Capturing Federal Contracts

Winning business in the federal government is often times viewed to be complicated. It’s not-really! Rather it simply entails being properly prepared and ensuring your able to successfully execute all the necessary steps. They include the following items which at the moment I will consider of equal importance. We’ll shuffle them later on in this discussion.

1. Market segment analysis. You must first be aware of the market segement your attempting to win business in, and how that corellates to your exisitng brand equity. In short, if you currently have no presence in the segment you wish to win business in, then you have no existing brand equity to leverage (see Z-curve diagram). Your choice to prime this contract requires that you spend a considerable effort to create brand awareness with this customer, or decide to subcontract to someone who already does. So the first step is deciding whether to prime or subcontract. So, in short do you have any past performance with this client, or doing similar work for another client?

2. Prime or Sub? Should you choose to subcontract, then you only need to establish some reasons why the potential prime thinks you can help them win. For the record, you can probably demonstrate some relevancy to the statement of work, or performance work statement, depending on how the RFP will be let. If I was you however, your time is equally as well spent on where your particular distinctions enable the prime to get additional points in the evaluation process. So take a hard look at section M of the RFP, and be prepared to articulate why your company (Company ABC) helps them win. Once you successfully negotiate your share of the work then the hard part is done. The rest is providing the prime some additional input for the proposal as they request, and also pricing if required. Now lets get on to priming which is always more fun and challenging.

3. Know your potential customer. That requires you develop a comprehensive call plan. You and your team should ensure you minimally visit: (a) The technical program manager, (b) The contracts manager, (c) The technical team who will make up the evaluation, or Source Selction Evaluation Team (SSET), and (d) The funding sponsor.

4. Define Your Message. This is one of the more tedious aspects of the pursuit. I say tedious because your message often evolves from the initial call plan through the information gathering process incorporating the clients views and the competitive assessment.

5. Perform a comprehensive competitive assessment. This can be done through third party consultants such as myself or others, which often times provides a level of objectivity that balances the views of the internal capture team. The benefit of this assessment is to properly understand where you stack up against the competition. You should invariably reach a point where your as comfortable with the competitors strenghts and weaknesses as your own company.

6. Bring on strategic partners. I say partners rather than subcontractors because of two reasons: (1) They are critical to your ability to win because they should provide capability and relationships that are outside the scope of what you as the prime can provide, and (2), they will be with you for the duration of the contract. Therefore I would hope they are more of a partner than a “Sub”.

7. Pick the right Program Manager. My advice would be to first ask the potential client who they would like to manage their program. Therefore you don’t run the risk of finding someone with great qualifications whom they don’t know and potentially won’t trust.

8. Define the price to win (PTW). There is a world of difference when bidding rates for labor categories such as large multiple award contracts or GSA schedules, or trying to win a single award contract. Competitively they are not remotely close. The former situation almost never requires more than cost justification and DCAA approves rates. However the latter ALWAYS requires a thorough analysis of the competitors rates, the contract type your bidding on (e.g. FFP, FP-LOE, CPFF, CPAF, T&M, etc.), and the educated analysis that draws you to a winning price.

9. Your thematics. Well we’re at the point in this discussion that we know what we have to determine how we priortize. Hopefully we should conclude that the messaging your delivering on your call plan to the potential customer, also takes into consideration not only what is unique and distinctive that your team has which can benefit the customer, but what the competitors DON’T have which should be integrated into your messaging-subtley.

10. Executive Summary and Vision. Odds are your competing against companies who have done the same things you have. So what seperates you? Your vision. It’s one that needs to be directly tied to what your potential customer would like to accomplish over the next 5 (assuming it’s a 5-year contract) years. Tie your message, your strategic partners, your distinctions, and your cost directly back to your vision. You have the opportunity to win or lose it with the Executive Summary-even though the are rarely evaluated.

For more information, contact Jim McGuirk at http://www.mcguirkconsulting.com