A strong brand is a true asset for the government contractor, so the contractor that has been inattentive to the development and/or maintenance of its brand may have a liability on its hands.

Here are some points of consideration as to why a poor approach to branding can hurt, or hold back, a government contractor. Each post presents a problem associated with poor branding and provides the solution that will lead to performance improvement.

• Inadequate consideration of your various markets/audiences
• Blurred message content which creates unnecessary resistance to building relationships
• Lack of emotional resonance in your messaging
• Lack of necessary information to make good decisions
• Internal confusion regarding direction of the business leads to operational inefficiencies

Readers may first want to briefly explore the definition of a brand, how brand strength is measured, and how a brand strategy is built. These posts are very brief and will provide some orientation.

Finally, I answer some objections that contractors have raised about investing in branding and marketing.

Here are some specific objections raised by government contractors, most of which revolve around cost concerns for branding and marketing.

“I’ve got my ‘branding and marketing budget’ bound up in developing proposals. Extra expense in this area is just going to kill my margins.”

A good approach to branding/marketing goes hand-in-hand with the capture/proposal lifecycle. Simply put: you can be very experienced with the government procurement process but if you cannot translate your message into written proposals, then you will not maximize your success.

Moreover, branding and marketing isn’t performed for its own sake.  Investment in those areas should be understood as an integral part of the company that will generate ROI in various ways—among them: contract pursuit, partnering, and recruitment.

The right marketing director can also help improve important management goals such as internal communications and customer relationship management. It is important to understand the skillsets of those selected to do the work, and how those skills can make a difference to the bottom line of your business.

“Why should I spend money on customer research? We already know what our customers need!”

Absent a formal discovery process, your customers may not clearly express their emerging priorities and additional services they would like to receive. Also, absent the opportunity to speak with anonymity, your customers might not be as candid in speaking about your strengths and weaknesses.

In addition, many contractors who claim to know their current and prospective customers miss available opportunities to learn more about them. For example, quite a few contractors do not request (or properly participate in) post-award debriefings—an activity that can be a valuable source of information.

“We don’t need research to identify competitors and what they do! We know that already.”

A recent study of professional services firms (including government contractors) revealed that most firms are confident in their competitive awareness.

In fact, the average firm was aware of only 25% to 30% of its competitors.

This was not based on an analyst’s view of competitors within a particular industry. Rather, the list of competitors provided by the subject firm, when compared to the list of competitors provided by that firm’s customers, showed only a 25%-30% overlap.

Looking at some competitors on the list, a firm might say, “Well, these particular five companies aren’t really our competitors.” Unfortunately they are your competitors if your customers think they are. Customers often envision a range of possible solutions to their problems that are not limited to the types of solutions that you provide.

“We aren’t yet at the size where we can afford to hire a marketing manager.”

Some contractors feel stuck between a rock and a hard place: they can’t afford a full time director of marketing, but feel that an on-site presence is the only way that they will make meaningful progress.  These government contractors incorrectly believe “out of sight, out of mind.”

Independent contractors and consulting firms are available to help begin addressing the branding/marketing process at your current level of affordability. If what you need is a part-time director of marketing to work in your office, you should be able to find someone to fit your need. This is particularly true in our current economy.

“Why should I spend money building a high-quality website? We don’t get leads that way.”

This question often comes up when talking about branding, probably because the website is typically the most public face of a company—and also often where a brand is most fully expressed.

There are numerous possible responses to this objection, but here are the three to remember:

• Attract the best talent. If you want to build a high value firm, you need to have the right talent. Even in a difficult economy, the top-quality product can be in limited supply. You need to make it possible for potential employees to find you, and then you need to recruit them with strong messaging about your company.
• Support business development. Web content and stock digital collateral (such as case studies, whitepapers, articles research summaries, etc.) are a great way to support the relationship building that can be so critical to success in government contracting. You need to nurture your relationships through a variety of stages through information, education, briefings, etc. Being able to refer to existing resources on your website, and then direct visitors through nurturing paths with access to additional information, takes some of the grunt work out of business development and can shorten the process.
• Partnering. Don't assume that you can always identify your potential partners or that they know who you are. This is rarely, if ever, the case. A high-performance website helps to make sure that you are identifiable in your space not only for your general area of expertise, but also for specific competency areas. It also helps to make sure that the your messaging (regarding the sort of partner relationships that you desire) runs before you in the marketplace.

This article is part of the Branding Government Contractors series. Click the link to read the introductory post and view a list of articles.

