Clarification questions as strategy

Turn a compliance step into an advantage. Most bid teams treat the clarification window as admin. Asked well, clarification questions reduce risk, signal competence to the buyer and show you what the rest of the field is doing. None of this replaces judgement: knowing when restraint is the stronger move than a clever question.

→ Turning a defensive question into an offensive one: a well-timed counter-question that invites the buyer to relax an unnecessary hard line without losing face.

→ Three strategic question types: competitive, financial and alternative-bid, with an example of each.

→ When not to ask: when the better move is a stated assumption in your submission rather than a public question.

→ AI prompts for the strategic layer, not just the basic one: testing whether a threshold is as rigid as written, and reading the clarification log for signal, as a hypothesis to sense-check.

What you get: the Four-Layer Clarification Framework and ready-to-use AI prompts, sent to every registrant after the session.

Can't join live? Register anyway. We will send you the recording and the framework.

Thursday 29 October, 14:00 CET (13:00 GMT · 09:00 ET) · 45 min including live Q&A

For: bid and tender managers, bid writers, and proposal and RFP teams.

Jo Hillman is Managing Director of J Hillman Consultancy. She advises bid and tender teams on complex public and private-sector bids, and on bringing AI into their process.