How one-to-one support helped Michelle take on her first NHS tender

For Michelle Smith, moving into procurement felt like stepping into a different world.

She already had relevant experience, including a background in the NHS, and a business focused on sleep, wellbeing and behaviour change support.

But turning that into a strong public-sector tender submission was something else entirely.

The language was unfamiliar, the systems were hard to navigate and the whole process felt heavy and unclear.

The business

Based in London, Michelle runs Michelle Smith Coaching & Hypnotherapy, delivering one-to-one support, group programmes and wellbeing services for organisations.

Her work combines coaching, hypnotherapy, neuroscience and practical behaviour change tools, with a particular fit for health settings and other highly regulated environments.

As a sole trader, she was exploring contracts up to £200,000 and looking for a clearer route into public-sector work.

Before joining Supply Connect, she had limited hands-on experience of tendering.

She knew the kind of work she could offer, but not where to find the right opportunities, how to interpret the requirements or how to shape a response that matched what buyers were actually looking for.

In her words, winning a contract felt "impossible, confusing and time-consuming".

Joining Supply Connect

Michelle first came across Supply Connect after trying unsuccessfully to secure a place at a "meet the buyer" event in Greenwich. That disappointment turned out to be useful.

Through the programme, and with support from adviser Franceska, she became aware of a live opportunity and had the chance to work through a real tender rather than just read general guidance.

That practical support made the difference.

The support Michelle received

Over a short, focused period, Michelle worked with Franceska through a series of one-to-one online sessions, with extra guidance between meetings.

Together, they worked through the essentials of the tender process:

• understanding the terminology

• identifying which types of opportunities were suitable for a sole trader

• interpreting the scoring criteria

• structuring responses properly

• strengthening evidence

• refining the final submission

The biggest shift came from one piece of advice – write to the scoring criteria, don't just describe what you do.

That changed the way Michelle approached the whole submission.

Instead of explaining her services in broad terms, she learned how to show value in a way evaluators could actually assess.

It gave her a much clearer sense of what a good tender response looks like and how to carry that into future bids.

After the support, she rewrote her responses so they were more structured, more evidence-based and more closely matched to the marking criteria.

She also developed templates she can reuse, improved the way she talks about outcomes and impact, and became more confident in pricing and positioning her offer.

The tender and Michelle's submission

The tender itself was a contract to deliver Action Learning Sets to support staff development within preceptorship programmes for newly qualified nurses.

It was a formal NHS procurement process with a tight turnaround, which added to the challenge.

Michelle believes her submission was strengthened by:

• her understanding of NHS workforce issues

• her background as a former NHS HR manager

• a practical approach to delivery that connected coaching with Action Learning in a way that made sense for the brief

Her bid also included social value commitments around staff wellbeing, knowledge-sharing and sustainable workforce development.

While Michelle didn't win that contract, she doesn't consider the experience a failure.

Since receiving support, Michelle has gone from having very little practical tendering experience to actively scanning for opportunities she now feels confident enough to pursue.

She has a clearer process, better templates, sharper messaging and a stronger sense of how procurement works, especially in NHS settings.

She also feels more ready to scale her service, both personally and through partnerships.

The overall experience of Supply Connect

Reflecting on the experience, Michelle is clear about what mattered most.

The value of Supply Connect lay in getting tailored, honest support from someone who could help her apply procurement principles to a live submission, answer questions as they came up and give her confidence when the process felt difficult.

She says it's unlikely she'd have submitted the bid at all without that support.

For other small businesses thinking about public-sector work, her view is simple – the right support can speed up your learning and help you move forward with much more confidence.

And when you're new to procurement, that can be the difference between putting it off and getting started.

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