Not All Government Customers Are Created Equal
January 4, 2019 | Business Development, Government
Photo by dpbirds on Flickr When I first started doing business with the Federal government, I assumed they were one customer. Since they all followed the same rules, why wouldn't the process of winning business be the same, right? However, after I participated in some procurements, I found this not to be the case. Even each agency has different customers within their organization. In my experience, they are not all equal in the sense of being a good fit for the goods/services we were selling or our company's vision. I have listed below some experiences that showed me we were not a good…


MYTH: Doing business with the government does not rely on relationships and does not require any marketing. All that is required finding opportunities on web sites and responding with quotes/proposals.
FACT: Having great relationships with government end users can provide more opportunities beyond RFQs/RFPs posted to government web sites. Some opportunities do not even require the government put it out for a competitive bid process so knowing someone could present more chances to do business. Furthermore, relationships also help build positive past performance history which is critical to winning future opportunities.