Landing Those Contracts

The rules of the game may have changed, but opportunity still exists if you know where to look.

By Dennis McCafferty
12:00 AM EST Mon. Dec. 10, 2007
From the December 10, 2007 issue of GovernmentVAR

1. Past performance may be your strongest marketing tool. No matter what size the government customer is, a VAR's reputation always counts when it comes to winning a contract. Heartland Technologies, a Harlan, Iowa-based VAR that sells Windows Vista solutions, found that positive word-of-mouth through its education customers has helped contribute to a growing niche that now accounts for one-quarter of its revenue.

"The education space is definitely one that is impacted by word-of-mouth," said Arlin Sorensen, CEO/partner at Heartland.

Word-of-mouth has also served AtTask well. The Orem, Utah-based VAR has parlayed its successful project-management solutions with a number of state and local customers into the federal space.

"When it came to winning a major federal Health and Human Services project, we were able to direct the customer to clients such as the New York City Department of Health, and the state universities of New York," said AtTask CEO Scott Johnson.