Re: Ranking Virginia's Universities
Posted by:
good response and questions
()
Date: June 29, 2014 09:51AM
>
> interesting points here. always thought
> government contracting was in accordance with
> procurement regulations that required low bidding.
>
>
> so to tie back to the original conversation of
> ranking the state universities, paper ranking
> based on GPA and SAT of the student body doesn't
> really matter since universities don't offer
> confer degrees in schmoozing. success in this
> realm is a combination of academic intelligence,
> personality, and enjoyment of after hours
> professional socializing.
Well put on both points, and yes, you are correct, government contracting is indeed driven by low bidding...but there are indeed subtleties to the process, and those subtleties do closely resemble selling...the process is not always so sterile.
Flip through a military aviation magazine, for example...there are "ads" for military airplanes (jet fighters, tankers, cargo planes), and other such equipment costing millions of dollars apiece. If the process was so sterile, why would these manufacturers even bother with advertising? Are these ads targeted to consumers like you and I, where we might say, gee, that F-22 would look sweet in my driveway, and I've got $200 million laying around? Of course not.
Because it does still require public relations, selling, influence, etc...and so it is important that these manufacturers publicize these products in a positive fashion to ALL who might be involved with the process...for example, senator X, whose district includes the plant where the plane will be built...it pays to have him familiar with this plane, and all of the sudden, he is pushing all his buttons to get this plane "procured"...and thus, built in his district where he is now a hero for bringing jobs, etc., and gets re-elected.
No, it is not a matter of the procurement team looking at these magazines, and saying, gee...look at this F-22...I didn't even know those things existed...let's buy a bunch of those, because of this cool ad. But, it doesn't hurt if they are familiar with a product they are reviewing, though.
Again, this is a "high end" marketing and selling campaign, much different than cold-calling and door knocking sales than some people think of as the only "sales" possible.
And so, just as these multi-million dollar items have print and other media sales campaigns associated with them, they also have high-end, sophisticated people as part of these teams...involved in a sophisticated selling process (not knocking on doors with a salesman's sample box, mind you), and making a lot of $$$ doing so.
How do I know this?
Because I studied history in college, and I paid close attention to the development of the military-industrial complex in America since the beginning of the 20th century. I studied writings by such folks as Smedley Butler, and studied the development and procurement process of military equipment in the post World war II, cold war era.
And, I took courses in mechanical engineering, when my liberal arts studies allowed me to do so...just to know some basics and understand the complexity of that world...which is indeed very complex.
I paid attention to current events on the hill.
You can get a good education out of anything, or, you can say, I studied history in college, and all I learned was things like the fall of the Roman Empire...what the hell am I gonna do with that?
Professional socializing is but a small part of it. Being educated, understanding the world and the players and what is important to them is a bigger part. Being cultured and/or polished, or perhaps just appearing polished, is very important, when trying to work in this world.
Higher tier colleges are more competitive by their very nature...one must compete with smarter and perhaps more motivated people to keep up.
Back to sales, many people tend to oversimplify sales and think of it only through their lens and experience...which may be getting on the phone and trying to get somebody to change their long distance service, or going door-to-door trying to sell some product. There is nothing wrong with those type of sales at all, and indeed there is good money to be made.
However, there is a higher end sale, whereby it is more influence, connecting dots, and consists of subtelties beyond cold-calling.
And understand, where there are millions of dollars involved, it will be very competitive...and there will be some form of sales, and people paid very well to work these processes...usually pretty dam smart people.