You lost the bid and it sucked, and maybe you're not sure why you lost the bid. But in the back
of your head, something's twirling around and you're trying to figure out why, what happened,
and what could you have done differently. In this video, I'm sharing how a missed
opportunity could be a blessing in disguise, and what you should now focus on instead. Hi, I'm
Felicia. Make sure you subscribe to the channel. Hit the notification bell. And while you're here,
go ahead and like this video. Subscribe, notification bell, like. Let's move on.
I know the feeling of taking the time and effort to submit a bid and then sitting. Waiting almost
like the elections that we're dealing with right now that is going longer than we anticipated. And
so everybody's on pins and needles trying to figure out, wait and see, do the calculations,
and figure out and listen for who wins. Same thing with our bids. You submit the bid, you put in the
effort, the time, and then you're sitting, waiting, waiting, waiting only to hear back
no. It was awarded to someone else. Which is why today I want to share with you ... which is
why I want to talk about missed opportunities, and why not to look at it in the negative, but
take it for what it is and look at the positive. Look at the message in what you did accomplish.
Make it motivation for what's next. Let's dive into missed opportunity motivation
as we're dealing with government contracts. Here's why I don't want you to
beat yourself up because you've submitted a bid and you didn't win. Unfortunately,
it's the reality. Most people don't win their first bid. Some people take them three to five.
When you're bidding opportunities, it takes a little time to kind of get into your groove,
figure some things out, how to put your best foot forward in what you're submitting. And then it
also comes into play with your pricing. Pricing, okay? It's not just your company and you having
the ability. It is the full package. Sometimes it just takes a few times
to submit opportunities. Maybe you don't win. Get some feedback on what you could change,
what you could do better, how you could present your company better, and then get back in the
game. Now, when I have a missed opportunity ... I didn't win the bid, I do like to decipher what I
did do well and what I didn't do so well. Some of that entails me having to reach out to the
contracting officer or the purchasing agent, whoever is over that particular opportunity,
to get some feedback from them. One that's called a debriefing. I definitely want to get that and
then do some internal assessments. I like to call it ... I can't think of the term right now,
but I like to do this at the end of all of my projects, good or bad. Always do takeaways.
Takeaways for me is: what could I have done better? What do I need to change? What do I
need to stop doing? And then sometimes there's some things that just may need a little tweak.
I'm always assessing my actions. That's something I want you to write down. If you're taking notes,
you want to write this down. If you're not taking notes, write this down. Always be assessing
what you're doing. If you're doing great, cool. Keep doing it. If not, change it. If it's just
not working at all, if it's working a little bit, or maybe it just needs a little tweak,
then do that. But definitely assess. Some things to look at is: did you submit
everything? Was it a responsive bid? How was your pricing? What was your profit margin like?
Did you have the past performance that they were looking for? Did you meet all of the requirements
that they were looking for? I actually had a client today on my contracts edge bootcamp call
where she brought a bid to the table, and I actually pulled it up on the screen, went through
it, and everything like that. What we found is, one, she didn't meet the requirements. Two,
the contract was way larger than she realized. Again, she still couldn't do it on her own.
Of course, we talked about approach, different strategies, and other ways she could approach
this opportunity. But the way she was thinking was not going to work. You have to get into a
place and space where you're able to do that on your own so that you can be successful
and minimize those missed opportunities. Comment below. Are you bidding contracts
now? Are you at a place in your business where you're bidding contracts?
Comment below. Yes or no. No or yes. Here's another thing I want you guys to listen to.
If you're not bidding contracts at all, guess what? You don't have a shot at all
at winning a contract. You have to get in the game. I'd rather see you get in the game
and do some things imperfectly than doing nothing at all. We can always tweak, we can always adjust,
and it's easier to do when you're in motion. Get in the game and start bidding some contracts.
Another thing at minimizing your missed opportunities is being able to look at a bid
and see if you have a shot at winning it. Inside the Contractors Edge Bootcamp, I do share my
goal bid no go formula that we use to look at bid opportunities and see if it's a good fit for you.
What I did recently on a group call is I had the individual students send me over the
solicitation. I pulled it up on my screen, shared it with the group, and I actually walked through
that solicitation. It was actually an IFB. Information for bid.
Am I right? Information for bid? I think that's right. IFB is what it was.
They wanted a bid submitted. It was about 67 pages, I think it was. But anyway,
I walked through there really, really quickly pointing out some things that the student hadn't
recognized. And it was like, "Oh, I didn't look at that. Oh, I didn't even see that."
And it's very, very important. Hear me on this. It's very, very important for you guys to be able
to break down a solicitation and pull out the requirements. What I hate to see you guys doing
is taking hours and hours putting time and effort into a bid that you have no shot at winning.
What I showed her in less than 10 minutes, how not only her, but everyone else in the group because
I did it for the whole group, would be able to walk through an opportunity, what to look for,
so you can quickly assess whether you have a shot at winning that opportunity.
Not only did I do that, but I also told her how I would even tweak some things,
change a few things to where maybe my approach would be different. Although I couldn't bid it
myself ... or meaning her. Right? We went through her scenario. She couldn't bid it herself,
but there were other options available. I did help her see those options
where she may still get a piece of that opportunity. Yeah.
Here's what I would do after a missed opportunity, and to better position myself for the next
opportunity and have a shot at winning. One, I would get around people that know what to do.
