risk of there being a conflict of interest remains. This is due to the fact that I (Vicki Stewart) personally get fully involved with all work that we undertake. Where I am not undertaking the writing, I undertake the quality check of the writing and documents. This enables me to use my experience from years evaluating tenders as a buyer to ensure that all of our clients’ submissions present as well as possible. So, for professional reasons I could not accept a second client for the same tender as there would have been conflict of interest.
I was still able to assist the firm by putting her in touch with one of my capable competitors!