One of our team members (Shelley Hall) has a great saying she uses when helping our clients understand the complexity of the government market:
“You don’t know what you don’t know.”
This simple phrase is a great analogy for many companies in the government market. I love the clarity of this because it applies to so many parts of the government acquisition process. It’s actually one of the reasons I started the Contracting Officer Podcast. We wanted to help people understand the inherent uniqueness of the government market so they could start seeing things from a CO’s perspective. That way they could start to know which questions to ask in a particular situation.
In a market full of complexity and variables, it’s easy to get lost. This is even more true when we stack on the fact that there is a sea of information and advice swirling around our heads each day. If we’re not careful, we end up being suckers for irrelevancy. We are drowning in information but starving for insight.
How then do we keep our heads above water? By seeking clarity in smaller doses instead of trying to track and digest everything. In the government market, no matter how small your niche is, there is plenty of opportunity for you. So, rather than trying to learn more than you have to, focus on only learning what you NEED to learn. Next time you see a post (including mine of course), ask yourself, ‘do I need to learn this?” If you want to learn it, that’s fine, but at least it will be based on a conscious decision to invest the time in the content.
The bottom line is that you won’t know what questions to ask until you start to focus. By focus, I mean be “one inch wide and one mile deep” – not “one mile wide and one inch deep.” For example, I’m one inch wide and (at least) one mile deep when it comes to the pre-award contract process, from requirement through market research, through RFIs and RFPs, through win strategies, and navigating the source selection process.
However, want to know where I’m one inch deep? Ask me if I know how to manage a Government Purchase Card program. Or ask me to develop a weighted overhead escalation rate using Service Contract Act-approved rates for a GSA contract.
You guessed. I have no idea. And get this. I’m not going to learn.
We have partners and Skyway team members for that (Jenny Clark and Shelley Hall specifically). They are one mile deep in these areas. Me, I just know to call them for help. That’s the why we have such a great team.