Live online · Cohort one · 10 places
A live online course for contractors who bid — and lose too often.
Three weeks writing a submission that was never winnable costs a contractor more than losing on price ever does. Most bid training teaches you to write better. This one teaches you to judge better first, then write.
It is built on framework and term contract work in this sector specifically — altnets, DNOs, water companies and principal contractors — rather than on public procurement in general. The gate questions, the scoring patterns and the price traps are not the same as they are in construction or in services, and a generalist course will not tell you where they differ.
Winning badly is worse than losing.
Six modules across three live sessions. Every module ends with something you apply to a live notice of your own, not a case study written to make the method look good.
Module 1
The decision that saves the most money, made before anyone writes a word. Turnover thresholds, insurance levels, accreditations, filed accounts — and the honest read on what size and shape of contractor actually wins the thing.
Module 2
Where the marks actually sit. Price and quality splits, social value weighting, and the pass-or-fail methodology sections that end a submission on their own. Read on real altnet, DNO and water framework documents.
Module 3
Most SME submissions assert. Evaluators score evidence. What a scoring evaluator is actually looking for, and how to write a method statement that earns the mark instead of describing an intention — with NEC4 and streetworks context throughout.
Module 4
Winning badly is worse than losing. How to build a rate card against what the work costs to deliver, where SMEs consistently under-price risk, and how to price a term contract you will still be delivering in two years.
Module 5
What altnets, DNOs and principal contractors actually check, and what they quietly reject on. Accreditations, safety schemes, streetworks qualifications, insurance, ISO, and the evidence pack that stops you scrambling every time.
Module 6
The contract you won is the contract you now have to administer. Early warnings, compensation events, programme and payment — the administration that decides whether an NEC4 term service contract makes money or loses it quietly.
Three live two-hour sessions over three weeks, online. 13:00–15:00 UK. Sessions are live, not recorded lectures — you can ask about the tender in front of you.
Modules one and two
13:00–15:00 UK
Modules three and four
13:00–15:00 UK
Modules five and six
13:00–15:00 UK
Capped at 10 so there is room to look at your actual documents rather than talk in general terms.
The last session ends with an offer, stated plainly rather than buried: bring a live tender and we will review it for a fixed price agreed in advance. Not a retainer, not a discovery call — a written read on a real submission you are about to send.
Taking it is entirely optional and the course does not depend on it. We would rather teach you to judge a tender yourself and be the people you call when a framework submission is worth doing properly.
Carl Dawson. Fibre and utilities delivery from the ground up, then contracts director and managing director roles running framework and term contract work — including a £24m NEC4 term service contract won and run. The same person who writes the weekly Bid or No Bid verdicts.
This is commercial training, not accredited training. There is no qualification and no awarding body — what you get is three sessions with someone who has bid this work and delivered it.
Ten places. First cohort, priced accordingly — it will not run at this number again.