This post has tips for businesses who do or want to contract with the Federal Government. It is the first in a series of four.

1. How to Find
the Right Contracts
& the Right People
to Fill Them
Part One: Assess the Playing Field
As Presented by Ginger Groeber
President, Exfederal.com
For Next Generation Contractors Meetup

2. Assess the Playing Field
Developing a winning contract proposal
takes a lot of time and resources. A winning
strategy starts with an assessment of your
chances of winning.
We recommend that you begin by assessing
the playing the field in 6 key areas.

3. Assess the Playing Field
• Determine Customer Intimacy
• Review Customer History with Other
Contractors
• Study Customer Mission and Values
• Evaluate Competitors
• Keep Attuned to the Political Climate
• Look at Contract History if Recompete

4. Assess the Playing Field
Determine Customer Intimacy
Look at how you might have a relationship with the customer.
You need to provide a convincing argument that you understand
the Agency, its mission, direction and challenges.
• Do you already have contracts in that Agency?
• Do you have members on the team who have worked in that
Agency and still have good relationships with the Agency?

5. Assess the Playing Field
Review Customer History with Other
Contractors
Assess how other contractors are performing in the same
organization and Agency.
• Learn if there are existing relationships (their go-to people)
between contractors and a government agency.
• Agencies appear to be comfortable with contractors they
know who have performed well for them.
• That comfort zone gives contractors who already have
contracts in an Agency a positive edge, while new contractors
can benefit knowing what their desired Government
customers like in a contractor.

6. Assess the Playing Field
Study Customer Mission and Values
Knowing the customer’s mission and values and understanding
how you can support them in performance of a contract is
critically important. Assess the basic work of your company and
how that fits into the work the Agency performs.
For example, if your company is a known Technology company
and the contract is for Instructional Course Development and
Support, unless there is a significant technologic element that
they are requiring, you probably won’t fit into the support of
their mission. There are ways to overcome this by partnering with
other companies, but this evaluation is necessary to determine
your chance of success.

7. Assess the Playing Field
Evaluate Competitors
• Determine who might bid on the work and what their
chances of success might be over yours. What do they have
that you don’t to offer the customer?
• Assess the possibility of working with competitors for a
portion of the business if together you have a stronger
chance of winning.

8. Assess the Playing Field
Keep Attuned to the Political Climate
There are typically significant changes in the approach an
Agency takes as the political leadership changes. If a contract
is going to be awarded after an election, will that Agency still
want to fund the work proposed in the contract?
For example, when President Obama won his first presidential
election, his administration directed the conversion of a large
number of contractor positions to government employees.
The Department of Homeland Security brought a significant
number of contractor staff augmentation positions into the
government and those contracts were terminated.

9. Assess the Playing Field
Look at Contract History if Recompete
• If the contract is a recompete, then look at what contractor won
it before and it they have succeeded in winning it more than
once.
• If they are performing well and have won the contract
numerous times, the chance is that they will have an edge on
the recompete.

10. Tomorrow’s Topic:
Part Two
Assess Partner Relationships