Positioned before it posts.
Gaines & Associates provides capture, business development and marketing services for architecture, engineering and construction firms. I position your firm with the customer in the twelve to twenty-four months before a solicitation ever posts.
Winning a solicitation starts long before the proposal process, at least a year earlier. It starts with understanding the customer’s mission and priorities before the requirement is written, and putting bid and proposal dollars only behind pursuits you can actually win.
None of that comes from writing faster. It comes from knowing what is coming, knowing the people who own it, and having the discipline to walk away from the pursuits that are not aligned with your firm’s goals.
That is the whole of my practice: intelligence early, relationships kept warm, and a qualification screen honest enough to tell you no.
A business development function, without the headcount
You do excellent work and you win when you get in front of the customer. What you do not have is anyone whose full-time job is making sure that happens on purpose.
- A pipeline built from agency forecasts and expiring contracts, not from SAM postings
- A call plan that puts you in front of decision-makers before the requirement locks
- A qualification score that protects your principals' unbillable hours
- Teaming and mentor-protégé relationships brokered, not hoped for
Capture surge capacity when a must-win needs it
Your BD team is not short on effort. It is short on capacity at the moment a must-win pursuit needs a full-time owner and your director is running five at once.
- Named must-wins run to a real capture plan through the gate reviews
- 8(a), SDVOSB, WOSB and HUBZone partner sourcing, vetting and JV structuring
- Entry into an agency, district or region where you have no past performance
- Pipeline discipline applied to what you already have in the funnel
Advance your firm's presence in the federal and state market, and win the work that builds your future.
What I do, and how the work is structured
Eight core competencies, four ways to engage. Every engagement starts with an agreed scope. Fees follow the scope, never the other way around.
Capture Management
Named pursuits run end to end: customer intelligence, win strategy, capture plan, teaming, and gate reviews that actually gate.
Business Development
Forecast mining, agency and district targeting, call plans, conference strategy, and the follow-through that turns a meeting into a position.
Bid / No-Bid Discipline
Ten criteria that are easy to understand and apply, so every pursuit gets the same honest look and your leadership gets one number it can act on.
Teaming & Partner Strategy
Finding, vetting and brokering prime and subcontract partners, including 8(a), SDVOSB, WOSB and HUBZone firms, mentor-protégé arrangements and joint ventures.
Tradeshow & Conference Strategy
Which events are worth your travel budget, who you need to meet there, what you say, and what happens in the two weeks after.
Market Research & Pipeline Hygiene
Turning a list of solicitations into a forecast with owners, stages, dated next actions, realistic values and a capacity check.
SF330 Advisory: strategy, not production
Which projects and key personnel to feature, and how a draft reads against the evaluation criteria. Your team writes it; I do not produce SF330s.
Business Development Training
Training your seller-doers to run the process after I am gone. Delivered virtually by default, with in-person delivery available at additional cost.
Advisory Retainer
Best for: firms with a working pipeline that need judgment, not hands. Standing access, pursuit reviews, and a second set of eyes on the calls that matter.
Embedded Business Development
Best for: firms building a public-sector presence from a standing start. I work as your BD function, covering pipeline, calls and positioning, until there is something to hand over.
Fractional BD Director
Best for: firms ready to grow but not ready to hire a director. Senior ownership of the pipeline and the pursuit portfolio, at the fraction of a week the work honestly needs.
Pursuit-Based Capture
Best for: a named pursuit too important to run off the side of a desk. One opportunity, one capture plan, one owner, through award.
On fees: scope is agreed before rates are discussed. A smaller budget buys a narrower scope, not a lesser effort, and everything built during the engagement stays with your firm.
What I do not do
Naming the edges of the practice is faster than discovering them mid-pursuit.
- No proposal production. I do not prepare SF330s, project sheets, resumes or past performance libraries. I set the table for the team that does.
- No price-to-win.
- No sharing of a competitor’s proposal information or the government’s evaluation information. I follow procurement integrity rules on every engagement, without exception.
