Welcome to Advantage Consulting

If you need help designing and executing your capture program or proposals to win this procurement contact Sid Jaffe, at 703-642-5153.

Brown Bag Session 11: The Give-To-Get Paradigm
by Sid Jaffe, President, Advantage Consulting, Inc.

Confucius once said, "If you give someone a pearl often a diamond will be returned." We call that the Give-to-Get Paradigm. Over the years we have seen, and benefited from, countless diamonds that resulted from having earlier provided "pearls" to contacts.

Your staff should focus on the range of things that they can bring to their clients and contacts that is of value to the contact. This goes beyond the products and services delivered. Consider the manner in which a relationship is established, the friendship with a client, the support you can give them, the counsel, advice and sometimes just being a good listener. A referral to a contact, a reference or a suggestion that helps them and their business are strong "Gives."

The Give-to-Get Paradigm is not an expectation of an overnight repayment of a courtesy but a lifelong manner in which you conduct business. Have your team discuss the "Give-to-Get" opportunities that you have as an organization.

For more information on BD training for your managers and technical staff contact Sid Jaffe, sjaffe@acibiz.com at 703-642-5153.

Exploration, A Need for Leadership
by Bill Hamilton, Vice President, Advantage Consulting, Inc.

A short time ago, we discussed the Customer Service Team, a team comprised of experienced people who know a booked client and the client's employees.

The Customer Service Team has a counterpart, the Exploratory Team, a similar interested team tasked to build a relationship in an agency where you do not currently have business. Led by an agency-knowledgeable person in the company, the purpose of the Exploratory Team is to explore and develop new territory for business opportunities. These teams each "own" the prospective client and manage all business development efforts in their agency.

An exploratory team is established when a company identifies a target agency or organization to "explore." The team is not large, usually between four to eight people. It may be managed by a line manager, but the business developer normally plays a major role in this team. The business developer probably has the initial personal contacts in the agency and will bring in subject matter experts to get to know counterparts in the agency as soon as possible.

As is the case with the Customer Service Team, the Exploratory Team owns the organization from a business development point of view. This team is tasked to develop and implement a "New Organization" Business Plan. This plan is a living document that will structure collection and evaluation of information in order to determine the agency's mission, goals and objectives and identify key decision makers and their priorities.

Members of the team use their contacts and relationships to build or enhance their "business friendships." As team members get to know their counterparts better, they will learn more about the agency, its problems and its dreams. By continuing to demonstrate that interest they will become identified as a friend of the agency and a member of the agency family. It is from this relationship that business opportunities will ultimately be developed.

The Exploratory Team effort is a long one. It can take a year or more to get a team up to speed but it will be time well spent in developing a new business area for a company. An Exploratory Team should not be established casually. It is a long-term commitment to build business in a new target area and should be treated as the major thrust that it is. The ultimate goal of any exploratory team is to become a Customer Service Team -- to continue the close working relationship. The agency and the company will both benefit.

Want to discuss business development teams or just talk about better business development. Call me at 703-642-5153 or send an e-mail to bhamilton@acibiz.com and let's talk.

So You Have A Skeleton In Your Closet
by J.P. Richard, Vice President, Advantage Consulting, Inc.

Sometimes we may sense that we have a weak response to a certain part of the proposal. It may be a lack of expertise in a particular area or some less-than-stellar past performance on a project with that agency. Don't try to hide that weakness or lie about it hoping the evaluators won't notice. Rather, analyze why you have that discrepancy, decide on some remedial action, and tell the agency what you will do to correct that deficiency and why that will work.

I have seen Section L's where they ask you to describe a project you did not do well on and show the evaluators what action you took to remedy the situation. Government evaluators are real people who know things go wrong. The tendency may be to sweep problems under the rug, but good performers use it to demonstrate how performance will improve the next time around.

To learn more about how to write better proposals, sign up for ACI's Basic Federal Proposal Management and Proposal Writing Workshops scheduled for August 18-19, 2010 or e-mail J.P. Richard at jprichard@acibiz.com.

These insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words, not to mention waving middle fingers.