Are You Making Enough Money in GovCon?
Perhaps you’ve won a few contracts…congrats. But now it’s time to ask yourself, how much money are you actually making?
When you’re just getting started, winning a $10,000 contract feels like a big deal. But by the time you pay for labor, materials, and indirect costs, you might be left with a few hundred bucks. Even if you string together a few of these wins, it’s easy to feel like you’re treading water.
Here’s the truth:
If you want to start making real money in GovCon, it’s not about fixing something you’re doing wrong. It’s about dialing in what’s already working.
The 80/20 Rule Applies Here.
Roughly 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions, Derek. The problem is that most contractors spend too much time on low-return activities—things like tweaking their capability statements, networking at conferences, or chasing after too many different opportunities.
When you audit your time and energy, you’ll find that a small percentage of what you do is driving most of your revenue. Identifying those actions and dialing them in is the key to scaling.
An Inch Becomes a Mile.
Over time, small improvements compound. If you make slight adjustments to how you bid, how you target opportunities, or how you manage subcontractors, those tiny changes will create massive differences a year from now.
What Does It Take to Level Up?
To move to the next level, you don’t need to hustle harder, you need better systems that allow you to leverage your time and focus on higher-value activities. This means:
Developing a repeatable system for qualifying opportunities so you’re not wasting time on bids you shouldn’t chase.
Creating proposal templates and processes that allow you to submit higher-quality bids faster.
Focusing your time on contracts that generate higher margins instead of chasing every possible win.
This is how you move from winning small contracts that pay just enough to stay afloat to landing larger contracts that truly grow your business.
Shift Your Focus from Doing More to Doing Better.
Becoming a contractor who wins bigger contracts doesn’t mean working harder. It means working smarter by investing time into the right activities.
The sooner you dial in your process and create systems that work, the faster you’ll see real growth.
-Derek James