That means if I can't read solicitations, I need to get around people that can read solicitations.
If I can't put the bid together, I need to get around people that can. I got to set myself up
for the win. I would start networking with people, meeting people that're doing what I'm doing
as far as in my industry, as well as government contracting whether that's offline or online.
Right now I suggest both, because offline is a little eh. Right now we've got some things
going on, so do both. That way if one is down, the other one is good to go. Usually they both
won't be down at the same time, hence we see a lot of people doing Zooms as far as networking events,
conferences, everything. I mean, Tony Robbins has ... one of his Breakthrough conferences
is going to be done via Zoom. Trust me. You can still get out and network.
Start connecting with people that have contracts, because I'm sure there's some things that you can
learn from them if you just sit around them and take in the information. Like, be a fly
on the wall. You don't even have to really say anything, but surely listen. Listen for the
gems that they're going to drop. Trust me, they will. And then you need to find a way to expand
your resources. You should always be looking for ways to expand your resources, hence the scenario
I gave you that we went over in the Contractors Edge Bootcamp with one of my students. She didn't
have the capacity to do that opportunity anyway. So, always be looking for ways to expand your
resources and increase your capacity. And then the last thing I want to say is
get a step-by-step roadmap on what you should be doing as you're going through your bid
process. If you don't have a bid process in place, get one. If you don't have a proposal template,
meaning a folder ... a digital folder where you have pieces of the information that you
would be putting into your proposals so that when you're ready to do a proposal, you can
now copy and paste, and put it all together into one document, saves you a wealth of time,
heartache, headache, all of that. You should have those things in place.
Let me recap for you. One, you want to always be expanding your resources.
Get amongst people that know what they're doing. Get amongst people that already have contracts,
hence subcontracting opportunities. Get you a roadmap. You need to have a roadmap on
how you're going to bid. You should have your bid process. You should have a process that you're
going to go through as you look at solicitations, break them down, pull out the requirements,
and you should have a process of how you're going to put together your proposal.
If you have those things in place, you can start minimizing those missed opportunities. Again,
if you've submitted bids and you have not won, take the motivation from that. That it is okay.
Right? We all have to start somewhere. Most of us, including me, you submit those bids initially. And
trust me, you don't win. You kind of have to learn real time as far as pricing and different things
like that. We just don't know what the market will bear when we're first starting out. Inside
the bootcamp, I teach some other ways where you can kind of figure out pricing. Definitely if you
need help, come join us in the bootcamp. But you definitely want to be aware of that, that could be
one of your downfalls is pricing. You're going to have to get your pricing in order as well.
If you work on those things, you can definitely increase your odds at winning a contract.
Here's the thing. Just because you don't win your first contract doesn't mean stop. Go
find something else to do. No. Stay in the game, and understand that new opportunities will come
out and you will get better at this. Don't beat yourself up when you lose a contract. Just say,
"Okay, what do I need to do differently the next time? What do I need to change?
What do I need to do better? What should I be tweaking?" Think of it that way.
Now, some of that could be maybe looking for smaller opportunities to bid. Maybe looking
for some subcontracting opportunities. Maybe it's a different customer you need to be looking at.
Maybe it's a different marketplace, whether it's the state government, county government,
federal government, private sector, or corporate. Maybe you just need to find a different area just
depending on what you're offering, how you can fit in, what the customer wants,
if you can meet their capacity as far as delivering on the opportunities.
Definitely look at those things. Lastly, you may have to change your approach. Approach is so
important, and it definitely spills over into the activities that you'll have to take, what will be
required of you. That could be a game changer for sure just changing up your approach.
So, there you have it. What to look for, what to think about, what changes to possibly make
when you lose a bid. But also looking at a missed opportunity and taking the motivation from that
to go out and do it again. Trust me. If you continuously do it, continuously bid, you
will win. I have students in my Contractors Edge Bootcamp. They are winning contracts. Matter of
fact, I just got off a call with one of my clients who just won another contract. She told me,
"Yeah, I didn't do my homework, but I won a contract." Okay, cool! I'm like, high five. So,
we celebrated. Yes, she didn't do her homework, but she did something better. She won a contract.
That is the ultimate goal, right? Win a contract. Make some money.
I was so excited celebrating with her, and that's cool. But you may not win the
first one. You may not win the second one. Again, just stay in the game, be consistent,
and make the necessary changes from the feedback that you're getting, and you will get to the
finish line of winning a contract. Oh, I forgot to tell you guys. I forgot.
Be on the lookout for the Get Government Contracts workshop. It is happening later this month.
If you're on my email list, no worries. No worries. You'll get the email notification
so you can get registered, get the workbook, and come join us. We'll also share it here on social
media as well. But if you definitely want to make sure you get in because last time I think it was
over 500 students. Join us for the Get Government Contracts workshop. I would love to have you,
so definitely be on the lookout for that. All right. Now, if you have not, if this is your
first time here, go ahead and subscribe. Hit the notification bell. And all of you watching do me
a huge favor and hit the like button. I want to see how many likes we get this time versus
how many people are watching, because I know some people are lurking and they're watching. Because
I can see it. So go ahead. Like this video. And remember you're just one contract away. Just one.
All right. Until next time, I'll see you right back here real soon. Bye for now.