Winning business without a proposal

You can win new business without writing a proposal using organic growth best practices. In fact, industry executives expect their project management staff to grow contracts by 5-10% annually using organic growth best practices.

Eliminate non-starters

So how do you grow your business organically? First, identify which contracts cannot accommodate organic growth. Those contracts are usually nearing their dollar ceiling and end of their period of performance or whose customers cannot afford to add funds to a contract.

Tips for organic business growth

Once you identify the contracts that can support organic growth, determine if the customer has business required outside the scope of the current contract and the ability to add the work and funds to your existing contract. For example, good candidates for organic growth are customers with the following:

1. New objectives that can be fulfilled on your contract.
2. New or changing business requirements.
3. Needs for modernization.
4. Work surges requiring long- or short-term support.
5. Opportunities for improving integration among contracts.
6. Risks or issues that arise outside the contract’s scope.
7. Unforeseen events impacting the customer’s mission.

For example, the unforeseen events surrounding COVID-19 generated organic growth for numerous contracts involved in public health, healthcare delivery, and IT infrastructure support.

Modify your current contract

Discuss the new requirement with your customer and provide a white paper or demonstration of your solution to accomplish the identified need. Once the customer agrees that adding new work through a contract modification is beneficial to operations, submit a rationale for the contract modification. If the Contract Office approves the request for a contract modification from the customer, you have just won new work without ever having to write a proposal!

By Brenda Crist, Vice President at Lohfeld Consulting Group, MPA, CPP APMP Fellow

Lohfeld Consulting Group has proven results specializing in helping companies create winning captures and proposals.
As the premier capture and proposal services consulting firm focused exclusively on government markets, we provide expert assistance to government contractors in Capture Planning and Strategy, Proposal Management and Writing, Capture and Proposal Process and Infrastructure, and Training. In the last 3 years, we’ve supported over 550 proposals winning more than $170B for our clients—including the Top 10 government contractors. Lohfeld Consulting Group is your “go-to” capture and proposal source! Start winning by contacting us at www.lohfeldconsulting.com and join us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

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