In This Chapter

At this point, you’ve at least tentatively decided to make a bid on an opportunity. From the discussion in Chapter 7, you know more about the customer you’ve targeted—or at least know how to learn more. You also know something about the competitors going after the same customer or already doing work for that customer. So now it’s time to move ahead and conduct the final analysis of a specific opportunity before you begin spending real money on it. The steps you take to do this analysis will not only help you build a strong case for a winning bid but also help you make the decision to bid or not bid in the first place.

So you’ve identified a customer who is a good prospect for your company. This customer usually buys products your company either already produces or could produce if you were to make relatively minor changes to your existing products. But nothing can happen until you identify a promising specific opportunity, one you know is going to be released soon and one you believe you can offer a good product for, at a competitive price. So let’s look at the criteria for homing in on a contract you can win.

The Commerce Business Daily (CBD) was a daily multi-page publication that served the government business development community well for many years until it folded in January 2002. The CBD contained many detailed announcements about the planned release of solicitations, the actual release of solicitations, notices of awards, and other notices of interest to those in the federal marketplace. But gradually, agencies began to use various new methods of solicitation publication, mostly featuring electronic means. The initial use of electronic ways of announcing opportunities resulted in a proliferation of electronic bulletin boards. These decentralized boards made finding opportunities difficult for the general public. Which ones were relevant to which opportunities? The variety contributed to confusion and spotty results. By the time the CBD ceased publication, it had lost all relevance, so the CBD joined Braniff Airlines, Montgomery Ward, and nickel phone calls in our book of golden memories. Today all solicitations are posted on the Internet, and the Federal Business Opportunities web site (www.FedBizOpps.gov) releases government notices.

So whether it was the former CBD notice or today’s electronic posting on the Internet, the point remains the same: the posting is not the beginning of the competition; it’s the beginning of the end of the competition. That’s important because if this release of the solicitation is a surprise, that’s a strong red flag that you don’t have a reasonable chance to win.

Responding to solicitations when your first knowledge of the opportunity is a posting on Input, Federal Sources, or FedBizOpps is probably responding too late. If you don’t know anything about a solicitation until it is formally announced and posted, then you might fail to understand the true essence of the solicitation. You are likely to respond to the solicitation, not the procurement. Responding to the solicitation means you know nothing about the underlying reasons for why the solicitation is the way it is. Responding to the procurement means you know such important things as the customer hot buttons (for example, how has this customer been disappointed recently in results from other contracts and contractors and who is really in charge of the evaluation team?).

Government needs begin with agency budget requests as described in Chapter 5. For major contracts, the budget requests and the trail through the various budget reviews, through the Congress, and into law, leave a (mostly public) trail of actions. These can all be part of your understanding of the procurement. In contrast, the solicitation is only a small window into what the government wants to buy; it doesn’t give the entire story. The solicitation is like a porthole on a ship while the procurement is like a picture window that offers a more expansive view.

Responding without prior knowledge of the procurement means that your company has no influence on the details of how the government will conduct the selection of the winner, and therefore you have no chance of influencing the process to favor your approach. Also, if your company is looking to be a subcontractor rather than the prime, you have a greatly reduced chance of getting on a winning team because only the less-desirable relationships may be available. And, finally, your company has probably not properly planned for a winning proposal effort, either in terms of funds or the commitment of the important internal and external personnel.

The solicitation will tell you nothing about what is called the precipitating event. The precipitating event is the reason the government is procuring this product or service at this time and in this way. Sometimes the precipitating event is simply the expiration of existing contracts, such as when a five-year support contract is about to enter its fifth year, the government must put the job out for recompetition. Or it can be a need that a government agency has for a new or better product or service to meet an old or new need at a better price. Through a prior relationship with the customer or by having taken time to do your research on the customer, you can build the better case for why you are the best choice to meet the customer’s needs.

The precipitating event for an opportunity might be like that of a competition I led for a complete, integrated set of encrypted radios for the United States Air Force (USAF). The precipitating event was a training exercise involving deployment of large numbers of USAF units to Western Europe. The encrypted radios would not “talk” to each other. The handhelds, mobile units, and base stations did not operate across the unit boundaries.

