Where are purchases for your product typically made within the DoD command structure?

It seems like a relatively simple question, but this one fact radically defines your target customer base. Now how big that potential customer base is also happens to define a big chunk of the difficulty of making a sale within the DoD as well. You don’t have to have a niche product, if that product is only purchased by a small if not singular organization within the DoD. The statistical odds of a sale are roughly the same. That isn’t to say those odds are zero, far from it, but if you only have a small number of potential customers that is lower odds than having many and separate possible ones. The point being to understand the game that you are playing. That way you can decide if it is a game you want to play, and then if so, to understand what realistic odds you have of winning that game.

It's just as big of an indication if a company can’t clearly define their target customer base in the DoD, as it is if the company believes that all DoD customers are equal. Money varies, the type of money varies in distribution, the personalities differ greatly at command levels, priorities vary per command and leadership, and that’s just a short listing of many more factors. There is no upper limit on the amount of knowledge you should have about your potential customers, only a limit on what information is possible for you to gain within a certain period of time. Ultimately you don’t go on a time-critical mission when you are ready, you got when you are ready enough.

Do you have enough information about your customers to be successful?

...Are you sure?