How to Take Advantage of Government Fiscal Year End Spending Rush

How to Take Advantage of Government Fiscal Year End Spending Rush

Did you know that 8.7% of Federal Government spending occurs in the last week of September? Business developers need deliberate action to take advantage of the “use it or lose it” period of Federal fiscal year-end opportunities. To get the most out of this...

Turning Ops Personnel into a BD Army

Training your operations people to be business developers reminds me a lot of patrolling in Afghanistan. On a patrol, security is everyone’s job, but it’s not everyone’s full-time job. Although the most experienced soldiers can better recognize something unusual, more...

Nailing Business Development for Indefinite Delivery Vehicles

In the U.S. Army Infantry, the actual execution of an ambush is less than 10 minutes. Once the mission starts, you move to the area, set up, conduct a leader’s recon of the ambush site, set up security elements, plan the firing line, place your gun teams, and...
Gratitude For Our Veterans & Food for Thought

Gratitude For Our Veterans & Food for Thought

I spent about 7 years in the infantry, 5.5 years with the 82nd Airborne Division, and 27 months in Afghanistan. This Veterans Day, I want to encourage everyone to work more with veterans and understand the unique skills they bring to business development. Veterans often struggle with transitioning back into the civilian workforce, like I did when I first exited the Army. They often find it hard to translate their valuable experience from their time in the military into the business environment. Yet, many of the skills that our highly trained military personnel have picked up in the field translate very well into the office environment.

Preparing for the Next Storm

As we look at the headlines (“Government reopens,” “Ok. Back to Work,” “Striking a D.C. Deal,” “Backing away from the brink,” etc.), we see a general sense of apathy in the writing and with those working in the Government sector. Is it because everyone that has been in the federal contracting business believes that this was just another bump in the road? Or, is it because we realize we have likely only bought ourselves a short interval of peace? In either case, many see today as a return to heavy traffic, and back to the attempt of business as usual.

How to Build an Opportunities Pipeline with High-Probability Bids

Every business needs a pipeline, which is essentially a list of all the opportunities you are chasing, with their associated values, dates when they are going to be released and awarded, all the key information about each opportunity, metrics to see how well you are progressing with the pursuit, and a variety of other information that will help you track these opportunities better and increase your probability of winning them. You can start your pipeline as a spreadsheet, and as it grows, you might want to select an appropriate pipeline tool. For example, you could establish a pipeline in Microsoft SharePoint 360, Privia, Salesforce, or Central Desktop.