- No working both sides of a pursuit. Conflicts are disclosed in writing before the engagement begins.
The capture cycle
Six stages, run in order. Most firms are strong at one or two of them and have never been told which ones they are skipping.
Intelligence
Relationships
Qualification
Positioning
Pursuit Execution
Award & Growth
The bid / no-bid model
Not every opportunity deserves your principals' unbillable hours. The score decides which ones do, and it is simple enough to explain in a sentence, which is the only kind of score a leadership team will keep using.
I use ten criteria that are very easy to understand and implement across your firm.
Your leadership sees one number and knows what to do with it: resource it, condition it, watch it, or walk away. Everyone from principals to project managers can apply it the same way, which is what keeps it in use after I am gone.
I integrate into how your firm already works
I do not arrive with a system you have to adopt. I start by learning your firm: how work gets won today, who owns which relationships, what your principals are already carrying, and where the pipeline actually lives. Only then do I know where you need help and where you do not.
Your people, your past performance, your customers and your current pursuits. The strengths you already have are the ones worth positioning.
I work inside your existing processes and tools rather than replacing them, so the discipline fits the way your team already operates.
Fill the gaps where you need help, train your seller-doers along the way, and leave a pipeline your leadership can run without me.
Bring me the pursuit you are least sure about. That is the conversation worth having first.
Where the relationships are
Based in the Baltimore and Washington, DC Metro Area, I hold relationships across the AEC market and work anywhere in the country when the pursuit justifies it.
Agencies where I have run pursuits, hold standing relationships, or both:
- Dept. of Veterans Affairs
- NAVFAC
- USACE
- U.S. Air Force
- NASA
- Dept. of State
- GSA
- DTRA
- DHS
State, county and municipal solicitations run on a similar contracting and procurement process, and the goal remains the same: to win the work that best suits your firm.
The capture process does not change with the industry. Forecasts, relationships and honest qualification work the same whether the requirement is a facility or a services contract.
I support information technology firms competing for the same public customers, and I am open to work in other industries where the pursuit fits.
Firms of every size in the AEC market
Architecture, engineering, construction and environmental firms, from 8(a) and small businesses building their first federal position, to mid-size and large firms that need senior capture capacity on a must-win without adding headcount.
The process is the same. What changes is whether I am installing it, or running inside the one you already have.
- Federal AEC capture and business development
- SAME Baltimore Post, Past President and current Director
- Baltimore and Washington, DC Metro Area
- National practice, Mid-Atlantic roots
A capture practice built on relationships and repetition
I have spent my career on the capture side of federal architecture, engineering and construction work, positioning firms at VA, NAVFAC, USACE, the Air Force, NASA, the Department of State, DTRA and GSA. Along the way I have learned that the firms who win consistently are rarely the best writers. They are the ones who engaged the customer early, knew what the customer was actually trying to solve, and had the discipline to focus on the pursuits that truly fit them.
Gaines & Associates exists to give that discipline to firms that cannot justify a full-time business development department, and to give firms that already have one the senior capacity to run a must-win properly.
Through the Society of American Military Engineers, where I served as President of the Baltimore Post and continue as a Director, I have spent years in the rooms where government engineers, program managers and industry meet. Those relationships are not a marketing line. They are the reason a call gets returned.
This is a principal-led practice. When you engage the firm, I am the one doing the work. That is also why the scope comes before the fee, and why I will tell you when a pursuit is not the right fit for your firm.
To be the business development and marketing partner AEC and technology firms trust to help them grow, compete and win in the federal and public market.
Gaines & Associates helps AEC and technology firms win contracting opportunities through a disciplined, strategic, relationship-focused capture approach.
Let's talk about what is in your pipeline and what should not be.
Start a conversation
Tell me about the firm and what you are chasing. The first conversation is about fit and scope, nothing else.
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Advance your firm's presence in the federal and state market, and win the work that builds your future.