Editor’s note: Chris Scott has deep insights into how government works. Let us know if you would like more info on any of this.-bg
With this post I’ll provide some of my personal observations and insights from the the 24th Annual Government Procurement Conference. The conference was held this week at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in DC. Representatives from all the major government agencies participated and helped provide important information to Industry on how to find and win a government contract. There were over 350 booths in the exhibition hall, 70 of which were Government. Army provided the most useful resources with a dozen Army contract-experts sharing their combined years of experience (Navy was conspicuously absent – they had a booth, but no one showed up to man it!). All in all, everyone from DoT to VA to MDA was there. There was an impressive amount of expertise in the room to provide resources and information to Industry.
Currently, the US Government has over 3,100 “buying activities” – so no wonder that folks need help sorting it all out! Certainly every one of these activities has their own particularities, but some general themes stood out loud and clear.
Mr. Sturdivant from DHS gave the audience a great four-step explanation of how to win a Government Contract.
1. Be Patient – it’s a process! Nothing happens overnight in Government contracting. It always amazed me when companies expect overnight success when going after Government business. Even though USG is constantly tweaking the process and trying to make if faster, it’s still, by design, extremely thorough (aka: slow). The only way to get through it is step-by-step.
2. Build good relationships. This has been, and always will be, a key driver. The Internet has been extremely successful at enabling a greater sharing of information concerning opportunities. But a good relationship is still the trump card. There are only three types of people you who will do business with you: people who KNOW you, people who LIKE you, and people who TRUST you. You won’t get the contract any other way.
3. Do your homework – RESEARCH! Only through rigorous research and intense, focused listening to the customer can you really understand the requirement enough to write a decent proposal. If you don’t really understand the customer, your proposal will reflect that.
4. Find the right niche. Before you go after Government work, you need to do some serious soul searching to understand WHAT your particular niche is. How does your capability meet a customer NEED? You are just wasting your time trying if you haven’t established that key linkage. It is all too common to see Company X trying to sell Widget Y to the Government, without really figuring out where in the Government Widget Y is NEEDED.
One of the most popular offerings at the conference was the well-organized Procurement Matchmaking session. This portion of the event was offered to small business participants and “matched” small company “sellers” with participating “buyers” represented by government agencies and large business Prime Contractors. The folks I spoke to left the session with some valuable contacts. This is a very clever way to organize the attendees to maximize their connections – fast track networking.
Ms. Shirley Freeman from the Washington HQ Services office provided an extremely insightful two-hour presentation on “Understanding Requests for Proposals”. She candidly and openly shared her 30+ years of experience with the audience. Her knowledge and her enthusiasm took much of the sting out of looking at these monstrous 100+ page documents. Next time I have to open an RFP to get some information, I will be much better at it! Thanks Shirley!
Events like these are always good opportunities to learn something new and meet new people. It’s hard to carve out the time from a busy schedule, but I am glad that I did and hope this recap helps you as you think through your approach to government.
