Relationship Mining -- The Homegrown Advantage (11-03-2004)

A common business developer complaint is: "I'm making plenty of phone calls, but can’t seem to 'hit the bullseye' when it comes to the Federal IT, C&E and S&T markets." For years now, CAI/SISCo’s Silver Bullet Contact Database (SBCD) has been developed to help improve the business developer's aim — whether by phone, fax, e-mail or “snail” mail. Richard Brown, who joined CAI/SISCo as a business developer in early 2003, said "I have worked in the Federal business development space for 15 years, but I’ve never seen anything like the SBCD."

But this is not what we want to tell you about! Our subject here is relationships. Every successful person has them, and successful firms employ lots of successful people. What few firms ever learn and remember is what positive (and negative) relationships its workforce has -- relationships that once known and husbanded can be exploited to achieve greater successes.

Negative relationships are as important to know as positive ones. For instance, it would not be wise to make a person your firm's PM designate for a bid, the SSEB for which includes someone who despises your candidate. Negative or positive, information on relationships of all sorts that could have a material effect on your firm's business can and should be developed as a corporate asset.

Enter a new genre of application software, the so-called Relationship Mining engines. This product space includes several firms such as Spoke Software, Tacit Knowledge Systems, Visible Path and ZeroDegrees. The standard approach to seeding of these product's databases is to mine MS Outlook and Lotus Notes directories. At best, however, this yields names and email addresses and, sometimes, the identity of an individual's employer. From this starting point, a firm uses the product to let certain individuals know with whom their fellow employees have relationships.

This approach, however, is insidious and does not make much progress toward the goals of leveraging employee relationships with key personalities outside or within an extremely large enterprise. In the Federal IT, C&E and S&T communities, CAI/SISCo's SBCD is a resource of over 10,000 community decision makers. The product of 25 years of continuous improvement and maintenance, it is, unequivocally, the best and most economical way for business developers to contact or reach key players within the government community. SBCD customers use SBCD to:

• Seed or feed their relationship mining systems — business systems that, as noted recently in The Wall Street Journal, are increasingly used by cutting-edge companies to help their employees map business and social contacts, make introductions, and network for business purposes
• Extend the reach of their business development and sales force
• Get their product or service considered by stakeholders responsible for teaming decisions on Federal opportunities

The SBCD contains names, titles, company names, addresses, fixed and mobile telephone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses.

The SBCD is a by-product of CAI/SISCo's InfoCentric culture, which ensures that the latest additions and updates are always reflected. And, at only $495 per copy, it’s the bargain of this millennium:

• Unlimited use - no restrictions on use for multiple mail-outs, accessioning to corporate contact databases, or use with personal contact managers
• Price includes 11 monthly updates that allow subscribers to refresh their databases using CAI/SISCo's latest information
• 1,500 government decision makers and 10,000 email addresses: 65% large businesses, 35% small, small disadvantaged, HUB zone, service-disabled, woman-owned, or 8(a)
• Can be delivered in the format of your choice

Hit Your Target! Call Rich Brown today at (301) 840 5959 or send him an email at rbrown@caisisco.com to seed your firm's relationship mining capability with a copy of the SBCD from CAI/SISCo.