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[A letter from OCI to a
customer]
Bill,
I wanted to share some comments regarding winning government
contracts that I hope will be helpful in your quest to break in to USPS work. It
is received wisdom in our business that the proposal is only the end stage in a
marketing plan that has transpired long before the RFP was ever released.
Usually, the companies that win a significant number of federal
contracts will work on capturing a program starting 12 - 18 months prior to
release of the RFP. The up-front work they do focuses on getting to know and
winning the confidence of key people who will influence the selection of the
contractor.Typically the key people include the technical / managerialoperations
personnel; and the contracting personnel. Vendors find that, when they get to
know the key people inadvance of the RFP release, they can accomplish two
things:
(1) win the confidence of the decision makers; and
(2) influence the writing of the SOW / terms that will be in
the contract solicitation.
They influence the formulation of the contract specs through
things such as:conferring verbally and submitting literature that educates them
about the technical problems they are facing and, at the same time, bends their
thinking toward your solution.If you can focus on a program forthcoming 9 - 15
months from now, that will hopefully give you the time to do the up-front work
that puts you in a position where a good proposal can win the program.
I think that, even with your very good reputation in the
industry, they will probably not be comfortable in selecting you until this type
of "mating dance" is completed. Much of this you will need to do yourself.
However, if we could assist in any way with program / product / market research,
please let me know. We have in our database a number of personnel with USPS
connectivity, including the gentleman you met, some personnel retired from the
engineering group, and at least one high level consultant currently serving
them.
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OCI provides best-in-industry value proposal service. For more
information, visit us at http://www.orgcom.com or call 1-703-689-9600.
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