Problem: The absence of sound information upon which to make good strategic decisions can cause another problem: lack of tactical agreement within the executive team. Or, what might be even worse: apathy or passivity on the executive team.

While not necessarily causing discord/acrimony, failure to find consensus on a regular basis will typically cause a lack of clarity in pursuing business objectives.  This translates into ineffectiveness in leadership, which in turn trickles down the ranks. Inevitably, the productivity of the firm is affected. Why?

• Because the firm wastes time and resources building the non-responsive solutions, developing the wrong services, or otherwise pursuing ineffective plans
• Because of your team’s lack of clear direction or motivation

Solution/Advantage: When you have a solid brand strategy based on fact (or reasonable hypothesis, as the data allow) the entire executive team reads from the same sheet of music. The executive team then has the ability to communicate to subordinates how the company is going to move forward—and what role(s) each employee will have in creating corporate growth and value.

Having the right brand strategy can create powerful transformation within a firm because it can dramatically increase the entire team’s level of confidence—they know where they are going, and why it matters. This leads to higher operational efficiency.

This article is part of the Branding Government Contractors series. Click the link to read the introductory post and view a list of articles.

Problem: Government contractors need to be aware of the viewpoint of their audience. Ignorance of the audience viewpoint will lead to ineffective or even inappropriate strategic decisions. Here is some of the information that you might be lacking:

• The business priorities of your customers
• The buying behavior of your customers
• The identity and characteristics of your competitors (and how your customers view them)
• How the competency and performance of your business is viewed by your customers
• Possibilities and avenues for expanding current relationships
• Referral potential
• Brand strength

Solution/Advantage: The first and most important part of building a brand strategy is to collect the information necessary to establish messaging that resonates with your customers.

Research need not be costly if performed properly.  High growth, high value firms conduct regular research to guide their brand and marketing strategies.

Often, contractors are convinced that their government clients will not participate in research. However, that is not the case.  Except in rare situations, government clients respond to requests for research participation in like manner to private sector clients.

This article is part of the Branding Government Contractors series. Click the link to read the introductory post and view a list of articles.

Problem: Many government contractors do a poor job of creating “emotional resonance” with their customers.  “Emotional resonance” is the agreement between an emotion that you express and the emotion experienced by your audience.  On the other hand, “intellectual resonance” is the objective alignment of the facts and figures being presented.  Both are important for government contractor branding.

Buyers (and others in your audience) will intuitively react to your message with their heart and then justify a decision with their head. Therefore, maintaining both intellectual and emotional resonance throughout the brand messaging is critical.

In the government space, business development activities and brand awareness campaigns create the opportunity to influence emotions as well as the intellect. Proposals are the primary vehicle in pursuing this approach.

Solution/Advantage: In addition to demonstrating your ability to meet the technical requirements for the project (and in so-doing, hopefully creating intellectual resonance through demonstration of value) you need to show that:

• The solution you provide is a safe one
• You accept an appropriate level of responsibility for the project’s success
• You can support the government throughout the project
• You will react  professionally and flexibly if challenges arise mid-project
• You communicate effectively
• You identify with and believe in the government’s mission
• You will be an ally and advocate to help government make good decisions

Prepare yourself for success: build emotional resonance into your brand strategy so that it can be extended into your business development strategy.

This article is part of the Branding Government Contractors series. Click the link to read the introductory post and view a list of articles.

Problem: Lack of clarity in brand position and messaging creates unnecessary “friction”. In other words, a poor brand can create confusion as to the purpose of your company and the value of your services. As a result, building relationships contracting officers and program managers can be more difficult.

Solution/Advantage: Accomplishing audience awareness of your brand’s existence isn’t enough; recognition of your brand is only the first step. In order to create new opportunities, your audience must also:

• Understand your brand and its relevancy to their mission
• Retain relevant information about your business for future reference
• Feel strongly enough about your brand to prefer you at the point of making a business decision

If you don’t have a clear, value-oriented message, the relationship-building process will be much more difficult. Resistance created by a weak brand will hinder your ability to accomplish the goal of being the preferred vendor and contract winner.

Your audience encounters you at different points in the decision-making process. What can you provide to help them to move efficiently along the decision path?  What information will aid them during the process? How can you automate aspects of the educational process?

What information is right for each stage? How can you stay in touch without overreaching?  Are there other means of strengthening the relationship?

The essential information about your business must be delivered in a tiered way—the right information at the right time, in the right place and through the proper/right channels. This can have a profound impact on how you are able to engage effectively with decision-makers in government.

This article is part of the Branding Government Contractors series. Click the link to read the introductory post and view a list of articles.

