Providing high-quality support and establishing and maintaining client relationships is the bedrock of our business. Our outstanding relationships with our clients are essential, and you’re the key component in that. But it’s hard to feel connected to Invictus and our growth trajectory if you spend all day at client site. So where can you go with your innovative ideas?
I spent nearly 20 years at various client sites and learned that I couldn’t do this alone. When I wanted to better support my clients’ mission, improve my own professional skills, and advance within my career, I needed other people to help me.
You don’t always need a 100% fully developed solution. Write your thoughts down, we want your ideas! You’re in the client space every day, you see the gaps even if you don’t consciously make note of them, you know how things could be done more efficiently. Identify the gap, formulate a general idea of how it could be solved, and then find the right people to help you investigate. If you have an idea, bring it forward. Your peers and your leadership can help you find the resources you need to make it a reality.
On the other hand, when you’ve developed a unique solution, connect to others and share it. Each of us should look to connect to others doing similar work on other programs. There are always lessons learned or solutions implemented that can be used for other clients.
Invictus is in the unique position that we often have the flexibility to add solutions or capabilities quite quickly. A few of our cyber contracts, ACT2 and OSCER for example, provide avenues for clients to add funds for work of similar scope and we can usually start that work in less than a month after the money is sent.
Working collaboratively and sharing intellectual capital is a win-win for everyone. It ensures that your innovative ideas and solutions are recognized and implemented across contracts, it helps your peers with their own clients’ mission, and it affirms to our clients that Invictus is the industry leader in providing solutions that they need. We excel everywhere we deliver because our people take solutions beyond their immediate clients and share valuable information across the company.
Developing solutions and growing the business does not always mean working proposals. That’s some of what we do but winning back and adding to existing work would only account for 3-5% growth each year. It’s the NEW ideas, the NEW solutions that are going to help us continue to grow as we have over the past 7 years. These innovations also help you grow, and help our clients grow. We tactically sell by listening to our clients’ challenges, mapping them to our capabilities (e.g., full spectrum cyber, enterprise IT, software engineering, intel analysis, etc.), and working with our BD team to identify contract solutions.
That said, proposals are a great way to better understand what we do. You don’t have to be involved with every proposal effort, but at least make it a goal to understand what your contract specializes in and work with your PM to see how you may be able to contribute to the next proposal, either your program’s recompete or something else where we may be proposing a similar capability.
In sum, as Invictus consultants, there’s so much you can do to grow the business even if you are in a delivery role and 100% at client site. You should anticipate your clients’ needs and help them formulate ways to get those needs met. Ask your clients questions and demonstrate you care about their mission beyond the scope of work you are assigned. Share your knowledge with project leadership, and through him or her, connect with other Invictus experts, including business development professionals who can help translate your idea to an available contract and ultimately create a sale that delivers value to the client.
So, if you have that great idea, we certainly want to hear from you. Contact our CEO Jim Kelly jim.kelly@invictusic.com and our VP for BD Sean Papso sean.papso@invictusic.com! Remember…your ideas can shape Invictus’ future.