Win Through Listening And Demonstrating An Understanding Of Your Government Customer

Image: Amira Aya Irgui Why is it important to listen to your customers?

“WASHINGTON TECHNOLOGY” By Nick Coppings

“Maya Angelou was right in saying: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

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“We’ve all seen it happen. Perfect capture process. Solid gate reviews. Competitive pricing. Great Solution. Awesome Past Performance.

And then, you don’t win the contract.

Sarah, an experienced capture manager, was shocked by the customer feedback: “The winning bidder showed a deeper understanding of our challenges.” This happens all the time. Government Accountability Office protest data shows that better customer understanding often beats a complacent incumbent.

The truth? Most contractors collect high-level information but miss the real intelligence that comes with customer connection.

What Your Customer Isn’t Telling You

Government procurement follows strict rules, but people still make the final decisions, and people make decisions emotionally. Maya Angelou was right in saying: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

A former government executive shared: “When contractors pumped me for intel, I’d give them the standard answer. But the ones I felt cared about me got more detailed answers.”

More often than not, this deeper level of intel wins contracts.

Collection vs. Connection: A Tale of Two Contractors

Picture these two approaches:

Contractor A brings a checklist of 12 questions to the customer meeting. They barely listen, rushing to ask the next question on the list. They interrupt the natural conversation to get back to their agenda. They leave excited about all the intel they collected. The customer leaves feeling like they’ve just been interrogated.

Contractor B starts with connection questions and then acknowledges reality: “I know you’re dealing with budget cuts. How is that affecting your team?” The conversation covers the same ground as contractor A but feels completely different to the customer. Contractor B gets the same intelligence plus something money can’t buy real insight into what matters.

Both got intelligence. Only one got an understanding of what matters to the customer and an invitation to a follow-up meeting.

The Blind Spot Most CGOs Miss

As a chief growth officer, you hire experienced professionals who you assume know how to engage effectively with customers. Our research says that’s a dangerous assumption.

More than 80% of participants in our Masterclass training program—executives, BD professionals, capture managers, and subject matter experts—believe they possess strong customer engagement skills. Yet when we record them during role-playing exercises, the playback often becomes a moment of profound self-awareness.

Common issues we observe include:

• Thinking about what to say next question instead of listening

• Asking leading questions that serve their agenda, not the customer’s

• Missing cues that signal what matters

• Jumping to provide a solution before understanding the real problem

After watching their recording, a program director shared, “I didn’t realize how self-centered my engagements were until I watched myself on video. Painful!”

Discriminators Come from Real Connection

Noblis beat incumbent Booz Allen Hamilton in a 2021 DTRA task order, not with a lower price or fancy solution, but because they showed a “thorough understanding of requirements.” With identical technical scores, Noblis won by demonstrating that they fully understood what the customer needed.

In another case, a CGO inherited a 15% win rate. Instead of overhauling processes or cutting prices, he focused on improving his entire team’s engagement skills. Within 18 months, their win rate had almost tripled.

“We stopped treating meetings like interrogations,” he explained, “and started asking about their challenges and priorities, not just checking off intel for our capture deck slides.”

Transform Your ’26 Results Starting Today

The procurement cycles for fiscal 2026 are already underway. Companies that improve their engagement skills will quickly see improved relationships and higher win rates. Waiting means your competitors get the game-changing intel, while at best, you collect the same intel everyone else is getting.”

Your government customers face pressures they rarely discuss in formal meetings. What they don’t tell you matters more than what they do, and they only share the real story with the people they trust.

Understanding the unspoken needs separates winners from losers. And customers only open up to those they ‘feel’ care about their success.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

As Senior Partner at Hi-Q Group, Nic Coppings brings over 20 years of experience in the Government market, helping organizations secure billions in contract wins.