Create an Effective Capability Statement | Episode 25

A Capability Statement is your government resume representing your business. It is your opportunity to make a good first impression and positively impacts your ability to win awards.

In this episode of FedBiz’5 we host Anthony D’Attore from FedBiz Access to discuss what makes a Capability Statement effective.

A Capability Statement is usually a one-page government centric resume for your company. Just like in a job interview scenario, it is your opportunity to highlight your strengths and experience.

It should be a concise, aesthetically pleasing, document that speaks to your business's competencies. 

Its purpose is to provide specific information that will convince potential customers within government agencies to do business with you. When written well, a Capability Statement will help differentiate your business from others.

Information to Include on Your Capability Statement:

Company Information: Point of Contact, Contact Information (phone number, email, website,  address), UEI Number, Cage Code, Certified Socio-Economic Status such (WOSB, SDVOSB/VOSB, MBE, 8(a), HUBZone), GSA Schedule, and applicable designations.

Industry Codes: NAICS and PSC Codes for your primary business operations. Do research to pinpoint the codes that make the most sense to your target agency for the products and/or services you offer.

Capability Narrative: A brief ‘About Us’ description, similar to a mission statement. A short, direct, and concise general overview of your company without delving too much into your products/services.

Core Competencies: Listing of products and/or services that speak to the agency you are trying to do business with.  What do you do well? Core Competencies do not need to include everything about your business, and what you are able to do. In fact, they should focus on the needs of your audience.

Differentiators: Why should the government choose you to do business with you over your competition?  List the unique benefits of your products and/or services that set you apart from your competition. How is your business best suited for the needs of the targeted government agency?  A clear statement that relates to specific needs of the agency can help the buyer understand why they should choose you. 

Past Performance: List your previous customers, typically best to list government agency clients, but you can also list commercial clients that you have done similar projects for previously. You should include details such as the date, location, and value of the award.

If you don’t have Past Performance and are a new business, but have extensive past professional experience in the field, list your qualifying experience.

The next step is to market your business.  Do the buyers know who you are?  Do you know how to find them?

FedBiz Access (“FedBiz”) has a fulfillment team that takes the time to understand your business and ask questions to pull information from you to ensure your Capability Statement is the best presentation of your business.  

FedBiz also offers marketing packages to targeted buyers in the federal government with its Federal Connections Package and on the state, local, and education market with its Local Connections Package.

Visit us: FedBizAccess.com

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Need help in the government marketplace? Call a FedBiz Specialist today: 844-628-8914

Or, schedule a complimentary consultation at your convenience. 

Transcript

Episode 25 - Capability Statements

Jesse Sherr  00:03

My name is Jesse, and I work with small businesses in the government marketplace. 

Jesse Sherr  00:07

You're listening to FedBiz'5, where you get informed, get connected, and get results on everything government contracting. 

Jesse Sherr  00:18

Hello, and welcome to another podcast. Today, Anthony is here and the topic of discussion is capability statements and what you need to include for the most positive impact. 

Jesse Sherr  00:28

Hello Anthony, how are you? 

Anthony D'Attore  00:29

Pretty well, thanks. Thanks for asking.

Jesse Sherr  00:31

Absolutely. First off, for our newer listeners, what is a capability statement?

Anthony D'Attore  00:36

Alright, so a capability statement is usually a one-page government centric resume for your company. 

Anthony D'Attore  00:44

It's a marketing piece. It's designed to make a good impression, just like your resume was when you had one for your last job. Right. So, that's really what a capability statement is in a nutshell.

Jesse Sherr  00:57

It's a resume for the government. 

Anthony D'Attore  00:58

Yes, that's right. That's right. But there's certain aspects to it that are important to include on each and every capability statement. 

Anthony D'Attore  01:07

You should have an area that includes your corporate data, which would include CAGE Code, your new UEI number, Unique Entity ID (identification) number is what that is. And, that's been put into effect almost a month to the day, and it takes the place of the DUNS number. 

Jesse Sherr  01:26

Right. 

Anthony D'Attore  01:27

I would include NAICS Codes. And, the NAICS codes thing is a tricky thing because you don't want to go crazy with your NAICS codes, because you don't want to look unfocused, right? 

Anthony D'Attore  01:37

If you have 20 NAICS Codes, and they're all over the place. It makes it hard for somebody to determine what it is you do well, right? So I would keep it to five NAICS Codes. 

Anthony D'Attore  01:49

Now, it's entirely possible that your company does do all those things. Well, in that case, I would have different NAICS codes attached to different capability statements. 

Anthony D'Attore  01:51

So, if I was focusing my company, if I was selecting an agency that I was targeting, well the first thing I would do is I would go to that agency website to see how they suggest I do my capability statements. 

Anthony D'Attore  01:59

Some agencies want you to do two pages. Some of them want them front and back. So, I would take a look and see if they have any recommendations. If they don't, then what you're doing is fine. But I would tailor it to either an opportunity I was going for, or I would tailor it to the agency that I was targeting. 

Anthony D'Attore  02:26

Try to learn the language that they use. What's important to them? An agency may use different language to describe the same thing. One agency may call it, somebody else use this example and I like it, water purification, while another agency might call it water filtration. It's the same thing, but you want to target the language to the agency that they use, that they're familiar with.

