How to grow your Government Contracting business? Network, Network, Network!

How to grow your Government Contracting business? Network, Network, Network!

We recently spoke to Jody Walters, the Founder and CEO of Centerline Energy Construction, (https://www.centerlineenergyconstruction.com/)   who started her company to support the growing natural gas energy industry. She and her co-founder started the company, beginning with an initial opportunity.  However, as a primarily project-driven company, the ability to sustain the company, relies on the ability to maintain or grow a continuous workflow.

While word-of-mouth, traditional marketing, and digital marketing strategies to advertise your company provides a stable system for getting the word out, about your company, the number one item to bring about growth, heard over and over again, is the networking.

As recently noted in an Association for Proposal Management (APMP) article, The Power of Connecting with Your People, networking provides the opportunity to “be part of a community, to connect with individuals who understand what you do, to linkup with the ones who “get” you.”  Networking provides ability to the discover people, resources, and organizations that are also interested in, or have a part in, assisting your company to thrive and grow!  The beauty of networking is that it can occur daily, weekly, or as often as you’d like, and there are many opportunities to network at little or no cost to you (other than your time and effort of course!)!

Some tools immediately available to small Government Contractors, or business owners, for networking include: 1) professional organizations; 2) Government sponsored support agencies, such as the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Small Business Development Center (SBDC) or the Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC), both are available at the local, regional, and national levels; 3) the local Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Office, or in Colorado, at the State level, the Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT), and 4) industry-related organizations, such the Manufacturer’s Edge or the Colorado Small Government Contractor Collaborative, aka “The Smalls” to help find engagement opportunities across the larger Colorado Government Contracting ecosystem, and assist in finding the people, resources, and organizations to help your company succeed!

The key to expanding your market and finding the people, resources and organizations, necessary for the sustained growth of your company is networking, and allowing the larger ecosystem to assist you in finding opportunities and the necessary team to win future business!   So, plug into the available resources, noted above, and begin to explore the multitude of opportunities to network, collaborate, and grow!

If you have questions regarding this article, or would like to “plug into” the Colorado Small Government Contractor Ecosystem, visit www.thesmalls.org, and sign up for our weekly newsletter and Calendar of Events for the Colorado Government Contractor Ecosystem!  Our mission is to help small Government contractors, service providers and manufacturers by providing opportunities to network, collaborate, and grow!

 

APMP article: https://winningthebusiness.com/the-power-of-connecting-with-your-people/