Closing business sales for Government

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[Music] so the big question is this how do small businesses like yours who feel like you're doing all the right things and going to all the right events reach the federal buyer in a way that helps you win more contracts that is the question and this is the place to get your answers my name is neil mcdonnell welcome to the govcon chamber of commerce [Music] okay let's get started throughout business development you have the ability to influence agency strategy by helping them recognize needs understand options and define decision-making criteria let's talk about what influence entails as you work with your primary agency first though this content is brought to you by the govcon chamber of commerce the only organization dedicated to the success of all small businesses in the federal space with members from guam to the us virgin islands in every single state in between each year roughly 125 billion dollars is awarded to small businesses as prime contractors our vision is to double that number by helping small businesses truly understand the process for success small businesses are the backbone of america by helping you succeed further in government contracting we'll be strengthening american communities my name is neil mcdonald and i've been where you are now i've been a small business owner for 20 years building two successful firms selling to the federal government i've won subcontracts with small and large prime contractors i've won prime contracts with defense and civilian agencies and i've done things right and i've gotten things wrong the one thing missing though for me then and you now is an easy to follow process that will lead to predictable success that's my commitment to you i'll provide the process if you accept responsibility and don't blame others you'll find you have the control to change the future government contracting is not a secret it's just a process and the govcon sales process includes bd capture and proposal writing look for my other videos about the govcon sales process to learn more an important part of the business development process is to influence agency strategies in your primary agency that's what we'll talk about here specifically i'll go over your ability to influence how customers buy the acquisition approach and what they buy both in scope and technical approach how a federal customer buys is called the acquisition approach for example is this a credit card purchase that just requires a quick quote or a multi-million dollar opportunity that requires a detailed proposal from each vendor it is wrong to try and get a federal contract based on your small business tag compared to your products quality or the services you provide but business development is definitely about highlighting what makes you great and trying to reduce competition that's why you should push for opportunities to be set aside for small business competition and if you have additional tags like hubzone trying to get the contract officer to use that set-aside remember that's not how you introduce yourself but it should be part of your plan for shaping the acquisition approach you want to also pay attention to the next codes that will be used if you're a very small business try to have a next code used that has a smaller size standard so you can reduce your competition to companies in similar size of you now if you're a larger small business make sure that nakes is the one you choose is the one that allows you to compete at your size you can try to influence what contract vehicle is used which will either eliminate a lot of competition or it'll allow you to compete in the first place in your business development efforts you can work with the customer to shape how they value past performance which could lead them to make requirements that are favorable to your experience you can do that through the size value the dollar size or the number of past performances they require or whether it's a similar size project meaning like a hundred thousand users or three buildings something like that another way you can influence the acquisition approach is to highlight why an agency should require certifications that you have and encourage them to include those in the requirement in the future rfps the point of influencing the acquisition approach is to reduce competition but if you're newer to the game you'll want to influence in a way that lets you participate effective business developers are able to change the way in which customers evaluate their products and services you have at your fingertips the ability to influence the technical approach and strategies your customers decide to follow one of the most important parts of business development is to help a customer realize their areas of dissatisfaction whether with systems products vendors or etc you can't propose a great solution if the customer doesn't know they have a problem you want to make sure that you understand the difference between implied needs like our computer crashes all the time to explicit needs if we don't replace our computers we'll no longer be able to support our agency's mission you need to help your customers turn those implied needs into explicit needs in areas that your company has the best products and services another way to influence the technical approach or requirements is to help the customer understand the risk they face from not doing anything or choosing the wrong solution vendor etc in your numerous business development activities you should make yourself a trusted advisor in areas of expertise once you've established solid relationships as a sme you'll be able to provide technical suggestions finally whether your customers buying this year or next year they're always trying to stay up to date on the current best practices and lessons learned they would value hearing your comparisons of various products or approaches such as cleaning solutions or cloud hosting platforms than having to do all that work themselves so how can you share the information i mentioned for influencing the acquisition approach or the technical approach white papers are a time-tested approach to getting information into the customer's hands just write one or two page summaries of what you want your customers to think about and send it to the folks you have a relationship with already you could schedule time to demonstrate your product or even your service or sometimes companies like yours send over sample products or limited licenses for evaluation purposes i'm a huge fan obviously of smee videos they're just like this one designed to be 10 minutes or less on a single topic you could expand on a topic by doing a webinar for 45 minutes or an hour for example i have seven videos i've done daily to explain the govcon sales process when i'm done i'll turn that content into a webinar or maybe even a small course with slides i've already built consider doing something similar for your expertise expanding on the idea of demonstrations or demo products you could do a proof of concept a proof is a collaborative exercise you do with a customer it's not tied to money but just a feeling out of the idea trying to flesh that out you could expand further on that idea and you might get the customer to agree to a small pilot project that costs less than 25 000. by staying below this 25 000 threshold your customers will have a lot more flexibility to work with you on new ideas and not have to post it out to fbo or sam now uh with letting everybody out there know the whole idea of influencing your customer is about educating them so you want to find the method that works best for them and then do this on a regular basis so remember government contracting it's not a secret it's just a process an important part of business development is to influence agency strategies in your primary agency that's what we just went over here specifically we talked about your ability to influence how your customer buys or the acquisition approach and what they buy both in scope and technical approach as you develop strong relationships within an agency you'll find you can influence those buyers if you found the content valuable others will too please give it a thumbs up so they can find it if you'd like to connect with me personally do so on linkedin make sure to sign up for the govcon chambers email list at .govconchamber.com we often do free training webinars and interview federal buyers for you the email list is how we let you know about these opportunities finally please consider becoming a sustaining member of the govcon chamber of commerce i'm neil mcdonnell wishing you great success