Problem: When government contractors think of branding, they often think primarily of the approach to potential customers. However, there are at least six primary audiences that should be considered for strong brand messaging.

• Current and potential customers, including:
  • Influencers
  • Contracting Officers
  • Program Managers
  • End Users
  • Small Business Specialists
• Current and potential employees
• Current and potential prime contractors
• Current and potential vendors and subcontractors
• Politicians
• Taxpayers/Voters

Solution/Advantage: Create a brand messaging architecture that governs your approach to each audience. Formal audience research may be necessary to properly develop this architecture.

A messaging architecture includes identification of key customers or prospects, key messaging points, critical objections that might be raised by each audience, and your response to those objections. The messaging architecture creates the gateway for future communications with these audiences through presentations, website, proposals, etc.

This article is part of the Branding Government Contractors series. Click the link to read the introductory post and view a list of articles.

One of the classic communications dilemmas is messaging both what you are now and what you want to be in the future. This is true whether you are communicating inside your own company or to outside audiences (customers, prospects, potential employees, etc.).

Identifying “what is real” along with “what is aspirational” is a challenge in the day-to-day aspects of running a business, and no less so in communications messaging. Adding more to this confusion are the questions, “What should be real?” and “What should we aspire to?”

If you are (or have been) caught on the horns of this dilemma, reflecting on the following points will provide some remedy.

All Being Is Becoming

All good companies strive to move from their current state to a better state. Even companies that seem to have reached the pinnacle of success need to maintain this mindset to avoid a slip. For all good companies, in a sense “to exist” means “to become something else...something better.” Ironically, becoming comfortable with the permanency of change is critical to stability in both mindset and messaging.

What You Are Is More than What You Do

When you aren’t really sure of the ground on which you stand, moving in any direction can seem risky—like stepping into air. That situation makes it hard to put your best foot forward, let alone put your weight on that foot! If change is the “new norm,” how do you find solid ground from which to act?

Here’s how: believe that what you are is more than what you do. Many individuals and organizations view themselves as being the sum of what they do, ignoring core values and capabilities. This is a completely understandable mindset, particularly if you are very “close to the action” and don’t have much opportunity to examine things from a removed viewpoint. However, you need to take the time to evaluate these core elements in order to develop firm ground—the ground from which you can move with confidence.

Learn the Landscape

Once you are sure of the immediate ground on which YOU stand, how about evaluating the ground on which OTHERS stand? There is an expense to finding out how to approach your target audience(s)—at the least, the cost of your own due diligence labor. Can you afford not to incur that expense?

Many businesses eschew market research, believing they either know what the market needs or can figure it out as they go along. If that is true, more power to them—their intuitive understanding of the market opportunity, the ability to capitalize, and the following brilliant successes may get them into the pages of FastCompany.com.

But most companies who pursue this course become mired in mediocrity (or go out of business), spending their hard-earned profits on product/service development and marketing with less than stellar results. These are the companies you don’t read about—and they outnumber the brilliant success stories by far. I’m a supporter of the old adage “look before you leap.” You don’t have to “stop everything” to look, but you had better look.

Putting the Three Together

“All being is becoming. What you are is more than what you do. Learn the landscape.” If you understand these three concepts and put them into practice, you will have greater certainty about what you are now and what you want to be—and you will certainly be more confident and persuasive in communicating those ideas to others.

Two clients in STA’s Fractional CMO program have expressed approval of our work. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our clients, and appreciate their feedback!

From the CEO at a client providing enterprise communications and workflow solutions:

Peter [Mirus] has been very helpful in directing our brand strategy efforts. He oriented us to the process, engaged us in thought-provoking discussions, and created a brand strategy deliverable that can be used by our firm in marketing and business development activities. He’s the first marketing consultant of my experience who both has a good system and backs it up with excellent work and deliverables. We strongly recommend his work, and we continue to engage with his firm (STA) for additional projects.

From the Principal at a client specializing in low-latency network architecture:

STA has been very helpful in guiding brand and marketing strategy for our young firm. Their work in helping to identify, prioritize, and articulate our differentiators will be key to future endeavors. The STA approach is firmly rooted in a philosophical base—but is definitely practical and straightforward in application. My ability to understand and participate in the process, while still attending to my other pressing obligations, is important...and STA makes this possible. They get my recommendation!

Internal communications strategy around technology selection and implementation is important both to having a successful deployment and realizing the short and long-term ROI promised by the solution. This is particularly true as pertaining to business process automation tools for the large enterprise with a highly distributed workforce.

