Services

Set a Vision

Alice in Wonderland once asked “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” The Cheshire Cat replied “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” Whitespace is more straight forward than Mr. Cheshire Cat, yet his wisdom is sound. Every company needs a vision… a solid idea of where they want to go, and why. We help you establish a strong focus for your company by understanding your values, your purposes, the leadership’s perception of your future…and by establishing a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal (BHAG).

• Start with “why?” Why are you in business? Why in this market? Why now?
• Next, evaluate “how?” How will you approach your business challenges?
• Last of all, target the “what?” Too many businesses start with “what we do” and eventually wind up frustrated, asking “why?”
• Whitespace is a business mentor. Let us help with regular collaboration where we show you how, then help you do it, then watch and encourage. That’s how a mentor works.
• Use outside facilitators for your meetings. “Enhance your DNA” in critical leadership sessions using Whitespace resources.

Research Your Market

Once you have settled on a realistic vision, you must choose a viable market. Don’t trust the future of your company to a decision that “feels good.” Be informed. Leverage our research processes, proven tools, market databases, trusted collaborators, and our relationships in federal and commercial markets. Ensure the viability of your market.

• Who is buying, and why? Let us build a “Total Addressable Market” (TAM) analysis. How much of your market is accessible? What is your market share?
• Learn more about your customers and your competitors. Conduct market research to learn more about what your customers need and why your competitors win.
• Invest in competitive intelligence. This is not “dumpster diving” for insights. Know your competitors—and customers—better than anyone else using our proven and affordable approach to business intelligence.
• Follow the money. Use Whitespace to evaluate federal budgets, industry spending, and labor rates. Ask us about the sales “multiples” for acquisitions in your market.

Live by a Strategy

Is your last strategic plan languishing in a notebook on a dusty shelf? Don’t spend valuable resources for an expensive offsite to build a plan you’ll never use. Use our established planning tools to create an actionable blueprint to grow new infrastructure and new markets. Remember, the most valuable word in business development is “no.” Only do what you can do. Do what matters.

• Use Whitespace processes to build an annual plan. From company values to corporate valuations, put it all on one sheet.
• You get what you measure. Build an annual projection of monthly revenue. Create a model for expenses and labor rates.
• Establish and implement Corporate campaigns. Whitespace develops innovative strategies to pursue grand objectives.
• Strategies need roadmaps. Create action plans that lead to measurable accomplishments on realistic schedules.
• What are the threats and the opportunities? Balance dangers and rewards through mitigations and management of risk.

Find Opportunity

Be pragmatic! Match your technical and business capabilities, financial objectives, people, resources, and schedule to the available bid prospects. A successful company is ruthlessly honest as it answers the questions “why would we win?” and “is the juice worth the squeeze?” Fill your pipeline with realistic opportunities. Do not chase shiny objects that make you feel good.

• Use our proven research processes, multiple search engines, a broad base of industry intelligence, 8000+ contacts, and a network of 300+ companies to create a winnable pipeline.
• Document your capabilities before you chase new work. Cast a wide net to find all opportunities that match those capabilities, then eliminate every one that is not a perfect fit.
• Be honest with yourself and “factor” your pipeline. Track three probabilities: probability of capture, of intent to bid, and of win.
• Ask Whitespace about our gate review techniques to keep the business development process on track.
• Use our intuitive web-based dashboards to manage your pipeline, build teams, and track your growth metrics.

Capture the Work

Plan the work and work the plan. Whitespace wins 61% of our clients’ procurements when they follow a comprehensive capture plan. Our well-tested 25-point checklist documents every component of your preparation for the upcoming bid. With a solid plan in place, spend 80% of your time listening to your customers. Listen more to win more.

• Every capture of an opportunity begins with a gate review and a pursue decision. Don’t short-circuit the process. Make every opportunity stand on its own merit in a critical staff review.
• Listen to customers to gain the insight you need to win.
• Shape the opportunity by responding to the customer’s needs.
• Build strategies, win themes, and discriminators. Test those in a thorough Black Hat review led by our Subject Matter Experts.
• Let Whitespace help build the winning team, grounded in capability, past performance, and customer relationship.
• Develop a Price To Win (PTW). Use Whitespace to create a generic PTW that informs your pricing process early in the bid.

Propose to Win

Every sales quote, bid, and marketing slick that you develop is a proposal—a presentation about your company and the work you do. Every written product must be compliant and compelling. It must answer the customer’s question and it must tell a story in a way that compels the reader to buy. Write well—and often—to win.

• Turn to Whitespace for proposal managers, volume leads, writers, graphic artists, “color team” reviews, Subject Matter Experts, schedulers, and document production.
• Leverage our nationwide team of 300+ experts with technical and customer insights to build your proposal content.
• Give us a call about Price to Win, strategic pricing, and a preview of your subcontractors’ sealed bids. We have some tricks up our sleeve that will help you build a better quote.
• And remember this: every proposal is fundamentally a work of fiction—it’s a story about a job that has not yet happened. Good fiction requires that you “show, don’t tell.” Build a tale about your approach (“how”) that compels your reader to learn more.