I can’t start this without a big shout out to my friend, Mark Amtower. He is the one that introduced me to the firecracker that inspired this blog, and I’m forever grateful he did! Chelsea Meggitt is a dynamic force of nature hailing from the west coast. She’s a force multiplier for small and growing GovCons looking to earn more opportunities in the federal market. Chelsea is the CEO of Collaborative Compositions, which assists small and mid-sized businesses in launching and expanding their government contracting business. She is high-energy and resourceful and has a knack for identifying the path of least resistance to achieving success in the federal market. Chelsea recently published an article in Bloomberg Government titled, “Maximize your bid options with small businesses”, and we found her message on point and wanted to share some of her insights with our network.  

Team Parabilis proudly supports the small businesses that engage in federal contracting and loves to see new avenues for involvement that open doors of opportunity to them. Chelsea suggests 5 ways Primes can differentiate themselves and develop “a robust and varied small business pipeline to offer your government customers accessible options.”  She goes on to say, “ Offering a small/large business pairing can deliver more value and allow the prime and their customer to access bleeding-edge tech as a faster alternative to developing it in-house.” Rather than ‘same ole’, same ole’, why not utilize innovation from an up-and-comer that can benefit your customer by providing newer and more innovative options and offer the small business the past performance opportunity that will allow them to further grow in the industry. That’s a win/win!

Small business engagement has been in decline in the federal market for decades. We should look at contract opportunities through a different lens by utilizing partners that will create more small business participation and thus increase the job creation potential within certain industries as well. Not only are we fulfilling congressional goals for higher participation, but “In federal contracting terms, vendors with single points of failure in their supply chains run higher risks of delays and cost overruns than those with diversified supply chains of healthy small businesses. If the goal is to maintain a high rate of availability and reliability, having a robust supply chain helps ensure that and lowers perceived risk in the customer’s eyes.” If you are looking to win more work, this article suggests that you are more capable at it by offering a bevy of options to your customer by developing a dense ecosystem of small businesses and their innovative resources, rather than doubling down on the way it’s always been. 

For more insight, we encourage you to read the entire article. And if your business is looking to amplify your presence in the federal market, we encourage you to reach out to Chelsea and her team for more information! Thank you, Chelsea for your insights and expertise!