Products, services, and technology-based solutions are sold through relationships in both the commercial and federal sectors. In the federal arena, relationships are even more important because most federal customers are extremely risk averse -- much more so than in the commercial sector. Except in rare circumstances, companies will not make a federal sale unless a strong relationship has first been established with the customer. This is why it can take 6 months or more to make a sale in the federal market.

Members of the public see only opportunities that have reached the public bid stage. The uninitiated spend thousands of dollars writing large, complex proposals in response to a Request for Proposal, believing a responsive proposal or ingenious approach to getting a job done will lead to a winning bid. The federal government fosters this perception by creating the illusion that it is actually holding a competition when a public bid is posted. If there is competition, it will be between two or more companies that have established a relationship with the customer well in advance of the bid publication.

This can't be stressed too much. In order to win a public bid opportunity, a company must have pre-sold the opportunity and established a relationship with the federal buyer prior to responding to a Request for Proposal. Of course, exceptions do occur. Rarely, opportunities arise and not a single company has met with the end user. It also sometimes snows in July. Another extremely unlikely but not completely out of the realm of possibility scenario: A company that doesn't have a relationship with the end user writes a creative proposal and prevails over companies with long-established relationships.

Buyer-seller relationships are absolutely essential in the federal market and they are nearly impossible to establish without an experienced, full-time sales person in Washington, DC. Establishing relationships is far more important than having the solution itself.

How early should you identify a sales opportunity in the federal market? Ideally, an opportunity should be identified before anyone, including the customer, knows that an opportunity exists.