Ever gotten an e-mail response back like this one?

“Thanks for the information.  I wish that I had known about this company last month, I just awarded a ARRA GSA Delivery order for 2.15 Million documents.

It’s good to see that there is another small business listed on the GSA schedule for this type of work.  I will definitely keep you in mind, as I had limited response on the initial posting on FBO.

One question back to you.  Does this company do any programming work, I have a requirement that will come out soon working with “Dashboards” to track our progress with meeting the SBA requirements. If the do I would be interested to see what they can provide.

Thank you much

v/r

<Contact Removed>

Purchasing Agent

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers”

The fact is, I only spoke to this person once over 10 months ago and I missed getting him on my ping list – I dropped the ball.  Sometimes we feel like we can’t reach out because they won’t remember or they are too busy.  The answer: Do it anyway.  When I found his information earlier today, I shot him an e-mail with an introduction and this was the result.  Ouch!

There is another story to this e-mail… Notice that there was “limited response to the listing in FBO.”  This was in Alaska, so the competition was greatly reduced.  Had I had him on my ping list, he would have remembered me and we would have had a great opportunity at a win.  Ouch again!

Did I lose out? Sure we lost on one opportunity but remember, contracting officers buy EVERYTHING.   Even though I missed, I have a new opportunity because I hit on two potential opportunity competencies of my client: 1) Records Management and 2) Custom Computer Programming.  I will also be dialoguing on other opportunities that will undoubtedly lead to business for other clients who don’t mind doing work in Alaska.  Interestingly enough, I spoke with an architectural firm this afternoon from Washington state that wouldn’t mind doing work in Alaska… Hmmmm.

Getting back on track – Remember, when talking to any prospect, ask “how often should I touch base?” because you want to be persistent right up to the line of being a pest (without crossing over). I shared this story because we all make mistakes and drop the ball.  When we learn from our mistakes, we can improve and often learn something about ourselves or the situation that we might have missed. 

In the process of this improvement, I just discovered Alaska has gold again…

Dave Lowe

CEO

isiFederal, Inc.