5 More Attributes of Successful Federal Contractors
Getting into the federal contracting space takes clear thinking and patience to succeed.. In my previous blog post I shared 5 attributes of companies that are successful at making their federal business work. Whether you are a startup or a company that has an existing commercial business, the recommendations for getting started are the same:
· set a long-term strategy,
· make sure you have a narrow and memorable service offering,
· be willing to start out small,
· be willing to be a subcontractor, and
· use market intelligence to drive your strategy.
This post is about how to set up the staff and infrastructure to have the capacity to succeed.
1. The ownership needs a minimum level of understanding and involvement in the BD process so that there is an understanding of how company resources are being used. Sometimes I work with companies that have a successful commercial business and believe that if they just hire a smart consultant (which is a description that has been associated with this writer) and then he can get it done for us. I wish I could do that for you. I cannot make strategic decisions for you because I don’t know your company well enough, what you have done or what makes your product or service competitive. You need to learn the process of federal business capture and proposals so you can make the right strategic decisions for your company. And doing that is something I CAN help you with.
2. Commit someone in the company to working the BD/Capture process. For a small company this might be the owner; other times a proposal coordinator or a head of marketing can take on this role. This person should be familiar with:
· Company capabilities and past performance so they can make pitches to buyers and potential partners
· Staff qualifications and availability so they can use this information to qualify contract opportunities and identify key proposed personnel
· They should understand how the company’s offering exceeds expectations, and what Government customers are most likely to buy
· They should have relationships across the company to request resources for the BD strategy, including, tech, marketing, contracts, pricing, etc.
· They are ideally comfortable with networking and selling the company to partners and government buyers
The BD lead should also have the ability, that is unbillable hours in their regular work week, to work the plan. It is not fair to the staff member to expect this person to do their best work on winning the company new business after they do their full-time job on delivery. It is also not the best way to ensure that your BD plan gets the attention it needs to be successful.
3. Leverage your connections to government contacts and potential teaming partners to get in front of requests for proposals. Winning in the government contracting world is all about relationships and intelligence gathering. I wish it were true that a great proposal is all you need, because I like proposal writing a whole lot more than networking. Alas, the networking is much more important. Most people who have done this for a while recommend an 80-20 split of resources between capture (pre-RFP) and proposal stages. Unsuccessful companies have that reversed—they wait for the RFP to drop and then jump on it.
Think about it. How likely are you to buy from someone that you don’t know? When you get ready to fix something on your house or your car, don’t you call up your friends for recommendations? Don’t you prefer a seller that has some connection to someone you know?
If you learn one thing before hiring a proposal/tech writer to ghostwrite your first federal proposal, learn this: Feds do not like to buy from strangers. If the first time someone hears the name of your company is when they read it on the cover of your proposal, you are at a disadvantage compared to your competitors who have name recognition or a relationship with the client. Networking gets you noticed, gets you information, gets you relationships that help you position yourself better for the next bid. And do not count on someone like me to do your networking for you. Consultants have relationships and connections that may introduce you to possible clients and partners, but these relationships are best established by company ownership or leadership. Also consider getting your Lead Tech a visit with their Lead Tech to present a “briefing” on how your product fills a need.
Also, I will let you in on a little secret. Sometimes I don’t offer my connections to my clients. I have a reputation to protect just as you do. If I am not confident that my client can deliver as a subcontractor, I am not going to introduce them to someone in my network, because if they screw the pooch on a proposal, that damages my relationship with that company or person.
The company that wants to win business must have skin in the game and must aggressively work their network to get positioned to win.
4. Be willing to lose, to learn, and to win. I recently had one of my clients share some real wisdom with me. We were at a bid decision point on something that was nothing like a sure winner. We had a good team put together with experience in the agency and strong quals for every part of scope of work. Yet there was no reason to believe that the incumbent was vulnerable. It was decision time for my client: go or no-go. And he said:
“Well Jim, you have to write letters in order to get mail”
It is not fun to lose, but the fear of losing shouldn’t keep a company from trying.
· In writing proposals, you learn how to improve your proposal process.
· In working with other companies in a teaming arrangement, you learn what they are good at and not so good at, for future deals.
· In developing a proposal to a government agency that you want to work with, you learn from the experience even if you lose. Agencies must give you – and all other bidders – a post-award debriefing, and I have found many times that the act of writing a proposal (or responding to a sources sought notice / request for information) can open doors for meetings and learning more about an agency.
Look, writing an excellent proposal is not easy. (AND writing and submitting a poor or mediocre proposal gives any new potential client a poor first impression of your company.) Still there comes a time when taking a calculated risk and bidding on a low-probability effort, not only offers you a chance to impress the client but can be worth it if you expect that you will get better for trying. And sometimes these bluebirds do end up being winners. But don’t make chasing low probability wins a habit. It will wear you out and turn your team off the federal sector.
5. Winning companies have a strong proposal infrastructure and process. Most companies develop proposals for their commercial work and have a process for that. Government proposals have much in common with their commercial counterparts, but they also have some differences. Some things to consider in putting together your process is
A process for making a quick go/no-go decision. Government proposal cycles are too short to lose a few days because you missed the sam.gov announcement or you were scrambling to pull everyone together to look at the RFP.
Have someone in charge of watching all the web sites for announcements; have a process for pulling together and briefing the people in the company who must be involved in the decision.
Have a system (briefing template) that organizes all the relevant information from the RFP for the leadership to review so they can get to a decision quickly.
Be sure everyone understands that there are “off-ramps.” A bid may quickly become a “no-bid” if the final RFP (or an amendment thereto) contains an unexpected technical, pricing, or contractual “show-stopper.”
A process for breaking down the RFP requirements into an outline, compliance matrix and assignments. Also, a process must be in place to brief the proposal outline and strategy to the writing team so that the amount of work they must do is minimized, they have clear direction and access to the resources to do their job.
Common understanding between technical staff and cost/price analysts. Avoid last-minute crises by ensuring that technical and pricing staff are “on the same page.” Make sure they hear each other’s ideas and see each other’s work.
Regular training for project staff on how a federal proposal looks and what the company process is for responding to them. This is only fair, so that they will not have to learn complex new processes, at the same time as they are grappling with their writing assignments and keeping up performance on their regular work. As a side not my company is quite good at proposal management training.
A proposal library consisting of past performance write-ups and references, resumes and boilerplate sections that appear often in your responses, such as Plans for Management, Quality Assurance, Transition, Staffing, Training, etc.
Finally think about these minimum investments for success in the federal biz…
Market research. Find out who buys what you sell, who they are selling it to and how. Someone who understands government contracting should do this for you. Consider also looking at the Congressional Budget documents that describe how an agency plans to use their funds in the coming years.
Basic marketing collateral:
1-page capabilities statement (customized for different buyers)
a government services page on your website,
a strong capabilities description on your SBA profile and on your GSA price list
a 6 slide capabilities deck
A means to access on-demand market intelligence through a consultant or a proprietary database like GovWin, Bloomberg, GovTribe or EzGovOpps. You can start out using the free resources like sam.gov and USASpending.gov, but you will get frustrated with the interface and how much work it is to get the information out that you need. Plus, the paid services connect different databases together, so you don’t have to.
Once you have done your market research to find out the important contracting vehicles in your marketspace, begin a 1-2-year program to get on at least the top 2 IDIQ/GWAC vehicles for your product/service.