Federal Gov't Sales
Commercially Available Business Development Information
By Richard White
May 20, 2005, 09:49

The fundamental goal of federal business development is to find federal employees who may be interested in buying your product/service. You must first locate the individual and his or her latest contact information, determine what the person's job responsibilities are and what he or she buys, if anything.

In most industries, the business development process is either performed in-house or outsourced to a company like ours. Advanced notification (or "pre RFP" announcement) services for large dollar, federal business opportunities are offered in three industries.

• Information technology (IT)
• Operations and maintenance (O&M)
• Architecture and engineering (A&E)

Fedmarket.com offers an advanced opportunity identification service for future IT procurements. Our sales staff will work with companies interested in O&M and A&E opportunities.

In previous installments we have stressed that business development is an art not a science. It is a research process that usually begins with the Internet. We offer business development Roadmaps that will decrease your business development and Internet research costs significantly.

Our Roadmaps are:

• Homeland Security Roadmap - Market Intelligence for New Homeland Security Agencies
• Information Technology Roadmap - Market Intelligence for Selling IT Solutions
• DOD Roadmap - Market Intelligence for Selling to the Military
• MilBase - Market Intelligence for Military Bases
• Civilian Agencies Roadmap (NEW) - Market Intelligence for Selling to Civilian agencies of the Federal Government

How does one use such Roadmaps?

1. Review for specific sales opportunities, current contracts (representing future sales opportunities), procurement forecasts, and official buyer contact data.
2. Use what you find to begin developing a sales plan.
3. Analyze the following information to select end-users who may buy your product/service:
   • Agency and sub agency organizational information
   • Number of employees and agency budgets
   • Products/services purchased (list of primary products/services, not who buys them)
   • Organization chart
   • Agency personnel with titles and telephone numbers
4. Call end-users and determine if they have a current or upcoming need for what you sell.
5. Update your sales plan based on end-user research results.

We also offer FedBuying Intelligence (FBI), a subscription service that tells you:

• Which federal buyers have purchased your products or services,
• What they bought,
• When they bought it,
• How much they paid,
• Which agency the buyers work for, and
• How to contact the buyers.

FBI also can be a critical component in your business development efforts.