Events & Associations

Grow your network

1. Meet government customers (Events): Meeting government officers is surprisingly difficult and one of the best ways is to attend federal market events:
   1. Industry days
   2. Events where your customer is speaking
   3. Tech centric events
   4. New vendor outreach sessions
   5. Pitch competitions
2. Meet potential partners (Associations): A great way to meet and get to know partners is by joining associations:
   1. Local associations:
      1. Chambers of commerce
      2. State economic development associations
   2. National associations: There are a few national govcon associations that have local chapters:
      1. AFCEA
      2. NDIA
      3. PSC Council

Finding events & associations:

1. Look in the RFIs/RFPs: Sometimes the government will hold an “Industry Day” or “Proposer Day” or Q&A session related to an RFI/RFP. As you read solicitations look for events and add them to your calendar
2. Government events aggregators: The best events aggregators we’ve found are:
   1. OSDBU: The small business office at your target sub-agencies
   2. Govevents.com: We are not affiliated with GovEvents but they do a great job collecting government events: https://www.govevents.com/
   3. Peers: As you talk to other business owners in your market ask them about events
3. Refresh your list: The FedScout task manager will periodically remind you to look for events, but if you don’t use FedScout add a recurring reminder to your calendar

Joining committees and working events

1. Getting past the schmooze: If you are more introverted, then networking events can be daunting and low value (I personally hate approaching strangers and pitching myself) so if this sounds like you, (or even if you love meeting strangers) consider volunteering for committees or to work the events.
2. Committees: Every trade association has a variety of committees, there are event committees, new member committees, budget committees, so many committees. And if you want to meet potential partners in a setting where you can showcase your skills and where you have an excuse to meet every couple weeks then volunteering for a committee is great
3. Working events: Most trade associations have big events from time to time. The format is typically:
   1. An important decision maker from a government agency speaks
   2. There are panels with heavy hitters from industry
   3. Structured networking sessions.
4. If you are there as an attendee it can be overwhelming and challenging to find an excuse to talk to anybody. However, if you are part of the host committee first you will:
   1. Have free access to the event
   2. An excuse to talk to anyone
   3. Early access to the speakers
   4. Time to network with the other people putting the event together

Rants and Reflections

My unscripted thoughts after coaching hundreds of small government contractors over the last 10 years