Most government sales business today requires a structured process to be followed. Unlike the commercial side, the government has a significant amount of public reporting and transparency, as well as multiple rules forbidding favoritism. Not paying attention to these rules results in many vendors losing bids without even being considered, a common rookie mistake.
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 Account Management, Capture Management, and Proposal Development are rich with color-based processes. From small businesses to large Top 100 federal prime contractors, the processes remain relatively similar. This is attributable to the fact that they’re adaptable and valuable tools for planning and organizing an overall win strategy.
The success rate of your firm’s capture management process — the critical time between choosing to pursue a government procurement and ultimately submitting your proposal – is a critical determinant as to whether your business will succeed and grow or, at best, remain a small business. And although many firms do get into a steady rhythm with this process, there are always opportunities, to stop, analyze your metrics, and move forward more in a manner that is much more aware of all steps of your capture management process.
As a firm, you only have a certain amount of money allocated to work through the capture management process of all the deals you intend to work each year. What you don’t want to do is spend money blindly throughout the capture process only to decide at the end to not work through the RFP process because you didn’t have enough information at your finger tips to make that decision early.
Luckily, there are five simple things you can to do improve your capture management process immediately.
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.
As your company starts looking for new opportunities, you’ll realize how much information you need to make smart business decisions about which opportunities to pursue. The federal government awards thousands of contracts worth billions of dollars each year.
Narrowing down the list to something manageable requires a lot of information. Thankfully, virtually every bit of information surrounding government contracts is publicly available.
As we continue to mention how securing a face-to-face meeting with the Government can help to improve your Capture Management process, figuring out how to do so can be challenging. Often times there are hurdles you must tackle to get to the right individuals. Small business advocates can certainly be helpful, but you’re not the only business they’re working with. Because of that, the responsibility is encumbered upon you to continue to push to make those connections. In doing so, be aware and prepared for some of hurdles and subsequent strategies that can help you find success.
As an experienced capture management process consultant, working with numerous clients provides a platform in which you begin to identify areas of improvement that are shared from client to client. Although the companies may differ in size, be in varying states of maturity, and are focused on differing lines of business, there are five key mistakes that are consistently identified through the consulting process.
Employed during the capture management phase, Black Hat review processes may vary in implementation between companies and people, but the overall goal remains the same: to find the top competition for a government contract and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of those businesses, so you better understand how they will bid against you.
A government contract can be an incredible revenue stream; however, actually landing the deal can be a long and arduous process. That’s where customer relationship management (CRM) software can help. CRM technology is useful in managing and analyzing customer interactions. In the era of “the customer experience”, it’s increasingly vital to solve your client’s needs quickly and effectively. As a contractor, the government is your client.
If you are trying to improve your team’s capture management, a CRM can certainly benefit your company. Here’s how… Read More
