Posts By Olessia Smotrova-Taylor

Developing Information Dominance over Your Competition

The U.S. government is all about transparency: it posts bids publicly. Yet, just because most opportunities are posted for the world to see, that doesn’t mean a level playing field. In order to increase your win rate, during capture, you have to learn how to take advantage of other open sources of information, in additionRead… Read more »

Know When to Talk to Government Customers

In the task of relationship building with the government, you need to know that the government actually wants industry to approach government customers. FAR part 15.201, “Exchanges with industry before receipt of proposals,” states: “Exchanges of information among all interested parties, from the earliest identification of a requirement through receipt of proposals, are encouraged.” TheRead… Read more »

Secrets of Persuasive Proposal Writing

Evaluating boring proposals is akin to biting into a cardboard cake. As a poor evaluator sinks their teeth into the unappetizing content, the effect is predictable and rather expected. Highly readable text is paramount to getting a great score for your proposal.To be persuasive and appealing to the evaluator’s senses, your proposal text has toRead… Read more »

The Scoop on GSA Schedules

GSA schedules, also referred to as the Federal Supply Schedules (FSS) or Multiple Award Schedules (MAS), are lists of prequalified suppliers in their respective areas of discipline, who will have submitted their price lists and other qualifying information to the government in the form of a GSA proposal. GSA vets companies to provide to theRead… Read more »

How Good Teaming Partners Are Like Parking Spaces

Once you have identified a few candidates for teaming, you should investigate them further to learn more about their capabilities and intention for this pursuit. Good teaming partners are like parking spaces in an office building’s parking lot. The closest ones to the building get taken by those diligent souls who arrive to work beforeRead… Read more »

My new book excerpt: How to shape the contractual, procurement, and evaluation matters

The book shows not only how break into the federal market (with its $1 trillion in contracts, grants, and loans) but how to use a replicable system to achieve the triple-digit growth rates that fastest-growing companies in the government market boast. It shows how to get a slice of a trillion-dollar pie, instead of theRead… Read more »

Rules of Interfacing with Government Personnel that You Don’t Want to Break at Any Cost

Marketing to the government is very different than marketing to commercial customers. With most commercial customers, you can wine, dine, and entertain them. Not so with the government. If you do, there are two outcomes: government personnel will either start avoiding you outright because they will know that you don’t know how to work withRead… Read more »