Perhaps the most common question asked by any small to mid-size enterprise that has recently acquired a GSA Schedule is expressed in the title of this article.
When you realize that approximately 20% of the Schedule holders account for roughly 80% of all revenue derived from these Schedules, the obvious question becomes: What are the successful Schedule holders doing that I am not?
The seemingly mutually exclusive attributes of assertion and patience need to be present. Assertion is required to doggedly discover those Agencies, programs and personnel that constitute many of the essential elements in any sale to the Government. Patience is the sense that the Government moves slowly in the acquisition phase of completing a contract action. This fact leads to the first of 3 essential steps (Discovery, Planning and Execution) that form the foundation of virtually any successful effort in government sales.
The first of these is “Discovery”. The first two components of Discovery are:
1. How is the Government buying the solutions we are selling?
Is the buying centralized or decentralized?
Who makes the buying decision? End user, Contracting Officer, or combination of both?
What contractual vehicles do they prefer? GSA Schedules, Basic Purchase Agreements, Agency or Government-Wide Multiple Award Contracts?
Is the buying done directly or is it imbedded as part of a larger program (e.g. large design and construction buy) where the buyer is another company.
2. Where are my competitors focused?
Where have your top 3 or 5 competitors made the bulk of their sales?
What contractual vehicles or entry points are they using?
Who do they deal with in their top accounts?
While these action items sound sufficiently straightforward, the fact is that a great deal of research and “shoe leather” is required to obtain valid, comprehensive answers that permit us to proceed intelligently in our quest for Government sales.
In Part 2 we will address the third component of the Discovery process: “Who is buying what you are selling?” In other words, how do you determine what agencies to focus your limited resources on and why?
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Health Care Market Presents Unique Opportunities
Fourteen federal agencies have a wide-range of opportunities for healthcare firms in technology, administration, research, and regulatory implementation. Your firm has developed a product or capability that would provide value to federal healthcare marketplace. Where do you begin?
Whether your company is in the Top 100 Government Contractors, a small disadvantaged business, an 8(a), or a commercial healthcare firm exploring the Federal healthcare marketplace there is a basic tenet that holds value for every entity, namely that trust delivers sales. So first become a trusted advisor.
Becoming a trusted advisor for a federal healthcare buyer is a time intensive endeavor. Bear in mind, people buy what they need, not necessarily what you have to sell. Know their business and figure out what they most likely need. It may take numerous meetings to get to the ultimate buyer. The reward will be worth the effort. Remember if the proposal comes out and you have not met the buyer – nine times out of ten, your chances of a “win” are reduced by 90%.
Ten steps to becoming a trusted advisor:
1. Think big, start small and build trust
2. Select a specialty or area of expertise in your firm and build on that
3. Target federal agencies meetings for your specialty
4. Understand end-users needs before you meet
5. Bring a team of experts to the table
6. Offer specific ideas to the end-user problem
7. Voice your opinion
8. Have a contract closing mechanism
9. Deliver what you promise
10. Never stop adding value
Specialty areas for Federal healthcare opportunities could include any mixture of business knowledge and subject matter expertise (SME) in the following areas:
Departments: Health and Human Services, Veterans Administration, Department of Defense; Department of Labor, and Office of Personnel Management.
Agencies: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ), National Institute of Health (NIH), Center for Disease Control (CDC), Military Health Services (MHS), Indian Health Services (HIS), Veterans Health Administration.
Programs: Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, ChampVA, Indian Health Services (IHS), Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB), community health and workman’s compensation.
SMEs: managed care, fee for service, fraud prevention, disease management, quality, physicians, hospitals, pharmacy, behavioral health, dental, payers, transportation, medical home, performance management, security, disaster recovery, HIPAA, and federal architecture.
Capabilities: actuarial, algorithm development, compliance, project management, CMMI, application development lifecycle, assessments, surveys, business intelligence, data modeling, predictive analytics, investigative, clinical, analysis, medical necessity and audit.
Technologies: data warehousing, electronic health records (EHR), health information exchange (HIE), call centers, EDI, enterprise platforms, claims processing, enrollment, and eligibility.
Kelly Walker, Seneca Creek Consulting, LLC 2010
Whether your company is in the Top 100 Government Contractors, a small disadvantaged business, an 8(a), or a commercial healthcare firm exploring the Federal healthcare marketplace there is a basic tenet that holds value for every entity, namely that trust delivers sales. So first become a trusted advisor.
