G&A Gaines & Associates Business Development · Capture · Marketing

Win the work before it's written.

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.

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Principal Mychael Gaines. Ten-plus years running real pursuits across VA, NAVFAC, USACE, the U.S. Air Force, NASA, the Department of State and GSA.

The argument

Firms rarely lose a solicitation in the proposal room. They lose it a year earlier, by arriving after the requirement is already shaped, or by spreading bid and proposal dollars across pursuits that were never winnable.

Both failures are fixable, and neither is fixed by writing faster. They are fixed by knowing what is coming, knowing the people who own it, and having the discipline to walk away from the pursuits that will not pay.

That is the whole of my practice: intelligence early, relationships kept warm, and a qualification screen honest enough to tell you no.

Two ways firms bring me in

Small and 8(a) firms

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

Mid-size and large firms

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

What that looks like as an engagement

Why firms choose this practice

RelationshipsStanding relationships across the federal and state AEC market, built over years of industry leadership, not assembled after a solicitation posts.

ExperienceTen-plus years running live pursuits for AEC firms, on the capture side of the table.

Discipline over volumeFewer pursuits, better positioned. The score exists to tell you no.

Federal and state, one processState and local work is where a growing firm builds the past performance federal work demands.

It stays with your firmThe pipeline, the call plans, the capture plans and the scoring model remain yours when the engagement ends.

Built around your budgetScope is agreed first; fees follow the scope. A smaller budget buys a narrower scope, not a lesser effort.

Advance your firm's presence in the federal and state market, and win the work that builds your future.

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Services

What I do, and how the work is structured

Six competencies, four ways to engage. Every engagement starts with an agreed scope. Fees follow the scope, never the other way around.

Core competencies

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.

Engagement models

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.

Scope boundaries

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 exchange of source selection or bid and proposal information. Procurement integrity is a condition of the work, not a clause.
No working both sides of a pursuit. Conflicts are disclosed in writing before the engagement begins.

Approach

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.

1

Intelligence

2

Relationships

3

Qualification

4

Positioning

5

Pursuit Execution

6

Award & Growth

Qualification

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.

Getting started

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.

Understand

Your people, your past performance, your customers and your current pursuits. The strengths you already have are the ones worth positioning.

Integrate

I work inside your existing processes and tools rather than replacing them, so the discipline fits the way your team already operates.

Strengthen

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.

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Markets

Where the relationships are

I hold relationships across the country, with the Mid-Atlantic as the deepest-relationship market rather than a boundary. I work anywhere in the country when the pursuit justifies it.

Federal

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 & local

State, county and municipal solicitations run on the same process, and for a growing firm they are often the faster route to the past performance federal evaluators want to see.

Departments of transportation, general services and procurement, school construction authorities, public universities, water and wastewater authorities, and municipal capital programs.

Who I work with

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.

About

Mychael Gaines

Principal

10+ years in 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 ten-plus years 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. Long enough to know that the firms who win consistently are rarely the best writers. They are the ones who were in the room early, knew what the customer was actually trying to solve, and had the discipline to skip the pursuits that were never theirs.

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 worth your money.

Mychael Gaines speaking at an industry event — Speaking to an AEC audience.

Let's talk about what is in your pipeline and what should not be.

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Contact

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Direct

EmailGainesassoc@outlook.com

CoverageWorking nationally
Deepest relationships across the Baltimore and Washington, DC metro area

PrincipalMychael Gaines

Advance your firm's presence in the federal and state market, and win the work that builds your future.

Gainesassoc@outlook.com
Baltimore and Washington, DC Metro Area