Enjoy Winning. You’ve Earned It.

Yes it’s true that it takes a long time to win a large program. In fact it takes sometimes an equally long time to win a smaller program. In the process, your team is constantly looking for a competitive edge. Searching for that one chink in the armour that allows you to exploit the competitor’s weakness. The marketing advantage, technical advantage, manager whom they desire, or price they can’t ignore.

It takes a lot of work to win programs. It’s never easy. It’s not simply resultant from one good visit on the call plan or one good graphic for the Executive Summary. It’s rarely due to how effective the review teams were or the how well thought out the capture plan was. Rather it’s the effect that all of this planning and execution have had on your ability to be chosen the winner. More importantly, it’s something your whole team has earned. From the marketing manager or sales manager to the graphics artists, proposal manager and editor. From the red team review leader to the capture manager to the senior executive who approved the B&P budget. Lest we forget the volume leaders, principal authors, and proposal coordinators. Did I mention the contract manager, program manager, and pricing analyst? What about the Human resource manager, recruiter, and black hat leader.

In short, everyone contributes to winning contracts. It’s taken all of these professionals a long time to reach the Holy Grail. Enjoy it while it lasts. You’ve earned it!

For more information please contact me at:

www.mcguirkconsulting.com

Picking The Right Target

So your behind in your growth goals and need to find the right opportunity to pursue? Your getting pressured to identify and qualify the next target so the pipeline seems more realistic? Here are some simple tips to ensure you select the right one.

First make sure that no matter how many bosses you may have clamoring for that “make-a-difference” program, the fact is there are just as many competitors looking at that target as your company is. So let’s explore some fundamentals:

1. They don’t call it prospecting for nothing! Exploring what programs fit within the framework of your corporate capabilities requires a significant aspect of market research. If you have an organization in your company dedicated to this then you should engage them often. If you don’t then you’ll be spending a lot of time reviewing the commodity databases that publish government contracts. In either case, this is an essential part of identifying the targets.
2. Identify those programs that are far enough out to enable your company to pre-position properly. In short, don’t expect to win a $50M or $100M+ program in the next 3 months. It simply is not going to happen. Line them up a minimum of one year away. The bigger the target, the longer lead time you’ll need to position.
3. Be pragmatic about your chances up front. If you place it in the pipeline, just remember that in and of itself has absolutely nothing to do with winning.
4. Call plan, call plan, call plan. Nobody wins contracts without visiting the technical customer(s) and the contracting officer’s. Nobody! Selecting the right target means your visits to the government representatives provide room for optimism. If they look you in the eye and tell you they really like the work their incumbent is doing, then (a) speak to the incumbent about joining their team, or (b) walk away from it and save your B&P money.
5. Once the call plan has been executed, then your in a position to determine if you should be priming or looking to sub to another prime. Or most importantly, if your company should pass on the target because the odds of unseating a strong incumbent (client’s view-not yours) are too difficult.

Now that the target is qualified and you’ve gained some degree of assurance that the competition is genuine, then by all means pursue, pursue, pursue. Just remember that winning requires a very strong desire and focus on the part of the marketing manager, capture manager, proposal manager, and also the senior leadership. Without everyone equally as committed to winning, your challenge becomes that much greater.

Best of luck in choosing your targets, and remember to give yourself enough time to position to win.

For more information on pipeline and targets, contact me at:

www.mcguirkconsulting.com

Capture Management Takes Plenty of Time

It’s been quite a while since my last blog entry. Hence the title of this post.

As is typical of most new business pursuits, the positioning phase generally takes the majority of time within the capture cycle. Think of it in terms of writing a good manuscript, and then having it published later. To the point your likely to spend the better part of the year doing the following:

• Establishing the overall win strategy
• Creating a well defined call plan
• Defining a very clear message to be delivered in the call plan
• Identifying the best people within the organization, or within your strategic partners to implement the call plan
• Adjusting your messaging based on the customer(s) responses
• Assessing the best advertising medium
• Modifying your capture plan along the way
• Fine tuning your team along the way
• Evolving the win strategy
• Determining key people, in particular your Program Manager

For the most part these are aspects of your capture effort that take significant time to mature. When coupled with the level of competition in today’s federal markets, it is extremely wise to begin the capture process as early as possible.

