Experience knows. And as Jim McCarthy proved during this week's GovWin Business Development (BD) Weekly Webinar called "10 Keys to Successful Capture: Unlocking the Tactical Sales Secrets," he knows a great deal about what your sales and capture teams are doing wrong.

As AOC Key Solutions' Principal Owner and Technical Director, McCarthy has a front-row seat into what government clients are looking for and government contractors are proposing. He finds that the conversation tends to be one-sided with companies often boasting about their size, strength and past performance -- thinking that marketing the company is the right way to sell a solution. Often, it's not.

McCarthy delivered a simple and powerful message that every contractor should recite before attempting to fight for its next contract, "You don't win. They award." Rather than merely rest on this statement, McCarthy backed up his message with 10 key points that will positively alter how your team views contracts, expectations and, most of all, a customer-centric view of your company's performance when serving the needs of the client.

View the full archived presentation and download the presentation slides [PDF].

10 Keys to Successful Capture: Unlocking Tactical Sales

10. Be Out in front. Ensure that your team is tracking new and emerging opportunities in the space and narrow your target range to coincide with your capabilities. Once potential opportunities are identified, use your screening process to assess, mine and define those opportunities for a bid/no-bid decision. Reach out to all your contacts early and get face time before the opportunity arrives. And always plan before the request for proposal (RFP) drops, rather than plan after a surprise RFP drops on your desk.
9. Employ two ears, but only one mouth. As McCarthy sees it, there's a reason for having more ears than mouths. Sales executives and BD capture folks shouldn't run a meeting by showing off how smart they are, but should instead let "the customer show how smart he or she is to you and listen."
8. Be in for the long haul. McCarthy says that companies need to assume that they're not in this for a single shot and need to "expect to lose more than win." While planning to be both tenacious and resilient in getting the contract, companies need to have access to the necessary capital to take on the work, as well as plan for the amount of bids it plans to do within a year.
7. Let not your reach exceed your grasp. Knowing the limitations of your company is a good thing and one that can be remedied with teaming agreements. For small or medium businesses, teaming expands your capabilities and bandwidth, while also helping to increase your overall proposal win. Don't feel that teaming could help your company? Think about this, "20 percent of the piece of the action of a win is better than 100 percent of losing."
6. Exercise market focus and discipline. "Use a laser, not a shotgun," McCarthy advises. Teams that put their skin in the game also know what they should win. So teams should create a plan to target their segment, track a manageable amount of opportunities in that segment and resist the urge to chase last-minute RFPs.
5. Know your place. Despite your skills, "customers still prefer servants and not partners." Even in light of all the various sorts of partnering agreements that happen, there's a true difference between the customer and the provider. "Customers really want companies that serve their interests and who are good stewards." With that stewardship role, McCarthy defines the contractor's goal to "provide advice, options and recommendations, but not direction."
4. It's not what you are selling, it's what they are buying. "Your company doesn't capture; the government awards." The point here is simple, your company might have the greatest products in the world, but if the government doesn't need your product, they're not going to buy it. McCarthy's suggestion is to "isolate on a challenge that the customer has, craft a solution that has a value proposition, execute a call plan to get in front of the customer and when you do meet with the customer, make sure the program manager has enough face time with the customer."
3. There is a difference. "Be a capture leader, not just a capture manager. Managers we have, leaders are in short supply." Essentially, leaders wear many hats. First, they should insist on teamwork and collaboration. Then, they need to have the courage to not only pursue the right opportunities with the time is right, but also turn down opportunities that don't fit your company's profile.
2. Your prime directive - Realize it's not about you. It's about the customer. Rather than focus on your company, its products or yourself, contractors need to always remember that keeping a customer-centric view is the way to fulfill their needs. Once they're customers, you'll need to not only focus on completing tasks, but trying to exceed those goals. Throwing in a few freebies never hurts either.
1. Be Customer-Focused. Find the needs of the customer and then meet them. By meeting those needs, contractors will see profit. Companies that focus on maximizing their profit will do so at the risk of losing sight of the customer's needs.

Questions

See attendee questions from the session below and responses to other posted questions in the discussion forum.

The next event in the GovCon BD Weekly series features Gloria Larkin of TargetGov on Tuesday, Nov. 8, at 2 p.m. EDT. Register now.

Micheal Mullen is a senior editor for GovWin.com. You can reach him at michealmullen@govwin.com, or follow him via Twitter @idiottech.