Budgets Tighten

"Sharpen your pencils" is the phrase of the day from procurement. As the budgets tighten in light of the great amount of money that the government has laid out to try and keep our economy from collapsing completely, they are being ask to tighten up what they spend.
This means that we will see more opportunities available to us but the margins will be very, very tight. Not for the faint of heart for a small miscalculation could win you the work but end your company. The owners of companies were use to living on percentages ranging from 7 to 40 percent in the past, but now to be competitive we are looking more in the range of .5 to 5 percent. I have had a saving account at a bank since I was 7 years old. It's return is 5 percent. I can tell you that this even over the last 30 years does not generate a great deal of money. Why would most businessmen that are risk takers at heart, take chances on some of the unclear and risky jobs on the bid boards today. Well I can give you several:

1. If we do not say we will do this work then our own government might just take their business off shore too.
2. It really is time to not be consumed with making money so that we can be rich. We need to be working so that we can leave a strong economy with stability to our children.
3. The men and women in our armed forces deserve the best quality products that we can supply them. We owe it to them to make sure that corners were not cut just because we became greedy.
4. Our government is the fastest growing company ever, volume will bring the profits back to us in time.

Get precise on your quotes. For today anyway, leave a little on the table and take what you can get. And have faith that if you do the right thing today, payment will be made tomorrow.

A word about selling.

I would like to talk just for a few moments about selling. Whether it is to the government or any other business. We call this B2B sales (Business to business). As any of you that have worked around sales knows, timing is the biggest factor in a scratch start relationship. Being in the right place at the right time with what the customer needs.
As we look at these solicitation on the government bid boards we often know who is thinking about a bid and ultimately who won the business. There is the timing right there. Most of the winners do not do all of the work they win in house. They sub-contract it out. If they are working on a bid and lack the knowledge to bid a part of the solicitation that you would be able to help them with you both win.
It is highly suggested and required by some of the government buyers that you put together a line card about your businesses offerings. Nothing fancy is required. The less fancy probably the better. Just the name, cage number, contact information, a list of what you do, list of what industries or who you do it for, list of your capabilities, what you currently outsource, and any certifications you currently have. Do it in a format that you can share it by e-mail or print a copy off to hand to a potential customer or mail out. Send it out to your current customers. Who knows maybe they did not know that you sold widgets too and will send a boat load of new business your way.
Sales it self is defined a hundred ways if one. I call it the art of building a relationship where it is often just a human-mediated transaction. A part of the art is timing. Knowing when to speak up and say "WE CAN DO THAT!" The other part is presenting yourself and your product in a way that is relevant to the needs of the customer with enough swagger and visualization that the NON-emotional buyer gains an emotional attachment to your offerings and has to have it over all of the other companies and people with their foot in his door. I know it sounds tough. It is. But it is worth it. People in sales try over and over again. If they don't have their timing right it may be 1 out of 1000 give them a shot to talk with them about what they can do. If you get your timing together some and get some good leads from friends of friends, you can squeeze it down to say 1 in 10.
Sales training is very expensive. Some of it is worth it and some is not. There are a lot of great books on the subject. There is a ton of information and programs out there that can help you. My best advice is to take a little of it all. Use it with the best parts of your personality and do not get locked into only one way of thinking. (unless you just have one customer to make happy) Check out one of my favorite blogs Sales Machine by Geoffrey James. It is very light yet often brings on epiphanies.

I would love to see a comment if anyone has one and please share with your friends.
Thank you!

Patients

This is the tough part for most of us that are so use to instant gratification. Now that we are registered and signed up for a few job posting sites we need to wait for the right job to come along. The first few jobs for any new customer should be easy and right up our alley. Get too far outside the box this early and loose any real chance at a good long term relationship.
As we are looking for that perfect first solicitation, we should be taking notes of others that are bidding or winning these jobs. These sites (www.fbo.gov, www.dibbs.bsm.dla.mil) give us some information on some of them and the information lacking can usually be found on the web quite easily. (Google them!) It is always good practice to know your competitors, and may be possible to work for them first before you tie yourself in a long term government contract. A lot of them farm out the work they win, some just part and some all. But hey learn all you can about your competitors, the jobs you think you would like to do, and get paid to do it.