Jesse Sherr  02:49

So essentially, you want to find out what does the reviewer want to see? Right? 

Anthony D'Attore  02:53

Oh yeah, and what are they looking for? 

Jesse Sherr  02:55

Right. Yeah. 

Anthony D'Attore  02:56

Okay. Good question. Because it's valuable, and of course this requires some work. Now, you might have your capability statement, and it's a basic capability statement. It's something that you could use to hand out seminars and stuff like that, and that's good. 

Anthony D'Attore  03:12

And you may want to have, sometimes if it's allowed, you might have a second page. So, I know that sometimes I see sources sought. I know I've killed that topic, but a source may ask for a two-page capability statement. And the second page you want to focus on exactly what they're looking for in that sources sought, right? They may ask for an extended capability statement. 

Jesse Sherr  03:35

Okay, so what else is important to have on your capability statement?

Anthony D'Attore  03:39

Okay, so the corporate data. You want to have a capability narrative. It can be equated to a mission statement. And because it's a capability statement, it's not, or a capability narrative in this case, you can expand on it a little bit. You can use a little flowerish there. Don't go crazy, but you know, you can expand a little bit. 

Anthony D'Attore  03:57

You want to have your core competencies. What do you do well? And that's another area where you want to be careful. You want to make sure that your core competencies are really focused on the service or goods that you're trying to present to that particular viewer. 

Anthony D'Attore  04:13

Differentiators. A lot of people struggle with differentiators. It's not what makes you different. Why you and not somebody else? That simple.

Jesse Sherr  04:22

I feel like that was a pretty important one personally.

Anthony D'Attore  04:24

It is, but so many people make it more complicated than it needs to be. If you have a business, and you're working commercially, and you have clients that come back and tell you wow, you know I really appreciated this experience because of this. And you get that a couple of times or a few times. Well, you know what? That's a differentiator, right? It differentiates you from competition.

Anthony D'Attore  04:43

Another section that should be in is past performance or corporate experience. Now past performance, if you're using this as a federal government resume, when a contracting officer sees the word past performance, they think its federal. If they look at it, and it's not federal, there's a slight disconnect there. It's just a question of the language. 

Anthony D'Attore  05:07

That's not to say that your other experience, your commercial experience or work that you've done with state and local governments, is not important,,it is. But you need to frame it differently. 

Anthony D'Attore  05:17

Past performance to a federal purchaser’s mind means federal. Corporate experience is state and local, and commercial, which is all valuable. And it could refer to, let's say it's a fairly new company but the CEO of that company or the owner of that company brings this vast past experience in the commercial world, or that maybe they worked with the government before. The value of that knowledge doesn't go away just because you started your own company. You present it in such a way so you know that experience is coming to the table, but you're not qualifying it as past performance for the company itself. 

Anthony D'Attore  05:55

So, it's a little bit of a tightrope walk there. But all that is valuable. You also, if you're talking about specific projects, you probably want to mention the value. You know, like what were you paid for that project? If I'm a purchaser, a federal purchaser, and I see a company that the only thing on there is a $2,000 project, but I'm looking at a $4 million project. Do I have the confidence that you'll be able to perform on that and be able to manage that project? I don't know. 

Anthony D'Attore  06:27

So, it's important if you've worked on bigger projects, if you've been a subcontractor, oh by the way a subcontractor on a federal contract, you can call that past performance to. But it's perfectly acceptable because at the end of the day, the end user was a federal user. You know, so like I said, every agency is a little bit different. They make different recommendations, and you should be able to be fluid with your capability statements. 

Anthony D'Attore  06:49

You have your initial information, and you want to be able to swap that information out or add to it as as the agency suggests or as the target suggests.

Jesse Sherr  06:58

Excellent. So, one thing that was not mentioned is socio-economic.

Anthony D'Attore  07:02

I know I've said this before, but with the socio-economic, yes, you want it on there. You certainly do want that if you are eligible for a socio-economic set aside. You certainly want to have that on there. 

Anthony D'Attore  07:14

I would differentiate between whether I was self-certified, or whether I've gotten a third-party certification. The SBA is kind of doing away with self-certifications in a lot of areas. 

Anthony D'Attore  07:25

So, if I was self-certified as a woman-owned business, I would write out the words woman-owned business. And then I would parenthetically put self-certified. If I had actually gone through the process of being third party certified I would say certified, and I would put that emblem somewhere. And that could be an extension of your corporate data as well. 

Anthony D'Attore  07:48

I just wouldn't lead the charge with it, right? I wouldn't start my mission statement by saying, I'm a woman-owned small business that... Because that's not your value proposition.

Jesse Sherr  07:57

Right.

Anthony D'Attore  07:58

It's important on these to recognize what your real value is, what your value proposition is. And then it's what you bring to the table. 

Jesse Sherr  08:05

Solid advice. I appreciate it. Thank you for coming on, and we'll catch up with you later.

Anthony D'Attore  08:11

All right. Take care. Bye-bye.

Jesse Sherr  08:13

This concludes this week's episode of FedBiz'5, where you get informed, get connected, and get results. 

Jesse Sherr  08:23

Today's podcast is sponsored by FedBiz Access. Government contracting made simple.

Jesse Sherr  08:29

Visit them at FedBizAccess.com or contact them at 888-299-4498.