It’s time for a gut check at the doorstep of the federal fourth quarter.  It’s already been well-documented that the pace of business will be especially brisk this year with the very late appropriations cycle.  Will your company, though, be ready?  It’s not just government agencies that can be mired in process.  Federal contractors, too, can become obsessed with “preparing to prepare”.   Process becomes the priority and business opportunities slip away.  What value is a process that becomes an end to itself?   While Bill Hader’s line from “Night at the Museum” – “We’re Americans, we don’t plan!” – makes for a good laugh, some planning is, of course, absolutely essential.  There’s a reason why the sequence is “ready, aim, fire.”  Being focused is critical to success, especially when time is of the essence.  Still, more than one company can get stuck on “ready”.  Many also can’t “fire” on time.  Remarkably, even after 34 years in this market, we still see companies miss out on business because they waited too long to submit their offer.  No matter how much a sales rep thinks they “know” the customer is waiting just for your company’s offer, remember that agency CO’s play by different rules.  If your office is in Chicago and bids are due at 1:00 in Washington, that really means 12:00 Chicago time, as one company recently found out the hard way.  We also still see companies of all sizes and experience levels failing to follow through with customers who are interested in buying from them.  Often this is because internal work protocols get people caught up in introspective navel gazing.  Ready or not, the fourth quarter is pretty well upon us.  Contractors will need to ensure that they are as agile as the solutions they propose.