MILLER ON PROCUREMENT.

***TOM AND THE FAR***

A few years ago I was having a long discussion with an old friend, Tom, CEO of his own business. The subject was the FAR. Finally Tom said, "one of these days, I need to find out what the FAR actually says." He never did, sold his firm for big bucks and retired.

You may never need to know what the FAR says. If you are an Arab with many oil wells, who cares. If you are the sole sales outlet for GE for the Sigma Six system, who cares? But for most people think of it being a football coach and not knowing the FAR is not knowing the end around or the up the middle blitz.

I have had many thousands of instances where knowing the FAR was instrumental in changing the outcome of deal.

It won't always work. And you may think you know and be wrong. But to ignore the FAR, to fail to study it is a deadly mistake when selling to the feds. And if you want the quick version send Pan an email ([e-mail]) for the quick version of FAR vitals. It is only two pages long and everyone has time to digest this one.

***FMS***

Foreign military sales is an area worth $10-$15 billion each year and well worth your study. Who buys stuff? Who is it bought for? What do they buy?

One unique aspect is all FMS buys must be US goods. If DOD decides to buy radar for Pakistan they must be US origin. I have seen a couple of cases where four or five firms make the goods but only one from the U.S. This can mean it is a sole source RFP. Awfully nice to get a $5million sole source when you know you will be the only bidder on the RFP. Not usual to know before hand. What affect does that have on your price?

***SPEED THEM UP***

Have you ever bid to an agency and have months go by with little result? I remember once waiting two years before award. We won but you can imagine the problems and risk involved in such a bid.

Sometimes you can influence the speed of the wwga award. Two methods I have found to be successful are the threat to withdraw and the incentive to speed up.

In the former you tell the agency unless you make the award by June 1 you will withdraw. You can legally do this on an RFQ or RFP, but not on an IFB. The agency may not care what you say since someone is in line for award or is preferred. You may be helping the agency if you are number one but I am number two and are preferred.

If the Colonel says fine, you may not want to withdraw after all.

In the latter case you are offering the agency an improper late bid in the case of an RFP which means it can only be accepted if you are already low. I used this on IRS with great results as the client was doing an IPO and we thought it would assist the stock to announce a $10million IRS award. They speed up and we got the award.