Becoming a trusted advisor for a federal healthcare buyer is a time intensive endeavor. Bear in mind, people buy what they need, not necessarily what you have to sell. Know their business and figure out what they most likely need. It may take numerous meetings to get to the ultimate buyer. The reward will be worth the effort. Remember if the proposal comes out and you have not met the buyer – nine times out of ten, your chances of a “win” are reduced by 90%.
Ten steps to becoming a trusted advisor:
1. Think big, start small and build trust
2. Select a specialty or area of expertise in your firm and build on that
3. Target federal agencies meetings for your specialty
4. Understand end-users needs before you meet
5. Bring a team of experts to the table
6. Offer specific ideas to the end-user problem
7. Voice your opinion
8. Have a contract closing mechanism
9. Deliver what you promise
10. Never stop adding value
Specialty areas for Federal healthcare opportunities could include any mixture of business knowledge and subject matter expertise (SME) in the following areas:
Departments: Health and Human Services, Veterans Administration, Department of Defense; Department of Labor, and Office of Personnel Management.
Agencies: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ), National Institute of Health (NIH), Center for Disease Control (CDC), Military Health Services (MHS), Indian Health Services (HIS), Veterans Health Administration.
Programs: Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, ChampVA, Indian Health Services (IHS), Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB), community health and workman’s compensation.
SMEs: managed care, fee for service, fraud prevention, disease management, quality, physicians, hospitals, pharmacy, behavioral health, dental, payers, transportation, medical home, performance management, security, disaster recovery, HIPAA, and federal architecture.
Capabilities: actuarial, algorithm development, compliance, project management, CMMI, application development lifecycle, assessments, surveys, business intelligence, data modeling, predictive analytics, investigative, clinical, analysis, medical necessity and audit.
Technologies: data warehousing, electronic health records (EHR), health information exchange (HIE), call centers, EDI, enterprise platforms, claims processing, enrollment, and eligibility.
Kelly Walker, Seneca Creek Consulting, LLC 2010
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Why Develop a Tactical Sales Plan?
If you have an existing business development team or plan to hire one, a tactical sales plan is an essential tool for BD professionals.
It is often said that up-front planning makes for more predictable results and favorable expectations. A well thought-out tactical sales plan will provide your BD personnel with a step-by-step roadmap, tailored to the specific solutions in your portfolio and in your business plan.
The place to start is to match your performance and services with 3 to 5 agencies that have budget and requirements compatible with your solutions portfolio. Determining how each agency buys will directly impact your strategies for bidding, partnering and contracting. For example, every agency is unique in that they have preferred ways of doing business. Some utilize agency or government wide contracting vehicles; others prefer single or multi-award competitive acquisitions; while others are amenable to GSA Schedule buys. Each agency targeted must have a sales strategy unique to the agency. How you sell to the Army Corps of Engineers is very different from the way you would sell to the General Services Administration.
We recommend that a tactical sales plan be concise and straightforward. Suggested areas the plan should address include:
• Where you are currently selling and at what levels.
• Who you are going to target? E.g. agency heads, program management, major integrators, etc.
• What agencies, opportunities, and partners will you focus on (current agencies plus new agencies and partners).
• How management will achieve its objectives and measure success.
Components of the plan may include:
1. Target agencies and existing and future acquisition programs (large and small business set-asides) where your solution and value statement have the best fit.
2. Target partners to work with including large, small, and SDVOSB companies.
3. Strategy for utilizing additional contracting vehicles in addition to the GSA Schedule.
4. Differentiators to position you with customers and partners.
5. Key sales objectives and milestones.
6. Management reporting requirements and formats.
7. BD support required to implement the plan.
8. Lead generation activities to support the sales effort.
It is often said that one cannot manage that which cannot be measured. The Tactical Sales Plan is one of the tools in your kit that help achieve the measurement portion of this goal.
For more information, visit the website at: www.SenecaCreekConsulting.com.
It is often said that up-front planning makes for more predictable results and favorable expectations. A well thought-out tactical sales plan will provide your BD personnel with a step-by-step roadmap, tailored to the specific solutions in your portfolio and in your business plan.
