A request for tender looks like a specification. Read it properly and it's closer to case notes.
The standard clauses are boilerplate, but every bespoke question was put there by a person, for a reason, and the reason is usually a previous project. A pointed question about interface management means an interface once failed them. Three separate questions about key personnel continuity mean a team was swapped out after award and the client is still cross about it. A whole schedule on subcontractor payment terms isn't curiosity. It's a wound, documented.
Read it twice
The first read is mechanical and non-negotiable. Build the compliance matrix, the plain table of every requirement and where your response deals with it, and let it drive your contents page. Committees scatter requirements, and evaluators can't score what they can't find.
The second read is diagnostic. Go through the bespoke questions and write down, next to each one, what you think happened to this client. Then rank the top five anxieties the document gives away. That list is the real evaluation criteria, the ones nobody published.
Answer the wound, not the question
A compliant answer restates what will be done. A responsive answer relieves the wound: it shows you know what the question is really asking and offers the specific mechanism, named person or verified precedent that means it won't happen again. It never says “we understand your concerns”, which is what every bidder who doesn't understand them writes.
Try this: before drafting each criterion, write the single sentence you want the evaluator to put on their scoresheet, in their words, not yours. Then write the answer whose only job is to make that sentence easy to write.
The client can't tell you their last contractor let them down. The tender is how they tell you anyway.
Free tool: Compliance matrix and wound read. Fill it in online with your team, then save it as a PDF.
Free download: Compliance matrix and wound read (Excel). Both reads in one workbook, plus a page audit tab for your draft.