As a general rule, a minimum of 12 months is needed for programs up to $50 million, and 18 months is needed for programs over $100 million. Although the volume of contracts is geared more toward large IDIQ multiple award programs, you still should be identifying the targets in your pipeline early enough to effectively implement a successful capture strategy.

Give yourself the proper time to capture , and you’ll see your  win percentage improve dramatically.

Every Target Can Be Won!

So you have a pipeline that contains large targets held by excellent companies? Somehow, somewhere, someone managed to sneak these in as a means to make the pipeline more robust? Well in truth that’s not only perfectly acceptable but also should be strongly encouraged. Because in fact, everyone can be beat!

There are so many different sets of circumstances that make indivdual targets appear more favorable than the next. For those programs that are categorized as take-a-ways, or those belonging to another contractor, clearly some of the reasons used most often to justify them being targets are:

• The client is unhappy
• They have poor CPARs
• The incumbent has become complacent
• They have rate creep
• The Program Manager is not well liked
• etc.

In reality, even if all of those statements are false, they can still be beaten. What about offering the client a better value proposition? Suppose you had technical competencies that the incumbent did not, or you had a partner they truly enjoy working with. What about recruiting a Program manager whose better qualified than the current one, or providing the Government a best value alternative? The fact is all of those items are viable.

In closing let’s acknowledge that there are fewer new programs being introduced to the community, outside of those that are classified, or in the intelligence community. Therefore it is prudent to analyze all of your competitors programs, and to make some good decisions on which ones you would like to pursue. Remember however that making a corporate commitment early in the process is essential to winning.

For more information contact me at:

http://www.McguirkConsulting.com

The Energy of a Good Target-It’s Contagious!

There’s nothing like it. When your finally able to assemble the right capture team, the right teaming partners, and the right win strategy, then you can feed off the energy. It’s always inspiring to see a motivated team whose collective focus is on winning. A team whose selfless, believes in their chances, truly understands the win strategy, knows their respective roles, and whose skills and experience complement each other perfectly. Although this is the nirvana of business development, and the chemistry required to be successful, you should also do your best to eliminate distractions from naysayers along the way.

In the pursuit of large programs, there is continual analysis, reviews, and improvements. Often 18 months or longer for big capture pursuits, these require measured accomplishments that enable you to better position your team such as call plans that provide better customer insight, and strategic partners that help satisfy gap analysis. There are recruiting efforts designed to land the right Program Manager or project personnel, pricing models to determine competitive posture, and strategic marketing that defines your message and brand.

Stay focused on the target, listen to other professionals advice, and disregard the critics. There will be plenty of them-there always are. Just remember that no one has ever erected a statue to a critic. They never have and never will.

In closing if you believe that everyone can be beat, your winning attitude is likely to be highly contagious. Stay positive, persistent, and determined, and your energy alone will help fuel the remainder of the team.

New Years Resolution To Winning Contracts

OK so 2007 has been less than kind to your contract portfolio and market share. As is your option, along with the remaining 300 million Americans to create a News Years resolution, I would encourage you to do so. Lets start by exploring just how to turn your program into a consistent winner in 2008. Although Bill Parcells has a major challenge in Miami with the football Dolphins, yours should be a lot easier.

Let’s begin by performing an analysis of what procedures, processes, talent, and investments you had in 2007. More times than not, you learn a great deal more from losing than from winning. As such you should probably decompose every aspect of the loss-both recompetes and new business, to determine the problems, and or what may be assessed as trends that are systemic.

Before we declare 2008 as the year of personnel change, first take a hard look at the basic fundamentals of winning. Do this after identifying the programs you lost and rank them after completing the analysis.

1. How often did you visit the client on those programs you lost? (Recompetes vs. New Business)
2. How well did you listen to the client when you did visit them?
3. How many surprises did you find in your competitive assessments? (Do you do these organically or outsource them?)
4. How often were you technically inferior to the winner? And how bad did you miss the mark? (See number 2)
5. How often were you beaten on price? And by what percentage of the overall winning bid?
6. For recompetes, how good were your CPARs?
7. How often were you “surprised” in the debrief?
8. How often were you “surprised” by the RFP release date?
9. Were you successful in securing the partners you wanted?
10. Of those you lost, how many were you successful in influencing?