The place to start is to match your performance and services with 3 to 5 agencies that have budget and requirements compatible with your solutions portfolio. Determining how each agency buys will directly impact your strategies for bidding, partnering and contracting. For example, every agency is unique in that they have preferred ways of doing business. Some utilize agency or government wide contracting vehicles; others prefer single or multi-award competitive acquisitions; while others are amenable to GSA Schedule buys. Each agency targeted must have a sales strategy unique to the agency. How you sell to the Army Corps of Engineers is very different from the way you would sell to the General Services Administration.
We recommend that a tactical sales plan be concise and straightforward. Suggested areas the plan should address include:
• Where you are currently selling and at what levels.
• Who you are going to target? E.g. agency heads, program management, major integrators, etc.
• What agencies, opportunities, and partners will you focus on (current agencies plus new agencies and partners).
• How management will achieve its objectives and measure success.
Components of the plan may include:
1. Target agencies and existing and future acquisition programs (large and small business set-asides) where your solution and value statement have the best fit.
2. Target partners to work with including large, small, and SDVOSB companies.
3. Strategy for utilizing additional contracting vehicles in addition to the GSA Schedule.
4. Differentiators to position you with customers and partners.
5. Key sales objectives and milestones.
6. Management reporting requirements and formats.
7. BD support required to implement the plan.
8. Lead generation activities to support the sales effort.
It is often said that one cannot manage that which cannot be measured. The Tactical Sales Plan is one of the tools in your kit that help achieve the measurement portion of this goal.
For more information, visit the website at: www.SenecaCreekConsulting.com.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Capture Planning Do's and Don'ts
The requirement to develop a capture plan should be limited to certain significant-sized acquisitions that warrant such in-depth understanding and market knowledge prior to making a bid decision. However, there are key components of this current process that can be streamlined and tailored to your business model.
The purpose of the capture plan is two-fold. First, it is the pre-request for management to make an unbiased and informed bid/no bid decision on prime contract bids. Secondly, once a bid decision is made, the capture plan becomes one of the key documents for the Proposal Manager and proposal team.
From the Proposal Manager’s perspective, the capture plan contains several key elements necessary to ensure that a winning proposal is developed. These include:
· Win Discriminators – What our solution has that nobody else has and why it is better than our competitor’s solution?
· Evaluation Criteria – How will the selection process be made and to what extent does our company address each criteria?
· Evaluation Board – Who will make or influence the selection and what do they know about our company?
· Purpose of the Solicitation – Why is the customer interested in a new solution and why have they chosen to do it in the manner reflected in the RFP?
· Price – What is the “right” price range for this work? Is this “priced to win” or “priced to value”?
The capture plan must be straightforward yet contain all the necessary ingredients to present management with a clear understanding of the opportunity and confidence that business development personnel have performed the required due diligence on the targeted acquisition. From the business developer’s point of view, presenting a complete capture plan makes them a key stakeholder in the opportunity and contributing participant throughout the proposal process.
The Capture Plan, is in fact, the pyramid on which other step-by-step decisions are made regarding the opportunity that your enterprise is pursuing. Viewed in this light, it is apparent that a proper, not overly-complex, plan is in place at the earliest point possible.
The purpose of the capture plan is two-fold. First, it is the pre-request for management to make an unbiased and informed bid/no bid decision on prime contract bids. Secondly, once a bid decision is made, the capture plan becomes one of the key documents for the Proposal Manager and proposal team.
From the Proposal Manager’s perspective, the capture plan contains several key elements necessary to ensure that a winning proposal is developed. These include:
· Win Discriminators – What our solution has that nobody else has and why it is better than our competitor’s solution?
· Evaluation Criteria – How will the selection process be made and to what extent does our company address each criteria?
· Evaluation Board – Who will make or influence the selection and what do they know about our company?
· Purpose of the Solicitation – Why is the customer interested in a new solution and why have they chosen to do it in the manner reflected in the RFP?
· Price – What is the “right” price range for this work? Is this “priced to win” or “priced to value”?
The capture plan must be straightforward yet contain all the necessary ingredients to present management with a clear understanding of the opportunity and confidence that business development personnel have performed the required due diligence on the targeted acquisition. From the business developer’s point of view, presenting a complete capture plan makes them a key stakeholder in the opportunity and contributing participant throughout the proposal process.
