Hi! My name is Guy, and I like Old-Fashioned’s (bourbon and mezcal) and science-fiction (Star Wars, Star Trek, UFO, Space: 1999, etc.). I’m into Orange Theory Fitness, and my friends think I’m pretty smart.

The previous paragraph is my take on the chorus from the Escape Song by Rupert Holmes. You know, the one that goes like this:

If you like piña coladas

And gettin’ caught in the rain

If you’re not into yoga

If you have half a brain…

The thing is, if I were to introduce myself this way in a business setting, I’d likely get the ‘Mr. Spock raised eyebrow’ from some folks. More importantly, it would not be the best way of introducing my company’s expertise or its experience. But this is often the kind of first impression delivered by many small business concerns in Federal Contracting. These are introductions that begin with a data dump of information providing few, if any, useful insights into what the company can do, has done, or is doing. By leading with a deluge of small business designations, company’s present themselves as believing there is more value in their small business status than in their skills, knowledge, and achievements. Think about it.

Here’s what gets my goat. A lot us know better. I talk to lots of accomplished professionals and leaders who were:

• Customers, End-Users and Requirements Owners at a federal agency;

• Full Time Equivalent (FTE) billable resources for a large or small business, at a federal agency, or;

• Acquisition (vs Procurement) Professionals at a federal agency

who stand ready to present themselves in the same fashion, until I ask them an important question. What is it?

How often, during the course of your time in that role, did small business status enter into conversations with your peers and organizational leaders?

Just so you know, I am batting a thousand with this question because the answer I ALWAYS receive is “NEVER.” By the way, swapping out ‘small business status’ for NAICS Codes gets the exact same result when asking professionals with these backgrounds.

Here’s the trick. This is relevant, especially when your conversations are happening with Customers versus Buyers. To do this you need to have implemented a proactive versus a reactive approach to identifying, pursuing, and winning contracts with federal agencies. It doesn’t matter if the awards you receive are:

• purchase orders

• definitive contracts

• single-award contract vehicles, or

• multiple-award contract vehicles

If you’re strategy is based on sitting back and waiting to see what gets thrown over the fence, there’s a good chance you will be at the mercy of companies who established traction before requisitions were sent to Contracting. There’s also a good chance some of those proactive companies will be graduates of our Ethical Stalking for Government Contractors Bootcamp.

There’s quite a few of them out there. I’m just saying.

Peace,

Go-To-Guy Timberlake

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