Finding Meaning as a Small Business

Like many small business owners, this is the time of year we begin developing our strategic plan for 2016. We are growing deliberately and we want to ensure future growth doesn’t sacrifice the level of service we provide to our clients – this always means discussions about new team members and process efficiencies. And we LOVE this discussion. It juices us.

An important component of the strategic plan is – of course – why we do what we do. Are we meaningful? Are we unique in the market? What do we bring to clients that they can’t get elsewhere?

Today, I received an email from a new client who hired us to write a bid response for him. It was a targeted capture for him – a multiple year contract that would allow him to expand into government for the first time and give him a wonderful platform for revenue growth. The problem:  he was coming late to the opportunity and we had a very expedited path to get from solicitation review to complete bid response. (And the response was hard copy, multiple volumes, a monster assembly, really.) It was all hands on deck for writing and review, but we got it in with proof of delivery.

The email from Art reminded me of why our work is meaningful…

“Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your efforts.  I know that we would not have succeeded without you. No matter the outcome, I will be very happy to recommend you to others needing help preparing their proposal.  Thank you JetCo, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you.”

Our team is running at an incredibly frenetic pace right now. Every September is busy for us due to fiscal year end spend, but this year we have unprecedented activity levels even for September. Art’s email came at a great time for our team. Highly enthusiastic and passionate people still need the occasional pep talk. Art reminded us that what we do really matters.

We often joke that our subject matter is spectacularly random and procurement is boring… but we bring hope to small companies about their revenue stream and we put things on paper in a way that makes them proud of their companies.

Meaningful? Hell, yeah.