Posts By Olessia Smotrova-Taylor

The Scoop on the New Rules for Woman-Owned Small Businesses

Small business administration has been very active these days. They have been issuing rulings left and right and coming down like a ton of bricks on long-established business practices. By the way, GTSI is back to working for the government but they cannot continue subbing to small businesses the way they were doing it. OneRead… Read more »

Cost Proposal Strategy for Proposal Managers

Last week I delivered a presentation at the APMP Mid-Atlantic Conference and Expo on Cost Proposal Strategy for Proposal Managers. It went over well – we had standing room only. Price is one of the most important elements of winning proposals, and it is intimately connected with the technical solution. Yet, many proposal managers don’tRead… Read more »

Latest Federal Acquisition News You Don’t Want To Miss

There have been a number of changes lately that are important to government contracting that you need to know about. But before I delve into them, I wanted to let you know that our November capture and proposal 2-day training courses in Rockville, MD are now half-full, with some people traveling from out of townRead… Read more »

Heads up

I am very excited to tell you that we have a lot planned for you this fall: webinars, live workshops, articles, and brand new materials finally being released after years of preparation. This is a heads up that after this summer’s hiatus, you will probably see much more frequent communications from us letting you knowRead… Read more »

Proposal Manager’s Tips for Running Fast Turn-around Proposals

A proposal manager’s role is clear when a proposal lasts 30 days, or even 14, but things get more complicated as the allotted time shrinks. Many wonder what kind of value they could provide as a proposal manager when a proposal is only 5-7 days in duration. In most cases, process as we know itRead… Read more »

Lessons Learned from a Proposal Disaster

We have had a wonderful winning streak in the past year and a half winning literally every proposal we ran, but all of a sudden, our fortunes turned. A new client engaged us to help them prepare a proposal. They agreed to provide to us some key inputs such as subject matter expertise, raw pastRead… Read more »

10 Steps to Finding and Choosing the Federal Contracting Opportunities that Are Perfect for Your Company

The famous saying goes: “True love is like a pair of socks: you gotta have two and they’ve gotta match.” For you to succeed in winning government contracts, and find customers with whom you will stay for a long, long time – like in a marriage of sorts – you have to carefully match yourRead… Read more »

How to Keep Your Government Proposals Customer-Focused – Lessons from a 5-year Old

My 5-year old this morning didn’t want to put on a dress. I guess she had a different outfit in mind… Perhaps a pair of shorts, or a skirt – but not the sun dress with cherries on it that I handed to her. But that’s not what she told me. Instead, she looked atRead… Read more »

Why Understanding the Cycle of Business Development is important to Winning Government Proposals

My 5-year-old daughter, when working on a puzzle, knows to glance at the whole picture first, before starting to assemble the pieces. She is up to 30-piece puzzles now, which have gotten quite complex. So, her process is to study the picture, and then find a corner piece to which she then starts adding pieces.Read… Read more »

Blueprint for Winning Government Contracts for Small Businesses

Join a one-time-only, 12-week, 30-hour webinar starting May 12 that provides a complete system for defining strategy, finding opportunities, marketing, preparing for proposals through masterful capture, writing winning proposals, and winning multimillion dollar contracts to catapult the growth of your small business in the federal market. Unlike any other course, this webinar series takes youRead… Read more »