Over the past month, I’ve gone straight to the source—the defense contracting community—to understand what’s really happening in the trenches of policy, funding, and acquisition. Forget the headlines and the spin; thousands of impressions and hundreds of votes on our recent LinkedIn polls have painted a clear, unvarnished picture of the federal market. The consensus? The ground is shifting beneath our feet, and the race is on to keep up.

The Need for Speed:
Acquisition Velocity is Everything

In our FY26 NDAA poll, a full 50% of you said that accelerating acquisitions would be the most significant near-term driver of change, with the Pentagon’s push to shorten program validation timelines being a key factor. This isn’t just talk; it’s a reality I see daily in private conversations. While your teams are innovating at breakneck speed, the system is still struggling to keep pace. Congress and OSD are trying to bridge that gap, but the pressure is on.

Interestingly, budget alignment (40%) outstripped Ukraine aid protections (10%) as a primary concern, signaling a broader strategic shift in how the industry views funding. It’s not about single-mission support anymore; it’s about the bigger picture.

The Takeaway: If you’re not building for a world where programs move from concept to contract at the speed of relevance, you’re already falling behind.

Is the RFP a Mirage? The Community Weighs In

It’s a question that sparks debate in every GovCon team: Is funding a sure thing once the RFP is public? The community’s answer is a resounding “It depends.”

• 45% said it depends on the agency.
• 28% said false.
• Only 19% said true.

This underscores a critical nuance I constantly stress with clients: An RFP is not a guarantee of funding. Some agencies won’t release an RFP without committed dollars; others will. If your capture plan is built on assumptions rather than verification, you might be chasing a ghost.

The Bottom Line: Always validate with the budget documents, not just the portal postings.

The Early Bird Gets the Contract:
Engagement is Non-Negotiable

When asked where companies go wrong in federal sales, nearly half (48%) pointed to the same mistake: waiting for the RFP instead of engaging early. This is the core theme of my book, Pitching the Big Top, How to Master the 3-Ring Circus of Federal Sales, and now over 13 years of advising companies of all sizes. Waiting for an RFP means you’re playing by someone else’s rules. Another 31% cited a failure to understand the acquisition or funding process—a completely preventable error.

The Lesson: In this market, access and timing trump product superiority. Early shaping isn’t just a good idea; it’s the entire strategy.

The Myth of the Self-Executing Market

Do you believe that listing your company as interested on SAM.gov or a garnering a contract vehicle is enough to get noticed? A resounding 56% of you said “False,” and you’re right. The idea that “the system will find you” or that a great product sells itself is a fantasy that has derailed many aspiring federal contractors.

My mantra is one you’ve validated with your votes: Speak with your outside voice. The federal market is not a passive entity. You must actively engage the entire ecosystem—from funding to decision-makers—not just the procurement portal.

The Squeeze on Primes:
Agility is the New Mandate

The push toward a more venture-style procurement environment is putting unprecedented pressure on traditional defense primes. When asked about the biggest challenge, the community was evenly split:

• 29% – Transitioning to a startup mindset
• 29% – Competing for smaller, high-volume programs
• 27% – Adapting to shorter development cycles
• 16% – Attracting new commercial tech partners

This isn’t a single challenge; it’s a multi-front war. Primes are being asked to act like startups while maintaining the compliance and scale of a global enterprise. This tension isn’t going away anytime soon—but neither are the myriad opportunities!

Where’s the Money Flowing?
Following the Funding Surge

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” with its advance funding through 2029, has created a new strategic momentum. Your votes tell us where you expect the action to be:

• 39% – Integrated Air & Missile Defense
• 30% – Border support & counter-narcotics
• 20% – Munitions & minerals
• 11% – Shipbuilding base expansion

This aligns perfectly with what we’re seeing initially—note that only the first spending tranche has been submitted to Congress. [If you’re not sure what that means? Call me.] Missile defense, more recently a top unfunded priority for the DoD, is now a well-funded one. Contractors with expertise in sensing, intercept, and integrative kill-chain technologies need to be leaning in, now.

The Emotional Rollercoaster:
How Does the Market Feel?

The emotional pulse of the community is telling:

• 48% said the last month feels like “more of the same.”
• 45% said they’re “exhausted.”
• Only 7% said “I’m numb.”

The fatigue is understandable. The constant churn of continuing resolutions, shifting priorities, election-year pressures, and rapid program realignments can wear down even the most seasoned professionals. But there’s another story here: Despite the exhaustion, nearly half of you see the environment as predictable. You’ve learned to navigate the chaos. That’s resilience, and it’s what drives results. I identify that the causes of the churn may be different, but the churn results in the same challenge to navigate uncertainty.

Final Thoughts: The Market is Flashing Green,
If You Know Where to Look

Across every poll, a single theme emerges: Success in federal sales is a function of understanding. Understanding policy, funding, timing, and engagement. You—the contractors, innovators, program managers, and founders—are sending a clear message:

• Speed is accelerating.
• Funding is shifting.
• The acquisition environment is evolving.
• Early engagement is king.

Your insights are more than just opinions; they’re the data points that prove what I help companies do every day: see the system clearly, shape it intentionally, and move through it confidently.

If you’re ready to translate these trends into an actionable federal strategy, let’s talk. The window for shaping FY26 and FY27 remains wide open.

What Am I Reading?

1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The book is a deeply researched, highly readable account of a period that often gets reduced to a single day on the calendar. What the book makes clear—almost painfully so—is that the crash was not a lightning strike but a long, smoldering fire fed by psychology, leverage, and the swashbuckling spirit of an emerging Wall Street. Sorkin captures the bravado of the age: the crafty maneuvering, the extreme short selling, and the loose-rein environment that preceded the birth of meaningful financial regulation and the modern Federal Reserve as we know it.

What stood out to me is how eerily familiar some of the patterns feel. The late-1920s market was powered by confidence that seemed untouchable—until it wasn’t. Investors were gambling with borrowed money at historic levels, and when sentiment cracked, the unraveling took place slowly, then all at once. The popular myth of a single “Black Tuesday” obscures the truth: the downturn simmered for years before the collapse fully materialized.

Sorkin’s portrayal invites comparison to more recent eras: the dot-com boom with its feverish belief in a new economy, the mid-2000s housing bubble fueled by cheap credit and misplaced optimism, and even today’s AI-driven market where valuations defy traditional measures of gravity. The names and technologies change, but the underlying human impulses—greed, fear, exuberance, denial—don’t. That’s the value of this book: it reminds us that cycles aren’t abstractions. They’re the natural byproduct of how people behave when opportunity and optimism collide.