Executive Program in Federal Business Development - refine your marketing, business development, and program management skills to ensure a sustainable, revenue-healthy pipeline into the federal acquisition marketplace.
2023 Brings new pricing and new formats to accommodate budgets and scheduling of professionals while continuing to provide the best business development training in the industry.
Business Development: The original program is still offered in four closely associated, 16-hour courses.
- Part 1: Federal Marketing (Successful Customer Engagement) – 16 hours,
- May 1-2, 2023
- Part 2: Capture Management (Business Development Life Cycle) – 16 hours
- May 9-10, 2023
- Part 3: Service Delivery Excellence (Organic Growth) – 16 hours
- May 15-16, 2023
- Part 4: Federal Acquisition Insights (Ask the Contracting Officer) – 16 hours
- May 11-12, 2023
New 2023 Registration Fees:
- $1,200/per person for each course
- 10% discount if you register for all four courses: only $4,320.
Location: All classes are virtual via Zoom.
Business Development Essentials: This is a streamed-down version of the original fitting each topic into a single 8-hour day. Although not as robust, essential topics are explored, providing the students an overall understanding of each practice area.
- Part 1: Successful Customer Engagement – 8 hours
- June 8, 2023
- Part 2: Capture Management – 8 hours
- June 15, 2023
- Part 3: Service Delivery – 8 hours
- June 21, 2023
- Part 4: Federal Acquisition – 8 hours
- June 28, 2023
New 2023 Registration Fees:
- $595/per person for each course
- 10%discount if you register for all four courses: only $2,142.
Audience:
- Entry-level to seasoned business development and federal sales professionals.
- C-level officers and industry executives responsible for revenue growth.
- Military and Government Executives transitioning into the Private Sector.
- Those seeking certification as a Business Development Professional or Executive.
Instructors:
Gloria Parker, Founder and CEO, Parker Group Consulting, former Cabinet-level Federal CIO and a top 1% sales leader for a Fortune 500 company. Author of “The Billion Dollar Secret – From a Former Government Executive”
Mike Rice, Founder of CornerStone with 40 years of experience in Federal Business Development, author: “In Pursuit – A Business Development Life Cycle.”
Thomas Boyce, Principal Consultant, TMB Strategies, 40 years of experience in IT, former Federal CIO, and experience winning over $1 billion in Federal contracts.
William Randolph, Founder of THINK Acquisition and former federal Senior Procurement Executive (SES) with 26 years of acquisition and contracting experience and winner, David Packard Excellence in Acquisition.
Executive Summary and Key Takeaways

Learn the skills and techniques necessary to build engaging, successful government partnerships, translate those relationships into compliant, compelling, and winning proposals, and maintain those same partnerships through quality service delivery founded on a thorough understanding of the Federal Acquisition life cycle. These executive education offerings meet the needs of the executive management, business development, capture professionals, and service delivery personnel for today's most significant industry leaders. These practices are tailored to ensure a sustainable, revenue-healthy pipeline into the federal marketplace. While many will offer similar-sounding offerings, few will have high-quality course content, proven in practice at multiple fortune 500 companies, developed by experienced and successful executives with real-world experience from the industry and federal customer perspectives. GMU Schar teaches federal contractors the skills and techniques necessary to build winning, successful government partnerships, translate those relationships into compliant, compelling, and winning proposals, and maintain those same partnerships through quality service delivery.
Certification: Students who finish the entire program or parts of the program will receive an Executive certificate of completion for the finished class hour, both in electronic and hard copy.
Course Highlights and Features