It turned out that three different systems had been approved for use, and each base commander could choose from among these approved technologies to satisfy his local needs. As long as the users were on that base or communicating with others using that technology, things went well. But when challenged to communicate in a near-real circumstance, the results were disastrous. As a real-time work-around, some troops were using their AT&T calling cards to reach other units! This was a highly inappropriate use of nonsecure commercial networks to pass what should have been highly classified communications.

So the USAF sent out a high-priority requirement for a single system to replace the three existing, incompatible ones. Potential bidders for those radios looking only at the specifications in the solicitation without knowledge of the history of why the government wished to procure the system of encrypted radios at this time failed to understand the total circumstances, failed to understand the procurement, and didn’t win the contract.

If a competitor is now providing this product or service under an existing contract, then the first things you need to know are the details of that current contract and the corresponding winning proposal. Thankfully, for government contracts (this is not true in the commercial world), you have the advantage of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) of 1966 as amended through 2007.

This act, now over 40 years old, has gone through many changes and interpretations. Most of the changes (both amendments to the act and case law) have resulted in an increase in the public’s access to public documents. Early in the act’s implementation, many agencies actively resisted granting almost any requests for information, citing various reasons that included national security, personal privacy, the cost to the agencies of compliance, and sensitivity of ongoing activities. In fact, some resisted entirely and gave up almost nothing. Thankfully for you as a challenger, much of the information you would like about most existing contracts and winning proposals should be available and forthcoming. That said, the time lag between your request for information and actual receipt is sometimes frustratingly long, so try to submit your request well in advance of your need.

You can also use FOIA to get many other types of information, including other solicitations and winning proposals. Here’s what you might get, and why it’s helpful to you:

The point is to take full advantage of FOIA by getting creative and resourceful, accessing any and all information that could enhance your chances of winning.

As described in Chapter 5, meeting with your customer is an essential step in achieving your goal: a contract. People buy from people, and people buy more from people they know. Familiarity yields many benefits, providing you achieve that familiarity in the right way.

A surprise solicitation is one that appears as a final solicitation without your foreknowledge. If this solicitation is for a product your company could have supplied and your company didn’t know about it before the solicitation arrived full blown in your “in basket,” that’s particularly bad. Its appearance could well cause you to find out how this happened. And you must then take steps to prevent this happening again.

Why not bid surprise solicitations? There are many reasons. Here are three big ones:

Preparatory to the Bid Decision Point #2 is a short, to the point, staff paper called ”Proposal Drivers” and is attachment 04 of the proposal plan. This template has four parts, each a question that requires an answer. These questions are so simple they seem deceptive, but you should be able to satisfactorily answer each of these four before reaching a “bid” decision.

The four questions are:

This list is an overview of the four parts of the Proposal Drivers staff paper, and the next section gives a description of what each part is about and how it fits into the total picture of the opportunity.

Now let’s assume you’re satisfied with your answers to these four questions and go forward with a “bid” decision. Very likely, at least one of your four answers will change as you get smarter about the details of the opportunity. Therefore, best practice dictates that you and your staff revisit these proposal drivers at least twice a month, to verify that these are still the best answers or to change or correct the answers.

This is dependent, of course, on how much time you have before the response to the solicitation is due.

Let’s take a look at each of the four questions in the proposal drivers:

There’s a myth abroad that your organization chart has one, and only one, version, which covers the entire program life from start-up to phase-down. This myth is just that—a myth. Many, if not most, programs should have actual differences between the first few days and weeks of a program (start-up) and a steady state (usual). The best presentation of your organization recognizes at least that difference. Particularly on a cost-type contract where the customer is paying all your costs, you should show a ramp-up from perhaps a small core of individuals. Then you add people at an appropriate pace, building to the steady-state organization. This demonstrates to the evaluators your cost-consciousness, a real benefit to the customer.

The results of a review of the 02 Proposal Drivers is an important element in the Bid Decision Point #2.

You and your team are deep into consideration of a specific opportunity. As with the other bid decision points, the proposal team reviews the then-current state of the procurement. You should now have more and better information than you had at Decision Point #1.

This Bid Decision Point #2 is very similar to Decision Point #1 (see Chapter 4). Your goal should be to either re-verify that you have an excellent chance to get this contract or that you now realize circumstances have changed, or at least your understanding of them, and therefore you do not have an excellent chance to win and should seriously consider dropping out of the competition.

The Least You Need to Know