Lawn care contracts up for bid: 3 steps to success

Have you been searching terms such as “how to win lawn care contracts up for bid?” Or “where to find lawn care contracts up for bid?” You aren’t the only one. Tendering for work can have many advantages for your business. There’s never been a better time to give it a go, particularly if you’re an SME. However, knowing how to win and where to find lawn care contracts up for bid can be daunting.

Before applying for any bid, you should consider the following questions after reading the tender specification:

• Can I fulfil the work?
• Do I hold and meet the necessary requirements?
• Do I have enough experience?
• Does my business meet the economic and financial standing?
• Do I have the resources to carry out the contract?

These questions are a good place to start before beginning any bid response. They can help you establish if it’s the right opportunity for your business. You don’t want to waste resources starting a bid only to realise you don’t qualify on financial standing, for example.

Opportunities for SME’s

If you’re an SME, you may be wondering if you are in with a chance of winning lawn care contracts up for bid. A lot of SMEs think that tenders are given to larger businesses and corporations exclusively. However, this isn’t the case.

The UK government has implemented a scheme to see at least £1 in £3 being spent with SMEs by 2022. This means that public sector organisations are actively looking to award contracts to smaller businesses. Winning a contract, particularly if it’s a place on a framework agreement can be a lucrative opportunity for your business.

So, if you’ve never tendered before you may be wondering how to go about it. Generally speaking, there are three steps to winning lawn care contracts that come up for bid:

1. Knowing where to find lawn care contracts up for bid.
2. Competitively pricing your services.
3. Knowing how to write a high-quality bid response.

Let’s break these down.

Step 1: Where to find lawn care contracts up for bid

You may be wondering where you can find lawn contracts up for bid. There are hundreds of websites posting multi-sector tendering opportunities daily across the UK. Each may require a different login or password and keeping track can turn into a full-time job! Both the private and public sector release tenders in order to procure lawn care services.

You should be looking for a site that hosts industry-specific opportunities. Facilities Tenders is a centralised portal that hosts all facilities management tendering leads and opportunities. Gone are the days of relying on inaccurate CPV codes that can result in missed opportunities.

Our Opportunity Trackers manually source and upload exclusive, public and private sector opportunities from across the UK. You’re able to filter the results by keyword, location, budget and more. This allows you to find the perfect lawn care contracts up for bid for your company.

Below are previous lawn care contracts up for bid on our portal:

Provision of Weed Control Services

The London Borough of Barnet- London- Budget: Undisclosed

Landscaping and Grounds Maintenance – V2

Taff Housing Association- Wales- Budget: Undisclosed

Scottish Ambulance Service Grounds Maintenance

Scottish Ambulance Service- Scotland- Budget: Undisclosed

Framework – Provision of Garden Maintenance and Hedge Trimming Services – MTS

East Renfrewshire Council- Scotland- Budget: £105,000

Grounds Maintenance Services – North West Region

Salvation Army Housing Association- London- Budget: Undisclosed

A subscription to Facilities Tenders offers your business:

• Access to all exclusive, public and private sector opportunities within the facilities management industry.
• An on-hand Account Manager is available to answer any questions you may have about lawn care contracts up for bid. They can help you understand the procurement process and answer any questions you have about the tendering process in general.
• A daily email bulletin sent straight to your inbox when new, sector-specific opportunities are uploaded.
• Discounted support from Hudson Succeed, our bid writing division.
• 20-minutes of free consultancy with one of our Bid Consultants each month.

We also track opportunities for the following sub-sectors:

• Property Maintenance Contracts
• Solar Energy Contracts
• Electrical Testing Contracts
• Cemetery Contracts
• Grounds Maintenance Contracts
• Cleaning Contracts
• Facilities Management Tenders
• Window Cleaning Contracts
• Manned Security Tenders
• Landscape Design Tenders
• Grass Cutting Contracts.

Book a free live demo today to learn how we can grow your business!

Step 2: Pricing your tender right

Pricing your bid right is an important aspect of any tender. You don’t want to undercut your competitors. Moreover, pricing your services too low may lead to a contractor questioning the legitimacy of your services.