The Capture Plan, is in fact, the pyramid on which other step-by-step decisions are made regarding the opportunity that your enterprise is pursuing. Viewed in this light, it is apparent that a proper, not overly-complex, plan is in place at the earliest point possible.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Winning Proposals: Making your Technical Proposal a Selling Document
Most people, regardless of their years in the business, confuse marketing with selling. In the competitive proposal arena, marketing is every activity that leads up to the release of a proposal solicitation. The proposal preparation is where selling happens. To win, a proposal must sell both in content and format. In many cases form and format can be equally or more important than content.
Putting together a compliant technical proposal, i.e., one that meets all procurement requirements, is a minimal starting point for winning. It just levels the playing field. Proposed innovative solutions, as part of meeting requirements, is also a prerequisite to being a contender, but not sufficient. To win, your proposal must also sell your message. What follows are tips for selling your message.
A winning proposal must answer the question, “of what benefit is your innovative solution to the procuring agency; how does it meet the requirements; and why is it better than a competitor’s solution”?
A winning proposal begins with the cover and extends all the way to the last appendix. The cover is the beginning of your executive summary. You must grab the evaluator as soon as the document is picked up, and maintain that hold, until the reading is completed.
We sometimes forget that evaluators are people just like you and I. They want to quickly get through the proposal and feel confident about their appraisal. Making a proposal an easy read goes a long way to winning. This includes a detailed table of contents and a complete compliance matrix. In addition, sentence and paragraphs should be concise, as short as possible, flow logically and be augmented by graphics (e.g., pictures, flow charts, diagrams).
Besides an overall executive summary, each major section should also have its own executive summary, complete with a major theme, graphics, and captions, integrated with content that together encapsulates and sells the more detailed content to follow. It should boldly draw in your evaluator, motivating him or her, to continue reading.
Extensive use of references and pointers are powerful ways to minimize redundancy and pull into the proposal text, appendix details, previously presented graphics, related details in other sections and plans, not required, not submitted and available for review.
These are just a few technical proposal tips for winning. Future articles will address other proposal form and format tips, including how to make your cost/price proposal a winning document.
Putting together a compliant technical proposal, i.e., one that meets all procurement requirements, is a minimal starting point for winning. It just levels the playing field. Proposed innovative solutions, as part of meeting requirements, is also a prerequisite to being a contender, but not sufficient. To win, your proposal must also sell your message. What follows are tips for selling your message.
A winning proposal must answer the question, “of what benefit is your innovative solution to the procuring agency; how does it meet the requirements; and why is it better than a competitor’s solution”?
A winning proposal begins with the cover and extends all the way to the last appendix. The cover is the beginning of your executive summary. You must grab the evaluator as soon as the document is picked up, and maintain that hold, until the reading is completed.
We sometimes forget that evaluators are people just like you and I. They want to quickly get through the proposal and feel confident about their appraisal. Making a proposal an easy read goes a long way to winning. This includes a detailed table of contents and a complete compliance matrix. In addition, sentence and paragraphs should be concise, as short as possible, flow logically and be augmented by graphics (e.g., pictures, flow charts, diagrams).
Besides an overall executive summary, each major section should also have its own executive summary, complete with a major theme, graphics, and captions, integrated with content that together encapsulates and sells the more detailed content to follow. It should boldly draw in your evaluator, motivating him or her, to continue reading.
Extensive use of references and pointers are powerful ways to minimize redundancy and pull into the proposal text, appendix details, previously presented graphics, related details in other sections and plans, not required, not submitted and available for review.
These are just a few technical proposal tips for winning. Future articles will address other proposal form and format tips, including how to make your cost/price proposal a winning document.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Getting Your Proposal Started
A famous quote on writing: “The hard part is getting to the top of page 1.” - Tom Stoppard
Most proposals turn out to be more difficult than they should be for two reasons:
1. The effort is not started early enough
2. People are too anxious to get to the writing
Everyone knows that once the RFP is out the proposal effort is going to be a race to the finish line, and it is not a long distance run, it is a sprint. So why do so many companies wait until the RFP is out to start the effort? A good racer spends time preparing for the event before the gun goes off. You can do the same with your proposals.
If you have tracked a program and spent time marketing the effort then there should be a good deal that you already know about what will be required in the RFP. It is also common for the government to publish draft RFP’s which do not tend to change dramatically when issued as final.
