[34013] in Zephyr_Bugs
Federal Sales Cartoon: The Playing Field
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Fedmarket)
Thu Dec 15 21:45:28 2005
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 19:41:11 -0700
From: "Fedmarket" <noreply@fedmarket.com>
To: bug-zephyr@mit.edu
Reply-To: "Fedmarket" <noreply@fedmarket.com>
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Message-Id: <20051216024110.F365F3CD045@wrtlnx07.wrtech.com>
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<title>Is the federal playing field level? Yes by the book but no in practice</title>
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Welcome to the third in a series of cartoons on Federal Sales: The Playing Field<br>
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Cartoon by John Klosser<br>
Text by Eileen Kent<br>
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Is the federal playing field level? Yes by the book but no in practice.
Those on the outside start in a hole.
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<img src="http://www.fedmarket.com/images/cartoon3.jpg">
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<p>How many times are you going to bid on a public RFP (Request for
Proposal) only to realize that it was written with a specific
contractor in mind? How much money and time has it cost your business?
Students in Fedmarket's "Writing and Managing Winning Proposals" classes
tell us that it takes two people, who are dedicated on a full-time basis
to the project, approximately thirty days to prepare a response to a RFP.
If you calculate overhead for the two proposal writers at approximately $100
an hour, your company is spending in the neighborhood of $32,000 to write an
UNSUCCESSFUL bid. Although your company submitted its proposal thinking it
had a chance at winning the bid, the reality is that the government has
used you in order for the procurement officer to fulfill his task of
obtaining at least three "competing" bids. In the end, the procurement
officer will most likely choose his trusted prime contractor.</p>
<p>How does the prime or incumbent have a winning advantage? The Contracting
Officer drafted the RFP after asking the incumbent prime to work with the
end user to (i) write the specifications or Statement of work for him, and
(ii) provide him with a list of best values. The Contracting Officer then
utilizes this list of best values and awards the bid to the prime that offers
the best fit. If the prime contractor helped the Contracting Officer write
the best values and the specifications, which do you think will win?</p>
<p>Are you shocked? Are you dismayed? Think about it - how do you make a
purchase? You work with people you know and trust. Therefore, you ask for
the seller's or provider's recommendations, you consider their best values
(e.g., expertise, warranty, product specifications, their past performance,
etc.), ask two other companies to provide you with an estimate or a quote
to keep your trusted vendor "honest" and then make the purchase with the
vendor you know and trust. It is no different when you do business with
the government. What happened to full and open competition? That's where the
open bid or public RFP comes in. The government invites naive outsiders to
compete and the incumbent wins.</p>
<p>So, what is the point of doing business with the government? Decide to
become the prime! Get "embedded" with the end user and get to know them
personally. Find out the end user's ideas and issues and then solve
her problems. This strategy is going to take time but, if you are
persistent, you'll start to win. You write the specs and provide a
justification of why the government should use you and let them shop two
other "losers." This is the strategy of the primes.</>
<p>"If you don't like the way the game is played, you'll never get out of
the hole that is depicted in this cartoon," says Richard White, founder
of Fedmarket.com and a past winner of over $270M in government contracts.
"The name of the game is to get in early, write the specifications and
provide best value. This combination will raise your win rate."</p>
<p>If you want to learn more about doing business with the government,
download our free article archives at <a href="http://www.fedmarket.com">http://www.fedmarket.com</a>, check out
our Federal Sales Academy calendar, or consider purchasing our end user
lists and start dialing for dollars.</p>
Thanks for reading,<br>
Eileen Kent<br>
eileenkent@earthlink.net<br>
312-636-5381<br>
http://www.fedmarket.com<br>
Federal Sales Academy Director<br>
Copyright 2005<br>
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