While PWIN (percentage win), is clearly an easy metric to apply to sales and performance of capture with a targeted customer base, it doesn’t lend itself so easily to the government arena. That’s because there are a number of fundamental differences between government and the open market, and it’s important to understand these differences if a vendor wants to be successful on public Organization bids.
Government contracting holds great promise, but it continues to confound many businesses, leaving only a few mega-entities and adept companieswinning bids regularly. There are core reasons why this occurs and it often has to do with sellers not having a planned process in their approach.
In the coming years, there will be lots of opportunities for businesses that depend on government contracts. But how do you find the ones you can successfully capture?
Budget is a big barrier when looking at your capture management process. You need to invest a lot up front in the hopes of scoring contracts at the end. With publicly-available sources offering a lot of the information you need to strategize for opportunities, it can take a lot of man hours to aggregate the information.
For most businesses, that’s where paid services come in.
Remember your first few months in business? You probably spent most of your time operating in the red, never feeling sure that enough clients would walk through your doors to keep the lights on. Since a significant number of businesses close their doors within the first five years, developing stable income sources should be a priority. Government contracts, when effectively captured, can offer exactly that – a guaranteed, steady stream of revenue, month after month.
If government contracts are an important source of income for your company, reviewing your capture management process is an important part of keeping it stable. Capture management is an ongoing process that starts years before you finally submit a proposal.
In our industry, selling to government clients is the key to growing your business and achieving success. If you are struggling to succeed in government sales, it’s important to find out why and address the problem that is holding you back. There are three main reasons for a government sales process not working, but they all boil down to the same problem: a serious lack of visibility. If you don’t know what is going on with your sales pipeline, your sales team and your opportunities, your government sales process can’t work effectively.
Capturing and winning government contracts is a way to ensure a stable source of income for years to come. During lean economic times, government contracts can help keep the doors open, and during boom times, these contracts can fund expansion. Read More
When you first delve in to the world of Government contracting, it can be overwhelming. Rarely is it as easy as, say, having new carpet installed in your home. In that case, the seller provides a quote, you agree to the terms, new carpet is installed, and you pay the invoice. Done.
There is a reason the Capture Management process and procurement process aren’t that simple. Often times the government customer wants high-end, super plush carpet for an economy carpet price. They also want it in four different colors, and in rooms with fourteen closets. And to top it all off, it needs to be completed over the holiday weekend, only using two security-cleared installers with ten years of experience.
Government agencies may be a solid source of income, but they also require a significant investment of time and resources to close a deal, depending on the length of your sales cycle. The open-bidding process often goes through several layers with fewer potential contractors competing at each step. As you manage your capture through all the different stages, networking and making contacts is a big part of the process. Given the complexity of agency structures, no one person makes the final decision on bids. This fact makes building relationships a must – and that’s where Industry Days come in to play.
