Added: 10/11/2006 |
The Truth About Why US Government Decision Makers Won't Talk to YouOne of the biggest complaints we hear from people trying to do business in the U.S. government market is that it's impossible to gain access to key decision makers due to the highly regulated procurement process.
Well, if you are prospecting for opportunities by reading FedBizOpps, agency web sites or similar information services, that is certainly true. By the time an opportunity is advertised to industry, your ability to influence requirements and gain competitive advantage is long past. And - you can be certain that someone else has been engaged with the decision makers to shape and influence all aspects of the requirement.
Miller Heiman's New Strategic Selling® Government gives you
a clear process to develop winning pursuit and proposal strategies.
Register for Strategic Selling® Government
Washington, D.C. October 24
San Diego, November 15
Boston, December 5
Strategic Selling® Government shows you how to execute a strong strategy that builds your competitive advantage and gets the information you need to incorporate in your proposal. This new process is not a "proposal development" program. It is an extension of Miller Heiman's proven processes rooted in the Strategic Selling® concepts to help you build a strategy and action plan that incorporates responding to an RFP into your overall strategy.
The Facts, and Nothing But the Facts: The Government Acquisition Process
Fact # 1 The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), along with State and Local procurement regulations, require agencies to conduct market research and identify potential sources before an acquisition can even take place.
Fact # 2 The Market Research and the Acquisition Planning processes (FAR Parts 7 and 11, respectively) determine in large part how the acquisition will be executed, if and how work will be set aside for small business, how the contract type is determined and how requirements that will end up in the Request For Proposal (RFP) will be communicated, among many other critical factors.
Fact # 3 And, it is during these phases of the acquisition process that you have the opportunity to propose ideas, influence requirements and truly learn what the agency is trying to accomplish through the acquisition.
The Key to Success is ...
Understand how the acquisition process works
Execute a strong strategy that builds your competitive advantage and gets the information you will need to incorporate in your proposal. This includes accessing decision makers with your ideas - white papers, lessons learned, best practice, and solution concepts.
Work in a joint venture selling approach to address the buying organization's needs.
- Identify all important decision makers and influencers and their motives
- Identify all written and unwritten program requirements
- Evaluate your competitive positioning, and
- Build strategies and action plans to shore-up weaknesses and uncover uncertainties.
Strategic Selling® Government enables you to build competitive advantage and shape the eventual RFP requirements, organize their efforts to cover all the bases, and set objectives and timelines necessary to respond with a winning proposal when the RFP arrives.
2006 Miller Heiman, Inc.
www.millerheiman.com
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