Building Government Contacts and Bidding on Government Contracts

7 Steps to Finding the Right People to Talk to when Bidding on Government Contracts

It’s the same whether you’re looking for a personal career change or looking to bid on government contracts: getting the upper edge involves talking to the right people. In fact, finding the right government contacts is key to establishing, gaining and retaining government business. But bidding on government contracts takes a lot of work, and finding out whom to contact regarding your services can be a time-consuming process if you don’t know where to start.

Before you even start bidding on government contracts, you will need to start networking; it may not be enough to know the buyer. Think about it: who else do you know in the procurement arena? The more contacts you know, the better your government marketplace reach.

Bid on Government Contracts - Networking Tips

The following contact-building government marketing tips will help you before you bid on government contracts:

1) Identify the contacts within the agency that you might not have considered. For example, if you sell safety equipment, you may want to contact safety officials or government decision makers associated with the agency.

2) Get the contact information for each personnel member, decision maker and buyer involved at the agencies you’re looking to bid on government contracts for.

3) Be up front and ask if the agency has an idea if they are budgeting for the services you offer. Ask questions that will help you figure out if they are a prospect. If the agency says that they won’t be considering your services in the future, at least you can take them out of the sales pipeline and use your time more wisely to bid on government contracts for agencies that are.

4) Try to do some social networking to find out who your contacts are, so you can develop warm calls. By investigating agency personnel, you can transform a name on a computer screen to a person with employment history, association memberships, education background, and other facts, allowing you to establish a quicker, strategic business rapport with prospective clients. It provides a rounded historical perspective of an agency’s personnel, highlighting its past and present staff members.

5) Always try to discover common threads between you and the government contact. For example, perhaps you went to the same university as one of the personnel, or worked at the same place of business. You can use these small commonalities to build relationships and influence future contract decisions.

6) Establish ongoing marketing campaigns throughout the year. Don’t wait until a bid comes out to start your phone calls, marketing research or direct mail campaigns to the agency. You’ll have too much to do actually bidding on the government contract. It’s better to be proactive and start promoting your services earlier, so you can have the time you need to build the government relationship before you bid on government contracts.

7) Follow up on the marketing campaigns, whether you get a response or not. It’s good to let the government contacts know about your services and your eagerness to establish a relationship.

Leave a Comment

Name

E-mail

URI

Related Posts

• Government Contracting Locally