The public sector has certain rules and regulations that it must follow to award a contract to a supplier. However, the private sector isn’t bound by such rules and can award a tender however they want. In this case, the cheapest bid may well win, but for the public sector, it won’t. Public sector organisations will award bids to the most economically advantageous tender, known as the MEAT.

The MEAT seeks to achieve the most value for money and added value from a bid proposal. This is because they need to ensure they are getting the most value for money out of the taxpayer’s money. A buyer will take into account a range of factors that will be specified in the tender documents. They’ll evaluate them both individually and in combination. They might include the following:

• Accessibility
• Technical ability
• Ability to deliver on time
• Innovation
• Environmental considerations
• Sustainability.

When applying for lawn care contracts up for bid in the public sector you need to consider social value. A tender will have a minimum weighting of 10% on social value, this could be more depending on the buyer. You will need to consider the environmental, social and economic aspects of the contract. Make sure you’re including promises you can keep, as social value is often contractually binding. It’s likely that lawn care contracts up for bid will have a particular focus on environmental aspects and considerations.

Examples of social values you could include in your lawn care contracts up for bid are:

• COVID-19 recovery
• Reducing waste and encouraging recycling
• The eco-friendly and innovative products you use
• Encouraging biodiversity and tackling carbon emissions
• Upskilling
• Paying staff the National Living Wage to tackle economic inequality
• Equal opportunity and diversity policies
• Apprenticeships or employing local labour to tackle unemployment. 

Step 3: Write a high-quality response

Buyers will be expecting a high-quality written bid response. Even if the quality section of the tender is weighted less than cost. A business should aim to score as highly as possible across all aspects of the tender evaluation sections. You should aim for your responses to be clear and concise. Ultimately you want to be assertive in your writing, persuading the buyer that you’re the best business for the job.

Try and hit as close to the word or page count as possible with your written response. The word count will be detailed in the questions. If a buyer is expecting a 500-word response, simply responding with two sentences won’t suffice. Word and page counts are there for a reason. Clearly laying out your response will reflect strongly on you as a business. Using subheadings and bullet points can help break up your responses. A buyer will apricate this, particularly if there’s a high level of responders.

Pro-tip: Have a bank of evidence of previous contracts you have fulfilled. Buyers will ask for two to three case studies of completed contracts within the last three or five years. They should be similar in scope and complexity to the lawn care contracts that you’re applying for. You should consider:

• Past contracts you have completed similar in scale and location.
• How you mobilised and delivered the contract.
• The challenges you encountered and how you overcame them.
• Whether you completed the contract on time and within budget.

Need assistance when writing your next lawn care contract?

It’s understandable that you may not always have the resources, time or experience to write a winning response in-house. Outsourcing to bid writing experts can help you win your next tender, securing a pipeline of work for your business.

Our sister company Hudson Succeed, have over 60 years of bid writing experience and an 87% success rate. They offer four bid writing support services that can help you win more lawn care contracts up for bid. Whether you’ve never tendered before or need your response proofread before you submit – we can help.

1. A Tender Ready programme
2. The Tender Improvement package
3. Tender Writing services
4. Tender Mentor

Want to save even more time?

Upgrading to Discover Elite allows you to identify tender opportunities – even when you’re busy. Our two upgraded packages can improve your competitor awareness and bidding success rate. Each can help save you even more time when searching for lawn care contracts up for bid.

The Ultimate Time Saver package offers your business:

• An annual subscription to a maximum of two Hudson Discover sector-specific portals. This option can help businesses that overlap two industries such as Facilities and Logistics, for example.
• A maximum of five tender breakdowns per month.
• Pre-market and award engagement notices monitored on your behalf.
• Buyer portal management, including registration, password management, downloading documents and assessing viability based on your bid or no-bid strategy.
• Weekly phone calls with your Account Manager to discuss viable tendering opportunities.

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package offers your business:

• All of the above.
• Up to seven tender breakdowns per month.
• A Bid Strategy delivered by a Senior Bid Manager with a minimum of 5 years of experience. It will also be managed by our Global Bid Director.

Contact us to find out how we can help your business grow.