Let me start with this.

While there are many challenges impeding Industry success in federal contracting, the most pervasive is not understanding tactics, terminology, and resources crucial to finding and winning work.

I’ve shared this sentiment publicly for nearly two decades because I honestly believe it speaks of a leading contributor to missed opportunities, and goals.

By no means is a lack of understanding exclusive to the people and companies pursuing contracts and subcontracts, this is something that exists in Government, too. I see it happening across a range of functions in government, and with many of the executives and professionals in Industry providing services to contractors and subcontractors. Incomplete and misunderstood information is obtained and passed on to others resulting in greater confusion and increased business costs. For both sides, the outcomes are often the opposite of the win-win most are hoping to achieve.

Too often, we consume and apply knowledge and tactics prescribed by others and don’t take steps to determine if the results will be helpful, or harmful. The phrase “trust but verify” is tossed around like a play toy in our industry, but it really does represent a viable philosophy for protecting the investments of time and money made by novice and experienced federal contractors. I delve into this in articles like Rant Gone Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, where a federal agency IT leader shared his meltdown in a series of industry-demeaning articles and posts on social media. His rants are filled with what appear to be factual statements founded in policy, only to be thoroughly contradicted by me and others from Government and Industry, using the current policies of the IT leader’s agency, and contracting data from federal government sources.

Another piece I wrote earlier this year is Trust But Verify Your Market Intelligence. It looks at one of the many companies claiming federal opportunity intelligence as their offering to vendors. In this case, the company published their user manuals online to describe the basis of how they compiled information, and from where it came. What attracted my interest is the fact they blended and omitted data spelled out in the data dictionary from a key source of the information they used, effectively changing the meaning of the data. Transactions appearing one way in the publicly-accessible source system, appear differently in their subscription-based system, and limit the ability for its users to make well informed decisions. When developers and creators use transactional data without understanding the types of contract instruments, and the differences between:

• Awards and Indefinite Delivery Vehicles

• Orders and modifications

• Multiple-award and single-award

• Contract vehicles and standalone contracts, and more

It makes for very interesting and incorrect results presented in these third-party systems. It also slows the process of getting to additional useful information to enrich already acquired intelligence. Trust but verify.

While the rant of the federal IT leader was intentional and mean-spirited, I believe that to be an exception rather than the norm. Unfortunately, the norm seems based largely on the easy button versus an approach where rigor is applied to validate the accuracy, relevance, and timeliness of information used to make important decisions.

The road to success in federal contracting is fraught with plenty of organic obstacles. Instead of increasing impediments and limiting progress through the use of bad information and ill-informed processes, let’s invest in education and training that matters.

It’s why we developed Ethical Stalking for Government Contractors® in 2009, and it’s why novice and experienced executives and professionals in our industry continue to see our Bootcamp as a means of righting their trajectories in Federal Contracting. 

Peace, Health, and Success,

Go-To-Guy Timberlake

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