If you haven't seen it, look at the video on www.youtube.com of Scott McKain and his 5 minute presentation on "Taxi Terry".  It is great just for the sake of humor but also to drive the point that in today's business world a business owner has to decide what the purpose of the business is then plan how to do the best job possible to focus on that purpose.  In the process of discovering your purpose, you will decide what you are not as well as what you are.  I have decided I have tried long enough and hard enough to get the attention of procurement people in federal, state, and local governments.  I spend untold hours and fair sum of money all last year to get the attention of the federal government.  I believed all the press about the stimulus and how Uncle Sam wanted to buy from me.  I spent hours writing capability statements to tell them what I could supply and handed out flash drives with 15 statements on them last spring at their conference where they insisted they wanted to do business with me.  The last "straw" was getting a call from the Navy at Lakehurst, NJ asking me to come up with a proposal to create plastic templates to use in probing the wings of aircraft.  With hours of effort and two FEDEX shipments of samples, the requestor says "That will work."   I have called repeatedly and keep getting "It is up to Contracting".  I believe the lower bidder got it.  On another bid opportunity for the Defense Commissary Agency, I found out I was bidding against a manufacturer on a nice size contract.
From now on, I may look at the bid notices just to see what they are buying but all my competitors are free to go after that stuff from now on.  I want to focus on people who want to grow their business and want to learn more about it.  I think I have figured out a few things like commitment to excellence and the Internet.  Will share others are I try them out.  Check back often or subscribe to see what I am up to. M