With this information in hand you can, before the RFP comes out, begin to:
Ü gather resumes and place them in a common format
Ü gather data on the appropriate approach/solution you will propose (what we refer to as ‘information chunks’)
Ü develop win themes
Ü develop competitive ghosting concepts
Ü and develop competitive discriminators
All of these items will become useful as part of your proposal architecture, which needs to be put together and thoroughly detailed out before you start writing. This is the second big mistake that organizations make; they start to write too soon. The writing of the proposal will be much easier, and more effective, if it is guided by a well thought out and documented proposal architecture. While most organizations know they should take this step (every proposal training class, book, and consultant talks about it) rarely is it done well and often it is not done at all.
Just doing a decomposition of the RFP and creating an outline for the proposal does not constitute proposal architecture. Think about what an architect does when designing a building. They do not simply make up a list of what the building will contain and what materials will be used. They develop conceptual drawings and then detailed drawings to show exactly what the building will look like and how it will be built. Your proposal architecture needs to do the same thing.
Most proposals turn out to be more difficult than they should be for two reasons:
1. The effort is not started early enough
2. People are too anxious to get to the writing
Everyone knows that once the RFP is out the proposal effort is going to be a race to the finish line, and it is not a long distance run, it is a sprint. So why do so many companies wait until the RFP is out to start the effort? A good racer spends time preparing for the event before the gun goes off. You can do the same with your proposals.
If you have tracked a program and spent time marketing the effort then there should be a good deal that you already know about what will be required in the RFP. It is also common for the government to publish draft RFP’s which do not tend to change dramatically when issued as final.
With this information in hand you can, before the RFP comes out, begin to:
Ü gather resumes and place them in a common format
Ü gather data on the appropriate approach/solution you will propose (what we refer to as ‘information chunks’)
Ü develop win themes
Ü develop competitive ghosting concepts
Ü and develop competitive discriminators
All of these items will become useful as part of your proposal architecture, which needs to be put together and thoroughly detailed out before you start writing. This is the second big mistake that organizations make; they start to write too soon. The writing of the proposal will be much easier, and more effective, if it is guided by a well thought out and documented proposal architecture. While most organizations know they should take this step (every proposal training class, book, and consultant talks about it) rarely is it done well and often it is not done at all.
Just doing a decomposition of the RFP and creating an outline for the proposal does not constitute proposal architecture. Think about what an architect does when designing a building. They do not simply make up a list of what the building will contain and what materials will be used. They develop conceptual drawings and then detailed drawings to show exactly what the building will look like and how it will be built. Your proposal architecture needs to do the same thing.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
How the Government Simulus Package Impacts GSA IT Contract Holders
President Obama passed the $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package into law on February 17, 2009. This bill earmarks over $100 billion dollars in Information Technology initiatives alone. This amount of money is more than the entire Federal Government spent in all of fiscal year 2008 on IT products and services. One key area of focus on the stimulus package is updating the federal government’s digital infrastructure. This new administration is very tech-savvy and plans to upgrade many of the processes the Federal Agencies utilize to do business with one another as well as with the taxpayers they support. GSA schedules are constantly changing and new Special Item Numbers are added to meet more specific categorization.
Has your company positioned itself to profit from this landmark legislation?
Many GSA contract holders that stay ahead of the curve with new product offerings could be the biggest beneficiaries of this new wave of funding. The best way to benefit from the various programs that will be funded is to have all of your available products and services on your GSA contract. Even having all of your products and services on Schedule will not make you competitive if you have not kept your pricing current and in tune with the current market conditions. In January, GSA sent out emails to all contract holders who have not updated their GSA Advantage! catalogs in over two years. GSA will remove these outdated catalogs (within 90 days) if the contracts holders do not update them or verify that there has been no changes in their product or service offerings in the last two years.
Make the most out of this historic time in federal spending.
By Rob Polland, The JDS Marketing Group www.JDSMarketing.com
Has your company positioned itself to profit from this landmark legislation?
Many GSA contract holders that stay ahead of the curve with new product offerings could be the biggest beneficiaries of this new wave of funding. The best way to benefit from the various programs that will be funded is to have all of your available products and services on your GSA contract. Even having all of your products and services on Schedule will not make you competitive if you have not kept your pricing current and in tune with the current market conditions. In January, GSA sent out emails to all contract holders who have not updated their GSA Advantage! catalogs in over two years. GSA will remove these outdated catalogs (within 90 days) if the contracts holders do not update them or verify that there has been no changes in their product or service offerings in the last two years.
Make the most out of this historic time in federal spending.
By Rob Polland, The JDS Marketing Group www.JDSMarketing.com
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