For internal communications strategies around the deployment of new technology, I like to treat the selected product like a brand. As with a brand, it is important to understand that the product is going to be met with a response that is both intellectual and emotional in nature. If you don’t prepare a strategy that anticipates that fact, you are in for a long and bumpy ride.

And also like a brand, the selected product will only be worth what you put into it. Brand awareness and understanding typically doesn’t take place overnight. You need to work at it. You need to let people “handle” it—that is, you should let them experience it. Explain what it represents and how it works, and then keep talking and discussing and promoting and nurturing until you have a mutual understanding of value and a general feeling of wellbeing. The same is true of a new technology tool—even one that the workforce is required to use. And that’s how you maximize ROI.

So What Does This Have To Do With Soap?

I need to use soap. I don’t understand how soap is made, and I don’t know exactly what is in it. I know it gets me clean, and I know it helps me to smell nice and be generally presentable. So I know the basic benefits—soap is soap is soap.

So let’s suppose that two weeks ago I was given a new kind of soap. Today, I have to use it—all of my old soap has been used up. I’m not really sure what this new soap is going to get me. It is 6:00 AM. I am in the shower and feeling irritable. I have to get ready quickly—a big meeting at work this morning...I need to be there early.

The soap is not where I expect it to be.

Oh, that’s right. Two weeks ago my wife mentioned in sidelong fashion that she put the soap in the bathroom cabinet under the sink. Now I have to get out of the shower and find it. After feeling around in the cabinet, I find the soap. It is wrapped in cellophane—I can’t figure out how to get it out. My glasses are off and I can’t find the little pull-tab thingy that opens the package. My hands are slippery. I tear at the packaging with my teeth, conscious that both time and hot water are being wasted.

I get the soap partly unwrapped but the soap somehow got wet, and now the cellophane is stuck to the rest of the bar like glue. I accidentally got soap in my mouth, which left a bad taste.
Now, you and I both know this isn’t going to end well. How in the bleep-a-bleep tarnation of stupid asininities and eternal foolishness am I supposed to wash with soap that is apparently only good for making you angry (and dirty, and late)! You can’t! Why can’t my wife just buy the soap I’ve been using for the past five years!

The soap is chucked into the trash. Now I have to wash with my wife’s tea-tree oil, coconut, citrus, ocean-spray, and lavender shampoo/conditioner combo. “Management” won’t be happy—just like my boss at work wasn’t happy when I bailed out on the new project management tool last week and just figured it all out in a spreadsheet—but it’s the only thing I can do! This will have to get worked out later.

Fast-forward thirty days. Management needs to decide if it should buy me more of the same soap. Management also sends a compliance message to ask why I haven’t provided the data inputs necessary to determine if the soap was a good choice. Will everything be at a high sanity level from this point forward?

What can I say? I meant to use the new soap, but after everything that happened the first time, I would need serious incentives (like being threatened with divorce), a backhoe (to get the soap out of the landfill), and a razor blade (to get the soap out of the packaging). And I have developed a strange and unexpected liking for my DIY solution of tea-tree oil, coconut, citrus, ocean-spray, and lavender shampoo/conditioner combo.

What would have been a better scenario?

Here is what my wife should have done:

• Explained the strategic reasons for the selection of new soap
• Explained the benefit of the new soap purchase, both to the organization and to me
• Invited me to participate in the soap selection process, even if it wasn’t going to be totally my call as to what soap was selected
• After selecting the soap, my wife should have handed the soap to me.
  • While I was holding it—looking at the attractive design on the package and giving it a tentative sniff—she should have explained the soap’s benefits relative to the costs.
  • She should have reinforced the previous strategic message, placing this particular product within that context.
  • She should have pointed out that the soap, if used properly, will provide the benefits. If not used properly (see previous section of this article), I will have a bad taste in my mouth and the benefits will not be there. She doesn’t want this to happen – it will be a bad outcome for both me and management.
  • She should have taught me how to open the soap’s packaging. What if she isn’t there the next time I need to open a new package?
• At this point, my wife should have placed the new soap next to my old soap, encouraging me to pilot the soap before its official release
• She should have then listened to the pilot feedback and selected the version of the same soap brand that had moisturizer in it. (This integration would represent an accommodation of my preference and an overall cost savings: now my wife will no longer have to buy separate moisturizer for me.)
• She should have solicited my feedback immediately following the official release, and then checked back with me periodically to make sure I was beginning to realize the benefit of the new soap
• She should have encouraged me to share my soap success stories

Boy that was awesome! The new soap is going great. And hey, I found out last week (at the town hall meeting) that there is a new soap-related certification that could help to advance my career within the organization!

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