In an earlier installment we said that you will chase your tail if you lack a laser-like focus in the federal market. Business development is the process used to identify potential buyers (end-users and official buyers) for your product or service. It is the key to successful federal sales, because it creates the intense focus needed for success. Without business development your sales costs will be prohibitive.

There is no secret formula to business development; it is just focused research. No one has a convenient list of what government end-users and official buyers purchase with contact data. It just doesn’t exist.

Business development is an art, not a science and the more you do the better you get. So how do you get started?

In a general sense, you need agency information, organizational data, titles and contact data for end-users and official buyers, along with buying history data. Most of this information is available on the Internet for free in its rawest form.

In your Internet research you need to use some rational to focus your efforts. They might include:

• Geographic focus: Small businesses selling commercial products and commodities and small service companies can focus on the agencies in their geographic delivery or service area.
  
• Functional focus: Companies selling training, IT services, recruiting, human resources, for example, can focus first on an agency and then the people who head agency functions within the agency -- the training director, the chief information officer, etc.
  
• Niche service focus: If you have a specialty service, like "management of life science laboratories," you have a natural focus mechanism in that you need to first find all of the federal life science laboratories and then the buyers within the laboratories.
  
• Niche product focus: If you have a niche product (e.g., security cameras) it is relatively apparent who your potential customers might be at the agency level. Security devices for a military base would be bought by the security director or the chief information office or both.
  
• Software application focus: Similar to the functional approach, if you sell financial software packages, go to the chief financial officer within an agency.
  
• Product relationship approach: If you have middleware interfacing with Oracle DBMS installations, you need to find federal chief information officers who have installed Oracle.
  
• Service expertise approach: If you machine parts to high tolerances, you need to find the military installations and research and development laboratories that require precision machining.
  
• Specific industry approach: If you sell water treatment systems, you of course need to find the federal installations that treat water.