Not Selling; Solving

by Dave Cassidy, Vice President

When I applied to work at TCG, the job ad said, “Try us, we’ll make you happy.” So my cover letter dared the company to try me, and see if we could make each other happy. TCG takes the same approach into every new and current customer — we assume that we’re going to make each other happy, and everything we do follows from that objective.

In my experience, this represents an unusual approach. Sales and business development — especially in government contracting — are often perceived as the art of giving as little as possible while getting as much as can be grabbed. This is also why I balked at the notion of leading TCG’s business development when Dan proposed the idea. I didn’t want to be that guy, perceived as having ulterior motives of extracting value while giving as little as possible, like a seedy used car salesman.

Instead, TCG’s natural approach to business development focuses not on selling but on solving. We solve technical problems, of course, but that’s not the half of it. Every successful project relies on solving a complex puzzle of technical capabilities, contract engineering, and relationship building. These are at the heart of our conversations with customers and partners about new projects and objectives, and help us focus on collaborating together to build something more amazing than any of us could have achieved individually. In trying, we make each other happy - a positively distinct approach to finding and serving new business and challenges across government.