How McGuireWoods Consulting Leverages FiscalNote to Help Its Clients Find New Business

As one of the most respected names in public affairs and local, state, and national government relations, McGuireWoods Consulting (MWC) is at the forefront of innovation in how it serves clients wanting to contract goods or services to government agencies. 

For MJ Keatts, business development manager for MWC, using FiscalNote to modernize the firm’s government sales strategy has provided new ways to increase revenue and generate business opportunities for its team of lobbyists and their clients.

“My role is to find the missing pieces and connect the dots that lead to potential leads,” says Keatts. She manages a multi-state procurement platform to help clients understand what business opportunities exist in a specific market. 

Through FiscalNote’s procurement dashboard, which is a visual representation of where government contracts exist across the country, MWC is able to gain insights on existing and upcoming contract opportunities and information on state and federal spending patterns in one central platform. 

Automating Manual Processes and Staying Ahead

“Before FiscalNote, our lobbyists had to manually dig through government agency websites to understand their procurement process,” says Keatts. Her team at MWC is now able to see where their clients are positioned in the government contracting landscape, how much competitors’ contracts are worth and when they end, and what types of services or products state agencies are seeking. 

“FiscalNote helps us determine how far out we are from the next RFP opportunity for our client,” says Keatts. “By the time an RFP is issued, it’s too late. With FiscalNote, we know how long we have to get our client in front of key decision-makers. By helping our clients raise their brand awareness, they gain the upper hand.”

The dashboard has also streamlined the process for gathering pertinent information related to any given opportunity. “We have links to the actual RFPs and the supporting documents at our fingertips,” she adds. 

An Evolving Partnership

FiscalNote has saved MWC countless hours of researching state government websites for procurement opportunities related to various agencies. However, one of the key reasons why the firm continues to trust FiscalNote is because of its customer service. The FiscalNote account management team provides continuous training and learning opportunities for MWC team members who are leveraging the procurement platform.

“FiscalNote is always evolving, and our team is always anxious to meet with the account management team from FiscalNote to learn about new features and functionalities. It’s a collaborative partnership,” says Keatts.

“We were introduced to FiscalNote through its state and federal bill tracking platform several years ago,” Keatts adds. “Not long before they asked if MWC would be interested in building out a procurement platform, we had begun internal conversations about how to better harness our capabilities in the government sales space. The timing was right and, as they say, the rest was history.” 

For MWC, FiscalNote has provided a way to see what opportunities are out there for their team.

“Our relationship with FiscalNote has really taken us to another level, and without FiscalNote, I could not be as creative as I am in my own job to help our lobbyists pursue business opportunities,” Keatts adds.