An axiom of entrepreneurship is, “it’s not idea creation that gets in our way, it’s idea selection.” We tend to have more ideas than we have resources to execute those ideas.
This applies in GovCon too. Whether the limit is time, resources, energy, people, or some combination of all…we HAVE to focus, sequence, organize, order, target, etc. We have to choose between options.
Both sides of GovCon face this challenge:
- Contractors must choose which opportunities to pursue within a sea of options in SAM.gov and other sources.
- Government teams must choose an acquisition strategy within a sea of options in the FAR and other regulations.
Once we’ve selected our target, the next factor is our weight class. Is this target within our weight class? The two major factors that drive weight class are value and complexity – as in, the value and complexity of the requirement, acquisition strategy, opportunity, proposal, evaluation process, and so on. To thrive in GovCon, it’s important to know what our weight class is…and when to stay within it.
In this episode, we focus on understanding and applying weight class from the contractor side. We’ll dig into weight class from the government side in a future episode.