Business Development in Government Contracting
Saturday, July 6, 2019
Overview
On June 19th, The Pulse of GovCon and Eastern Foundry teamed up to facilitate an open and honest discussion on what it takes to be successful in not only hiring a Business Development professional, but also in performing business development functions in this highly competitive environment.
In our mission to break the conventional rules of typical the GovCon meet-and-greet, The Shred event served as an interactive training workshop where participants collaborated to create and generate actionable and focused BD metrics, plans, and analysis that uniquely support their organization’s challenges.
Methodology
To facilitate and evaluate the workshop, The Shred utilized two (2) main tools: Slack and a short “Overall Feedback Form”. Slack allowed participants to interact and share their responses/feedback to the prompts in real-time during the event. The Slack channel was reviewed and shared in real-time to all in-person participants. The “Overall Feedback Form” was used to obtain feedback on the overall content, methodology, and arrangements of the workshop.
Attendance Demographics
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Over 23% reported the title “Director”, 18% “Vice President”, and 15% “Manager”
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Over 31% reported socio-economic statues of Small Businesses, 15% 8a Businesses, 15% Large Businesses, and 15% SDVOSB Businesses
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Over 56% reported that their primary service offering was IT, 22% in Professional Services, 10% in R&D, 7% in Travel and Logistics, and 5% in Human Capital Management
Workshop Prompts
The Shred presented five (5) prompts which were meant to engage real discussion among the group.
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The first prompt was “What does BD mean to your company?” The Shred asked participants to describe their company’s ultimate BD person’s function and role in exactly five (5) words.
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The second prompt was “Where is the talet?” The Shred asked participants to share one (1) resource that their company has either used or deployed to successfully identify BD talent.
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The third prompt was “How do you facilitate a productive culture and environment for your BD professionals?” The Shred asked participants to identify three (3) elements that a GovCon organization needs to provide their BD professionals to set them up for success.
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The fourth prompt was a fun game of “Would you rather?” – GovCon BD Style! The Shred asked participants to pick one (1): Experience vs. Government relationships; Ability to Cold Call vs. Network at Events; Skilled at Identifying a lot of Opportunities vs. Skilled at Digging Deep into One Opportunity.
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The last prompt focused on timelines and expectations. The Shred asked participants to develop three (3) quantitative performance requirements for a BD person in their organization with the timelines to meet them.
Findings
Overall, the participants of the event found the workshop to be stimulating, interactive, and helpful. To assist in summarizing the input captured, The Shred has developed an info-graphic to display what day-to-day GovCon industry leaders believe it takes to successfully hire and to perform as a BD professional in today’s GovCon world. Take a look below and we’d love to hear your thoughts on slack!
There’s too much self-serving noise in Government Contracting.
GovCon is ever-fearful that their honest thoughts and opinions will cost them revenue & relationships. That’s where we come in. The Pulse of GovCon + Eastern Foundry has teamed up to give blunt analysis on the federal market, customers & what it takes to be successful. We’re going to shred more than an RFP – we’re here to tear GovCon a new one!
Actions speak louder than words, so let’s do more than scream into the void. We invite you to come together and learn from shared experiences with your friends, colleagues, competimates, and frenemies.