Internet Government RFQ's and Training.

There seems to be many Internet forums that the government entities post their procurement needs on. Some give you more information about the buyers and some give better technical documents, and some link you to a different site for the information. Most of these just look like bid boards where everything is kind of chaotically thrown on there just because their procedures said they had to.
Lets start with their procedures. Some of the entities have many different guidelines that they are required to work with in. FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations) I think is the big one. There are lots of references back to it. You can read them at www.arnet.gov/far/. It tell all the details about how they have to seek bids and award them.
The most popular Internet site for posting seems to be Dibbs (DLA Internet Bid Board System). Find it at www.dibbs.bsm.dla.mil/. They have a tab for Vendor Registration. Follow it in and get set up. My favorite is Federal Business Opportunities. Find at www.fbo.gov. They have a lot of training aids and more contact information. Another good place to start is Government Contracting. Find at www.business.gov/expand/government-contracting/. And one more good place to start with great free training is GSA (General Services Administration). Find at www.gsa.gov.
Wow, OK, information over load. I will try to break it all down a little more in future posts. Please drop a comment or 2 if you have good information about any of these or questions that will help us put these pieces together.

First step?

Well the first step seems to be to become registered with the federal government. Not really a hard process if you have a little bit of pre-work done.
Becoming registered with the CCR (Central Contractor Registration) can be done online at www.ccr.gov . You will need a DUNS number (Data Universal Numbering System). It can also be done online at www.dnb.com. And a TIN (Tax Identification Number). A EIN (Employer Identification Number) or a SSN (Social Security Number) will work.
It will ask you a lot of particulars about your business. Even some banking information so that they can pay you by making a deposit into your account. It is probably a good idea to have an account set up just for this that deposits can be made into but it will only come out of the account by being transferred directly into a specific account. The government sites are a big target for hackers and their systems seem to leak information a lot. Bottom line, it is what they want to do business with you but protect yourself every step of the way.
It will then take them a couple of days to check you out and make sure you don't owe any back taxs or have judgments against you and then they will contact you probably want a little more information or clarification on something.
When you have completed all of this in a few more days you will finally have what you have been working for on this step, Your CAGE code (Commercial and Government Entity code). Woo Hoo!
Wow the doors just fly open now, NOT. That is just a step in a journey.

P.S. Once you have your CAGE code you will get a lot companies that would like to help you sell to the government for a fee of course. Most of these do not look that helpful and you have to pay attention because they put themselves out there like they are part of the government. They are not! Look for the .gov in web-sites and email addresses. not fail prof but it helps. If they call you make sure they are clear about who they are and work for.

Selling to the feds / first post

For my first post I just want to ask some questions that I hope to answer as I go through this process in trying to get a few small government contracts and make money at them. We have all heard that there is a great deal of waste within the government purchasing system. I hope to some what either disprove this or at least try to understand why it is this way.

First, It is said that it is so hard to win one of these contracts because of all the red tape and code words that the government puts on these solicitations that it would take an army just to submit a bid. There are companies out there who want to charge big bucks to help you though the processes.
How hard is it?
Do you need help?
How much is it worth?

The feds say that they set aside a great deal of these contracts for small business and other diversified groups. You would think if this is what they truly meant to do they would have lots of free help forums.
What kind and how much work and contracts are set aside for small business?
Do they offer any free help?

I know of a few of the sites on the web that post a great deal of solicitations, but it is all kind of jumbled up and hard to look through.
Is the web the only way in?
What search solutions are available to narrow down the list?

Pre-Qualifications
What is needed to certified, bonafied, qualified, registered, securified, and proven worthy of working for the mighty USA federal government?

I'm sure to find may more questions as I go though this process. If anyone would like me to try and help find an answer to one of their questions on the subject please let me know and I will see what I can do.