“… Make meetings with VA clients more productive
The Office of Federal Procurement Policy encourages agencies to promote strong communications practices with vendors. But most VA and government employees are unaware of their obligation to learn about market capabilities and the ways that industry may fulfill requirements. Yet it’s common for government employees to avoid meetings with vendors if their calendar that day has been populated with back-to-back meetings or if they’ve been given new pressing assignments with already unrealistic deadlines. And to be frank, some vendor meetings can be overly burdensome (or overly boring, e.g., capabilities briefings).”
“With that in mind, here are steps I suggested vendors take to ensure a productive meeting when I worked as an executive in VA/OIT.”
“‘Something New’ never gets old
Something new is the price of a successful meeting. Educate me about me. Help me discover something about my own problems, gaps, or shortcomings in my area of responsibility. Then offer solutions to those problems by showing me, not telling me.”
“When working with the OIT/Office of Strategic Sourcing (OSS) Vendor Management Office (ITVMO), you should volunteer to do the legwork to set up the meeting with your target contact. Although ITVMO can be immensely helpful, meeting setup is not really their job. ITVMO’s primary job is to coordinate, deconflict and deduplicate vendor meetings to ensure equitable treatment – not do the legwork and homework for the vendor…”
“Meeting prep: know your company. Know who you’re meeting with.
When building your briefing: Know the current and past contracts VA holds with your company. Know your problem programs, people, and reputation (because your competition does). Know your most current press releases. Don’t ask ‘What keeps you awake at night?’ To me, that was the same as saying ‘I did not take the time to learn about your challenges.’ Do your homework and propose a solution. If all goes well, have actionable contracting approaches prepared for the question: ‘How do I get to you?’ – (which means: ‘What contract mechanism do I use to try or buy your product, service or solution?’)…” Read the full article here.
Source: The Art of a Productive (VA) Sales Meeting – By Bill James, January 22, 2022. Business of VA.
