Everything in my codes looks wired. Is it?

Some of it is, in the sense that the incumbent had a two-year head start and used it. Very little of it is improper. The right response is almost never a protest and almost always to pick two or three recompetes eighteen months out and do to them what the incumbent did to you.

Is it worth introducing myself to an office with no open work?

That is the only time it is genuinely easy. Once a solicitation is out, the conversation is restricted to written questions answered to everybody. An office with nothing open is an office with time.

How many pursuits should a small firm work at once?

Fewer than feels right. A shop with two people on business development can properly work a handful of real pursuits and answer market research on a dozen more. Bidding thirty things badly produces fewer wins than bidding four things well, and it burns the people you need for delivery.

Can I ask the contracting officer who the incumbent is?

You rarely need to. The award record names them, along with what they are paid and when the contract ends. Where the work went out as orders under a vehicle, the orders are in the record too, with the parent identifier on them.

What is an organisational conflict of interest, in practice?

Most often: you helped write the requirement or the specification, you are evaluating or overseeing work you also want to perform, or you hold information that gives you an unfair advantage. It can disqualify you from the competition that follows, which is worth knowing before you accept a small advisory job next to a large competition.

Course, module 6 of 16

Qualifying and positioning

The single biggest waste in this business is a well-written proposal for a contract that was never available. Here is how to tell, and what to do instead.

Space Coast, Florida. Rings: 25 and 50 miles.

By the end of this module you will be able to

Read a market from the award record before deciding whether to enter it
Spot the signs that a solicitation was written around somebody, and decide what to do about it
Name what you may and may not do before a solicitation is released
Work a recompete backwards from its end date instead of forwards from a notice
Choose deliberately between competing as a prime and going in as a subcontractor

Reading a market before you enter it

Before you chase a specific solicitation, look at the market it sits in. The federal award record answers all of this and most firms never ask.

Who buys this, and where. Which contracting offices actually award under your codes, and how much they spend.
Who wins, and how concentrated it is. One supplier holding most of the money is an incumbent to displace, not a market to walk into on price.
How often anybody new wins. A market where a first-time supplier wins regularly is a different proposition from one where the same four names have shared it for a decade.
How it is bought. Competed or sole-sourced. Set aside or full and open. Fixed price or cost type. Against a vehicle or standalone.
How often only one offer arrived. An office used to receiving a single quote is an office where a credible second quote is genuinely welcome.

Keep reading

The rest of this module opens with your name and email

All sixteen modules open on this device for about six months. No card and no password.

Still to come in this module

Four market shapes, and what each one asks of you
The signs a solicitation is already spoken for
Working a recompete backwards
Positioning: what you can legitimately do before a solicitation
What a capability briefing should actually contain
Subcontracting as the front door
The words in this module, defined
Questions at this stage