One way companies can increase profits is by lowering their cost of doing business. Reducing the cost of goods and services purchased is one approach, streamlining internal processes to benefit from greater efficiencies is another. I’m going to dive into the latter as it relates to growth activities in the federal sector.

The steps involved in finding and winning federal contracts and subcontracts are processes that, over time, can be refined to maximize results and reduce the time and money spent conducting business development lifecycle activities.  A key benefit of having established processes includes an evidence-driven ability to limit or avoid distractions. Additionally, having established processes and limiting distractions contributes to increased bandwidth.

In this blog series, I’ll discuss four specific distractions that novice, established, small and large companies fall victim to regularly. In addition to these distractions being demoralizing and expensive, each of them is unnecessary.

Here’s the third distraction you should work to avoid.

The thing about business opportunities is that there are lots of them. There are fewer viable opportunities, when compared to total opportunities, but the viable one’s are what matters. TREMENDOUS time and money are wasted on leads and opportunities that made it onto a company’s radar, when it shouldn’t have. Why not? Because your time is valuable and shouldn’t be wasted on an agency requirement not aligned to your company’s mission and strategy. There’s that strategy word again.

By allowing misaligned and unqualified leads into your pipeline, you commit to spending time and money on something that will NEVER amount to anything worthwhile. Additionally, you permitted your team to be distracted from REAL leads and opportunities aligned to your company goals.

Pipeline discipline, no matter what iteration of a pipeline your company uses, is exceptionally important. Establishing rules for how something enters, moves about and exits your pipeline is core to ensuring “shiny objects” do not distract you from reaching your goals. Bid Rate, the total number of items allowed into your pipeline that resulted in a bid response, is a great tool for determining what types of future opportunities should or should not be welcomed into your pipeline.

Government Contracting is not hard, but it does require commitment, context, and discipline. The commitment starts with you, and our Ethical Stalking for Government Contractors® programs have been establishing and improving the context and disciplines of successful Growth Professionals for more than a decade.

We help people win.

Peace, Health and Success,

Go-To-Guy Timberlake