As you target, does your customer know where you are headed?
While I was flying out to speak at a conference in California, I was reading an article in Inc magazine about the value of “growth” to everyone in and around a company. The owners want it because it creates a stronger company. The employees want it because it creates more opportunity. The investors want it because, well, that’s why they invested. And, so the article implied, your customers want it because they want you to get better and better at serving them as you grow.
Growth is the goal, or so the article opined.
However, is it the only goal?
As we grow, do we know where we are headed?
Growth for the sake of growth can be a hollow win. Without a targeted plan, a company can become so splintered that instead of the business being a tall, solid, and strong tree with a great foundation, we risk having a thin trunk that cannot support the weight of the ever-growing branches. Our people, our mission, our branding, and our communication, become thin and splintered.
I know because Skyway went through this process back in 2012. As a start up, we were in search of an effective and feasible consulting model. We hadn’t grounded our mission. We hadn’t grounded our culture in an overall strategy. We were not targeting (or at least not targeting enough).
Now flip this concept to the government market. As a contractor, imagine how you look to the team of Contracting Officers, program managers, and users when your answer to the question “what do you do?” is essentially, “what do you need us to do?” (Yes, I heard this more than once).
This is an extreme example, but you get the idea. Without a clear vision of where you are growing to, you risk ending up looking like a “jobber” (Where Have all the Jobbers Gone?).
While jobbers are not inherently bad (that’s what our handyman is), they are a very weak approach to the government market. When I got proposals from jobbers, the only differentiator was price. Even with a socio-economic head start like being a WOSB, SDVOSB, HUBZone, or even having an 8(a) certification, I still shopped among jobbers on PRICE.
By knowing (and explaining) where you are headed, the folks you are targeting will share opportunities sooner and you will deliver more effectively for those customers. This leads to your being aware of more prime and subcontract opportunities so you can invest in tools, resources and efficiencies to be able to perform less expensively and at higher margins as you get deeper into your target market.
By targeting those opportunities you are best suited to win AND perform, the higher your win rate tends to be, the better your relations with your Government customer tend to be, and the more valuable your business is overall.
Staying focused (especially in the Government market where opportunity is abundant) is not a one and done exercise. It’s a constant and consistent effort to evaluate, learn and manage.
Focus and targeting helps, a lot.