By Peter Adler
Seneca Creek Consulting

Selling to the government is a difficult task for those companies new to the federal market. This is particularly true for a company with no federal experience or contacts. Many companies and salespersons, in their first attempts to develop federal business do not fully understand the need for, and the sources of, high-quality market research.

Several sources are readily available to the new, as well as the experienced, federal sales and marketing organizations. Prominent among these are FedBizOpps, Carroll Publishing, Set-Aside Alert, e-pipeline, Federal Sources and Input. Do not ignore these valuable and omnipresent resources.

The very first question to ask is: “Who buys what?” Without the use of resources such as those mentioned in this piece, beyond one’s own tenacity, the answer is long and hard in coming, if at all. We start by searching all of the above-mentioned resources for those opportunities that are within our NAICS or SIC codes, where the place of performance is within our reach, and security clearance requirements are within our purview, along with other criteria you elect to use.

Once we have identified government programs, along with forecast solicitations, we start calling on all parties potentially involved in the acquisition process either as a buyer or another contractor. The names and contact information for these personnel are commonly listed in the pre-solicitation notices in FedBizOpps, along with most of the government market research data stores.

We seek out Government Program Management that is ultimately the end-user of our products or solutions. Alternatively, we may choose to meet with established system integrators who have, or are likely to have, involvement in the targeted procurement.

Given the myriad sources of valuable information and the means to access it rapidly via the Internet, this intelligence-gathering phase is an absolutely essential first step in approaching the government markets. Without using these tools, an enterprise is simply playing an expensive version of “pin the tail on the donkey” in approaching the huge and disparate government markets.

Peter can be reached at padler@SenecaCreekConsulting.com.