Are you a small business looking to win contracts but unsure where to start?
This one-day, face-to-face workshop is designed specifically for micro-businesses and SMEs who want to build confidence and capability in navigating procurement opportunities.
Event Details:
🗓️Date: Monday 10th November 2025
🕤Time: 9:30am - 4:30pm
đź“ŚLocation: The Coval Workspace, Coval Lane, Chelmsford CM1 1JG
**A light lunch and refreshments will be offered on the day to attendees**
Why Attend?
For many businesses, the world of tendering and procurement can feel complex and intimidating. Common challenges include:
• Spending huge amounts of time completing tenders, with no guarantee of success.
• Not knowing where or how to find suitable opportunities.
• Struggling to coordinate and complete selection questionnaires.
• Being unsure how to approach technical questions or structure responses.
• A lack of awareness around standard procurement practices, such as formatting, appendices, and compliance requirements.
This workshop will demystify the process and equip you with the tools and techniques to approach bids more strategically and effectively.
What You’ll Learn
The session will cover the essentials of procurement and bid writing, including:
• Understanding procurement – What is a tender? Key differences between private and public sector opportunities.
• Finding opportunities – How to use platforms like Find a Contract and applying for Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS), Dynamic Markets and Frameworks.
• Making sense of documents – Common tender documentation such as ITTs, specifications, pricing matrices, and social value calculators.
• Assessing opportunities – Weighing up risk vs reward.
• Pricing and partnerships – Developing competitive pricing strategies, supply chain structures, consortia vs sub-contracting, and onboarding partners.
• Writing winning responses – Tender-writing technique, structuring answers, formatting, and building a bid library.
The workshop will also touch on stakeholder engagement and management, particularly within private sector bids.
About the host - Phil Ashford, Supersonic Startup
Phil Ashford is an experienced and accredited business adviser and founder of Supersonic Startup, specialising in helping aspiring entrepreneurs overcome barriers to starting a business. With a background spanning both private and public sectors, he has held senior roles at Panasonic UK, The Pensions Regulator, University of Brighton, and Site Visibility.
Phil has delivered enterprise programmes for underprivileged young people across Sussex and lectures in the UK and Germany on mentoring and entrepreneurship. A former Director of the East Sussex Gateway, he has also served as a Growth Champion for the Thames Valley Growth Hub and a Board Member of the National Enterprise Network. Phil holds an MBA, Diploma in Performance Coaching, and multiple professional accreditations, including SFEDI Business Adviser and Prince2 Practitioner.
Also check out other Workshops in Chelmsford, Business events in Chelmsford.