There are common denominators in many of these symptoms, the core of which is effective, or in most losses, ineffective marketing.  If your inclined to make some resolutions this year remember these phrases:

1. Great marketing can overcome average proposals, but great proposals can NOT overcome average marketing.
2. Remember that bidding and winning large government contracts requires a superb marketing effort-NOT sales. 
3. Poor proposals can and will lose a deal for you-even if you have done a superb job of marketing.
4. If you have been unsuccessful in implementing substantive aspects of your win strategy, forget it, and move on to the next one. (PS: This is inherently related to marketing).
5. People buy from people. (marketing and trust)

Best of luck in your business development resolutions for 2008.

For more information please contact me at:

http://www.McguirkConsulting.com

Balancing Recompetes with New Business Opportunities

There are constant challenges with finding the right balance between prioritizing business development opportunities. “BD” organizations are consistently looking to sustain their current business base while simultaneously winning new market share. After all, that is fundamental to achieving corporate growth objectives. What creates complications along the yellow brick road however, is the basic formula of # of targets divided by # of resources. Rarely are BD organizations staffed to properly optimize a perfect balance. As such, the need to set some realistic expectations for winning percentages in both areas is critical, while also being agile enough to shift priorities for those same resources. In any organization, most of what can be truthfully realized are predicated on several key variables which include:

1. Size of the company and related volume of business development activity (projected growth = pipeline value/win %)
2. Number of resources within the BD organization (range)
3. Proficiency of the personnel who make up the BD organization (depth)
4. Company’s historical performance once translated into Contractor Performance Assessment Reports (CPARs)
5. Corporate leadership’s guidelines and direction

As an example, if company “A” has an annual revenue stream of $100M, and company “B” is at $1B dollars, then the number of contracts that make up that revenue is likely to be widely disparate. Therefore should the head of business development in company B, expect to net the same winning percentage on recompete contracts as the head of business development in company A? And if so, is he properly staffed to do it? Mathematics and statistics alone suggest otherwise.  Once you apply the very same variables as listed above to the equation, one can see why the challenge becomes greater the larger the company grows.

So how best to prioritize resources? There are basic approaches which suggests (1) all recompetes should be the responsibility of the current line organizations, or business group verticals who are responsible for executing the programs, and all new business growth (quadrant 3) the responsibility of the company’s business development organization. (2) All programs over a certain $ threshold regardless of category automatically receive the most proficient business development team the company has to offer. And/or (3), descending order of availability dictates assignment-NOT recommended.

Although there is no perfect model to guarantee success, it does make sense to decentralize business development activities to address the inherent differences between recompetes and new business. Resisting the temptation to call them all “the same” is the first step to improving win percentages in both areas.

For more information, please contact me at:

http://www.McguirkConsulting.com

The Beauty of White Papers

Positioning to win government contracts requires a multitude of activities to be done correctly in order to increase your win probability. In most instances, that takes in to account the ideas generated through delivery of white papers to your government clients.

One of the benefits of forming a legitimate partnership between government and industry is the exchange of ideas, or concepts, that benefit the government-and also industry. These benefits could be cost reductions, efficiency increases, workload decrease, technology refreshment, or a host of concepts that support federal procurement initiatives and regulations. White papers are not termed as such because of any covert language or intent, but rather as thought provoking stimuli for consideration by government management personnel. Examples of which may include:

• -> Methods to achieve a “Lean” organization
• -> Streamlining acquisition time
• -> Defining performance objectives and goals
• -> Technology migration plans
• -> Small Business participation
• -> etc.

White papers should be written succinctly while converting ideas into benefits for your client. To the extent practicle, a continuing dialogue on how best to reach concensus is certainly recommended. Identify those areas that can help your client and use the best subject matter experts to create the white papers. Invariably your client will appreciate the ideas, even if they choose to not use them immediately.

For more information, please contact me at: http://www.McguirkConsulting.com

Selecting the Right Marketing Approach: Big M vs. Little m

Deciding what kind of marketing approach best suits each corporation can and has been fiercely debated. After all, beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. To best assess however what creates greater efficiency, or ultimately which approach is more productive, requires aligning your overall marketing strategy against both strategic and tactical objectives. Generally this constitutes an independent anlaysis which steps outside the quarterly earnings requirements and focuses on a longer term fiscal year(s), or more strategic view.

