With two weeks left in the FY’18 Fiscal Year your company needs to shift from being a marathon runner to a sprinter in order to close business.  Here are three things to focus on now:  1.  Call, Meet, E-mail Your Prospects:  If your prospective customer hasn’t called you, you should definitely call them. E-mail is perhaps the least effective way to reach a prospect who doesn’t want to talk to you.  Calling is key.  Be specific, too.  “I can meet you at 10:00 on September 19^th” is specific.  If, after multiple calls and e-mails, your prospect is still silent, he/she is no longer a prospect.  2.  Follow E-Buy:  Agencies will increasingly move to automated tools to get things out for bid quickly.  You should have been monitoring the GSA E-Buy system all along, but it is especially important now.  See something in you wheelhouse?  Go ahead and bid.  As the lottery saying goes, “You can’t win if you don’t play”.  Ignore E-Buy and lose business.  3. Become the Sole Source Expert:  Did you know that agencies can award contracts up to $25,000 with little competition and still follow the rules?  Do you know how the small business set-aside world works?  How about the reasons given in the FAR for sole source buys?  Don’t assume your customer knows.  You have to be the expert – and it doesn’t take long to read the rules.  Talk credit card buys, set-aside use, micro-purchases, and simplified acquisitions.  Make sure your customer knows how to get to you fast.  There’s a lot of buying activity right now and your company must be positioned to take advantage of it.