Business development

You would never know it to see me work a room, but I am a natural introvert. It scares me to walk into a crowd of strangers armed only with a badge and business cards. But, I’m in business development, and being a wallflower is not an option.

Here are a few tips I’ve picked up over the years — having suffered only minor lacerations to my ego. Maybe you’ll find a nugget or two that you can use.

The federal contracting community has its own terminology that can seem like alphabet soup. Before your company can compete in this sector, you need to become familiar with acronyms such as RFPs (Requests for Proposals), SOWs (Statements of Work), BPAs (Blanket Purchase Agreements, IDIQ (Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity) and the FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulation) among many others.

Restless Nights
It’s 3:00AM and I can’t sleep, instead I think about everything I need to do today, tomorrow, this week, and the coming month. I am overwhelmed and stressed about the upcoming office move, the latest acquisition, my inbox, and all the projects that I need to provide strategic insight and creative direction, not to mention all the family obligations such as attending my daughter’s new school activities, etc.

Since the beginning of July, I've faced earthquake, hurricane(s) and flooding, but the thing that has really knocked me off of my feet has been the flood of government RFPs. I've logged 80 and 100 hour work weeks and I've not had a "real week-end" since June. I've had to decline to bid jobs that I know we could perform well because there isn't enough time to do the proposal well. I've responded to 20 page RFPs that give us only 7 pages for our proposal -- I've done the best to give the right detail for a decision, but 7 pages is simply too short -- shouldn't we get a least as many pages to answer as they get to ask?

Government agencies are searching for innovative sources to meet the challenges of getting business done but in today’s economic environment, they will be more selective than ever. They recognize that budgets are constrained and they no longer can expect automatic yearly increases. Although they have flexibility to make “best value” award decisions, they are becoming more reluctant to pay a premium for a marginal difference in quality.

Maybe in other towns, the lazy days of summer still exist, but here in Washington, D.C., it’s time to pull together those end-of-government-fiscal-year proposals and close deals. This year especially, with the shutdown threat and budget uncertainty, many decisions were postponed that will soon need to happen with urgency.

Having just returned from the 2011 GSA Expo in sunny San Diego, I’m reminded how large and complex the government market truly is. No matter if your firm is already active and deeply entrenched in this sector, or is standing on the edge of the pool wondering if you should dive or wade in, it’s critical that you understand the similarities and differences between commercial and government markets. When selling to government, your market positioning and messaging must be refined to speak to how your offering can help support government mandates and missions.