The program is founded around four pillars that provide the business development executive the knowledge to become an expert in all aspects of U.S. Government Contracting. GMU takes our students on the journey from learning about federal opportunities to successfully obtaining targeted contract awards. The results are a more realistic pipeline and opportunities with highly enhanced PWINS. The outcome is awarded contracts that sustain revenue corporate growth. The first three pillars are fortified by the fourth pillar that represents unmatched depth in the knowledge of the Federal acquisition processes taught by our senior federal acquisition professional.
Part 1: Federal Marketing: Mastering this course will transform any corporate executive and business development professional into a customer engagement expert. Our student experts represent the top performers in the Washington DC business development force. Upon mastering this course, you will understand the anatomy of the Federal Government, budget priorities, policies, and processes. We will teach you whom to connect with, how to make the connection, ways to make that all-important first impression, and execute a successful customer meeting designed around a win/win for both the customer and your firm. These methods have been validated by Federal Executives and Industry experts across the community.
Part 2: Capture Management: The Business Development Life Cycle was designed to identify opportunities early, qualifying those opportunities to ensure a trim, healthy and active pipeline. The framework walks you through building your capture plan, Offer Design, and pricing resulting in a compliant and compelling proposal. We prepare you for post-proposal activities such as orals preparation, best and final offer, and clarification questions. Finally, upon successful or unsuccessful award, we teach you how to prepare for an informative debrief to facilitate your retrospective and continuous capture improvement. Corporately practiced establishes the firm's business capture rhythm. Independently practiced increases your skillset as a business development professional, experiencing the enjoyment of successful pursuits and personal wins.
Part 3: Service Delivery Excellence: You’ve won the contract! Now what? First and foremost, you must demand excellence in your service delivery team and protect the relationship built by your Business Development Pros. Did you know that you need to be working on the re-compete on “Day One” of your contract? Did you know that two of the three business development pursuit types embrace operations? Business Development establishes that trusted partnership with the customer. As the Program Manager, you maintain and solidify that partnership while expanding relationships within the customer agency. Learn strategies to successfully manage your program, protect your CPARS posture, build a thriving workforce, identify areas of organic growth, and ensure that the firm’s re-compete is effectively realized.
Part 4: Federal Acquisition Insights: As Business Development Professionals, we understand our perspective of an acquisition based on our framework of identifying, qualifying, capture, proposal, post-proposal, and post-award activities. But how does the Federal Acquisition Professional view those same time boxes? What is the internal workflow of the acquisition workforce? How are solicitations put together, and how do they relate to the overall Acquisition Strategy? How does the government determine the composition of the Technical Evaluation Board (TEB)? How can I effectively work with the Contracting Officer throughout the Period of Performance? There are so many things we, as industry executives, wished we knew before engaging in the pursuit of government procurements. Get a leg up on your competition and learn the Federal Acquisition Life Cycle from the experts!
About the Instructors

Gloria Parker is the author of “The Billion Dollar Secret – Secrets to Winning Business from a Former Government Executive” (ISBN: 9798668810529). Ms. Parker was a Chief Information Officer (CIO) at two cabinet agencies of the federal government for ten years. She also taught sales at a Fortune 50 corporation. While in the private sector sales arena with IBM, Gloria was awarded the Golden Circle Award, which was presented to the top 1% of the sales force.

Mike Rice brings over 40 years of experience in Business Development, Program Management, Service Delivery, and Information Technology for both the private and public sectors. He is the author of "In Pursuit, A Business Development Life Cycle," "In Pursuit, Coaching Orals," and co-author of "The Billion Dollar Secret." He has engineered specialized hardware devices, developed operating systems, communication protocols, and architected enterprise-wide solutions supporting government mission portfolios. Mr. Rice was privileged and honored to support three Presidential Transition Teams. Over the past decade, his primary focus has been on business development.

Thomas Boyce, PMP, ITIL Expert, CTBME, C|CISO, Tom is an experienced IT Executive with over 40 years of industry experience, bringing a comprehensive knowledge of Government procurement, Federal Acquisition, proposal development, and program/contract management. Tom has run $100 million a year programs as both a Federal and Contractor employee. Having worked in both the Federal Government and as a Federal Contractor, he provides insights and advice gained only through years of experience.

William Randolph was selected into the Senior Executive Service (SES) to lead the U.S. federal government contracts initiatives. William is a decorated United States Navy veteran, a David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award winner, and the Navy/Marine Corps Meritorious Civil Service medal. In August 2016, William retired from the federal government with over 26 years of public service. In 2019, William founded his firm to provide independent acquisition consulting, training, and development focused on increasing all participants' effectiveness, preparation, and competitiveness in the federal government acquisition and procurement arena.
Client Testimonials
“The organization of the content was excellent. Every presentation and workshop was clear, to the point and geared towards my customer relationships. This is exactly what I expected from executive presentations.”
“We had several holes in our process, where our results weren't as measurable, or even predictable. With this training I have an approach for closing those gaps and solidifying our Business Development strategy.”
"Makes you think about customer relationships from a different point of view than day-to-day project management responsibilities."
“The experience showed through via the clarity, quality, and mastery of the presentation content.”
“This is the class that I’ve always wanted to take. Thank you for de-mystifying the sales process and making it executable for me.”
"It is clear that Gloria and Mike very much enjoy teaching and guiding people to achieve success. I very much appreciate the energy and knowledge they brought to the class. I also appreciate the anecdotes, even as a high C/D! Those helped paint a clearer picture in my mind especially with the do's and dont's.
“Very good content to the training. I was able to pick up some very helpful and insightful things that will greatly benefit me in dealing with my customers”
“As a solution architect, I will understand the roles and responsibilities of BDs, Capture, PMs .”
“Everyone’s knowledgeability. We had tons of questions and all were thoroughly answered. Gloria was able to debunk anyone’s thought that we knew how to do this already. There wasn’t anyone who walked away without new info, approaches, etc”
“While not normally giving “5”’s, this training was a top-notch effort worthy of a “5”. The only issue was time...not enough. Gloria was engaging and theatric-effective teacher. Having the resources from outside entities was welcome.”