The end of New York City’s fiscal year is June 30, 2018. It’s a time when New York City agencies are preparing their budgets for the upcoming year and evaluating spending and vendor performance for the previous period. This is an exciting time to connect with NYC agencies about their plans for the upcoming year and share ideas about how your product/service could help the agency to meet specific goals.
As the year ends, Mayoral Agencies are very focused on meeting Mayor Bill de Blasio’s goal to increase MWBE utilization by 30% by 2021, and award $16 Billion to MWBEs by 2025. The door is open to MWBEs to connect with agency buyers. The key to success is preparation.
Here are Five Tips to Help You Connect with Year End Opportunities
- Procurement Readiness: Before you consider doing business with NYC, it’s important you familiarize yourself with the procurement process. The NYC Department of Small Business Services is offering several free courses throughout NYC, providing an overview of the process and requirements for doing business with the government. Even if you think you already know how to do business with NYC, I recommend taking one of the courses offered as a refresher.
- Market Research: Before reaching out to NYC Agencies, it’s important to identify agencies where your firm can add value. You need to connect the products/services you are selling with buyer needs, as well as agency expectations. It’s not just about selling. It’s about delivering products/services in a cost effective and efficient manner, while delivering excellent customer service.
- Marketing Tools: At minimum you need to have a good, clear, concise, and easy to understand elevator speech, business cards and a capability statement. Your marketing tools should be the best reflection of your business, they should be branded and up-to-date with current information about your business, your capacity, and past performance.
- Marketing Strategy: Before starting your outreach to agencies, consider the entire marketing process from beginning to end. What are you going to send out and when? What is the call to action for the buyers? Do you want them to call, e-mail, fill out a form? How will you keep track of your activities and responses?
- Financial Capacity: Buyers are risk adverse. It’s important you have a strategy for mobilizing projects that consider how much cash you will need to meet basic business obligations, such as operating expenses, overhead, and insurance, in addition to the cost associated with onboarding a new contract.
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