I love what I do. I get to talk to interesting people and describe to them how the government market is different. I often get questions from people asking whether or not it really is different from the commercial market. Spoiler alert: in some cases, it is not very different, but in many cases it is very different.
The trick is to be able to tell the difference…
For example, I received an email from a connection on LinkedIn about this very issue.
“Kevin, I had an interesting conversation with an Executive and National Sales Leader last night about building our company’s Federal capability. How would you respond to someone who adamantly believes and states that selling to the Federal government does not require a unique strategy or approach…that Federal is no different than commercial and that I focus too much on the contracting piece?”
What a great (and brutally direct) question. I like the clarity of it. I used to get this one a lot as a CO. Back when I was a CO, I didn’t have a great deal of content to back up my answer. Now we do, even though my answer has not changed. I just like being able to show and tell people how different it is now.
Here is the answer I posted for him.
First, it depends on what you are selling. In some situations (micro purchases under $3,500 with a government credit card for example), your Executive is right. He/she is even somewhat correct in Simplified Acquisition Procedure purchases (under FAR Part 13 or see the FAR 13.5 for Commercial Items webinar).
However, for FAR Part 8, 12, 14 and 15 acquisitions, there is a lot of risk in making this assumption. To show what I mean, I’d hand them a free copy of my book (note: members can get a copy in the Resource Library). Then I’d suggest they listen to a few episodes of the Contracting Officer Podcast (the notes from the podcast episodes are in the Community here). The best ones to help understand how the market is different are Episode 002: The 80/20 Rule, Episode 003: The Acquisition Time Zones ™ and Episode 084: the Execution Time Zones ™.
If, after they listen to those and they still don’t see the marked differences, then I’d ask to set up a phone call to hear what they see that I don’t. As for it being a true vs false statement, I still have to give the standard Contracting Officer answer: “it depends”.
He loved my answer…so I thought I’d share it with you all. To get even more clarity on this issue, check out the “Three Deciders” video I’ve since made about the sales process in particular.
NOTE: If you want to leave a reply to this post, use the comment box below. If you have additional questions/comments on this topic, please post them in the Ask a CO Forum.