While at Harvard Business School, my professor, Rohit Deshpande’ (great guy) discussed the fundamental differences between organizations that revolve around a small m, or those that operate under the big M, pardon the grammar. Shown in the chart within this discussion, Rohit’s description of the little m is generally what could be attributed to a more conventional, or CEO driven policy, whereby organizations that operate under the big M, drive the corporations marketing activities from a Chief Marketing Officer’s (CMO) perspective. What is important about this distinction is the totality of the corporations marketing focus. All of which leads me to the logical next topic as to why product based corporations generally have CMO’s and service based organizations generally do not-at least within the Federal defense sector.

First of all lets look at the commonalities between a product or service organization:

1. Large retail companies generally have a multitude of product lines. Companies such as Nike, Kraft, Hewlett Packard, you name them have a myriad of different product offerings, and without exception, all lean toward employing a CMO, or operate under the framework of the big M.
2. The defense industry also provide multiple offerings-albeit services. If we omit the OEM’s for a moment, the remainder of non-OEM’s typically provide enterprise IT services, logistics and engineering services, IA/IO services, healthcare, knowledge management, environmental, etc., and, unlike product companies, typically operate under the small m.
3. Service companies, like product companies, are both driven by capturing market share.
4. Both also strive to establish and maintain a value proposition for their clients.
5. Finally, both require strategic partners to expand either they’re distribution channel or market presence.

Why is it then that product and service corporations approach to marketing/branding seems to be philosophically different, when their objectives to expand they’re market share, and increase their top and bottom line growth are essentially the same?

As was discussed by Michael Porter, if all your trying to do is the same thing as your rivals, then it’s unlikely that you’ll be very successful. Therefore the commodization of services, albeit some unique, seem to fit the very essence of why having a CMO would benefit service companies.  After all a CMO is principally hired to help distinguish their employer from those competitors who provide the very same services.

In closing, success in public corporations is measured by shareholder value. In that sense, there is no financial distinction between product or service companies. Quite possibly sometime in the future, we may see some federal sector corporations begin to test the longer term value of Chief Marketing Officers. If a collective vision for branding services helps seperate yourself from your rivals, then at least experimenting with the big M is one worth exploring. For more information please contact me at:

http://www.McguirkConsulting.com

Beating Goliath-You Can Do It!

So the time has come when you feel ready to challenge the big guys? Maybe you have some good relationships and feel as though your contacts will ensure you get a fair shake. Well that’s a nice start. After all, you have to have someone who believes in your story, and is willing to go to bat for you. Before you get overconfidant however, lets begin by looking at some of the fundamentals.

1. How long have they been an incumbent? Consider the possibility of whether the term of their incumbency has gotten the client accustomed to having a tier one and would consider anyone smaller not capable of performing up to their standards.
2. How are they performing? It may be difficult for you to know their Contractor Performance Assessment Report (CPAR) scores. However during the course of your marketing efforts, you should be able to discern the clients level of satisfaction.
3. What is the incumbents attitude? Are they comfortable, complacent, or even arrogant? Sometimes there is a fine line between being confidant because your well positioned, and what competitors view to be arrogance. Be certain you understand the client’s views as it’s their’s that’s important.
4. Have you read the old RFP and discerned whether or not you could be competitive as it’s written? If the answer is no, and your unable to influence the acquisition process, then save your B&P money.
5. Are your own clients willing to make some phone calls on your behalf? If your performance is that good, and the work is closely related, you should explore that possibility.
6. Establish your win strategy, and crystalize your message. That must be delivered time and again to individuals within the clients organization. If it resonates, that’s a nice first step.
7. How many people from the government’s organization, whose message you delivered and resonated, will likely be a part of the source selection committee? 
8. What is the client’s vision? How well are you able to implement it?
9. Do you have the right Program Manager? Ideally not simply someone who’s qualified, but rather someone the client likes and respects.
10. How competitive are you on price? Just because the incumbent is big, doesn’t mean they can’t price aggressively.
11. Risk. Risk. Risk. This one area is critical and requires a constant focus. For the record, enusre that every aspect of your proposal addresses risk, and how you mitigate it. Every client considers risk to be one of the major areas affecting transition and performance. Charts, tables, graphics, etc., are required to effectively communicate why replacing a long-term incumbent can be done with minimal risk.

There are many factors I haven’t listed here which contribute to your ability to win. Remember that beating Goliath doesn’t happen in a few short months. Take your time to plan your win. You’ll need 18-24 months of planning, and also some luck along the way. However rest assured that Tier one companies, like any other corporation can be beat. 

For more information please contact:

http://www.mcguirkconsulting.com