Allen Federal works with a lot of companies.  This gives us a chance to see what works well, and certainly what does not.  We’ll skip our usual preaching on contract compliance and discuss three things we’ve seen recently as examples of what NOT to do:  1. No Follow Through:  The meeting you had with the customer went well.  They were impressed!  That was 5 weeks ago, though, and you haven’t gotten around to following up.  Now, your impressed customer wonders about your reliability and is on to five new projects.  Opportunity lost.  Lesson: Always follow up quickly.  2.  Over-promising:  If you can’t produce Justin Bieber to work on your project, say so.  Too many companies say “yes we can” when the real answer is “maybe we can”.  Again, your customer loses faith in you and you’ll likely end up ensnarled in contract disputes that eat up time and resources.  It is better to under-promise and over-perform.  Lesson: Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.  3.  Failing to Pay Attention to Detail:  Does the task order you’ve just been issued match with the underlying contract?  Were you supposed to provide a Mercedes, but delivered a Ford?  Failing to pay attention is so common we think that most companies fall into this trap from time-to-time.  If the TO doesn’t match the contract, STOP!  Too many contractors just “go with the flow”, which means that they can “go without getting paid” if what they do is different from what the contract says they should do.  Remember, only a CO can make a change to a contract.  Lesson:  Pay attention to the fine print.