Industry Insight: Self-Promotion A Must In Government Contracting

Self-serving. Many people in government contracting have used that term lately to describe what they don't want to be seen as doing. Calling attention to one's own attributes can surely be seen as boastful and rude in social settings, and no one wants to be seen as boorish lest they sit alone on Saturday nights.

Larry Allen is EVP of the Coalition for Government Procurement (CGP). Look for a new column from CGP twice a month.

Contracting, though, is a business, not a social endeavor.

I would suggest that promoting the positive things achieved by government contracting is not self-serving, but rather "self service." As with the gas station, if we don't pump our own message, who will? What good is it if we run out of gas for fear of self-promotion while others with a different view speed along in the HOV lanes of public perception?

It is perfectly appropriate to point out the efficiencies streamlined government acquisition has brought to the operations of the federal government. Let's face it, all that is wrong with procurement is being splashed across the front pages of national newspapers. We don't do our industry, or our government, any favors by allowing these anecdotal exceptions come across as the standard for our industry. Both the efficient operation of government and government contractors will be lost if we allow this to happen. New laws, aimed at prohibiting the exceptions, are already poised to become our rules.

Just how crazy the situation could become became clear last week when presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made the preposterous statement that she would cut 500,000 contractor jobs if she were elected president. (This from a woman whose husband's administration heralded in revolutionary acquisition reforms and created the marketplace in which many government contractors have thrived for the past decade. ) If she doesn't know any better than to make sweeping remarks that, should they be carried through would bring the business of government to its knees, what can we expect from others in the legislative or executive branch?

A healthy dose of self-promotion is absolutely called for. No one knows our industry like we do. No one knows better how to point out the accomplishments of government contracting in such things as providing first class support to war fighters. No one can tell the story of a government that works better and costs less like those making it happen.

The government contracting industry has a great story to tell -- and it shouldn't be shy about telling it. Some are concerned about the perception and the cost. I say that the perception is defined for us if we don't speak up for ourselves. The cost of saying nothing is exponentially larger than the cost of taking action.

Self-serving? Perhaps. The French might say, "Service non compris," but not serving isn't free either.

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