If you follow these four steps and successfully execute at each stage of my plan, you can usually completely transform your business in a 3–4-year timeframe. 

Federal Marketing Strategy Validity

I have 20 years in federal marketing consulting experience, and through working with my customers, both strategically and through some trial and error, I have learned that this is the most consistent strategy for being successful in the federal marketplace. Over the past two decades, I have served as a de facto incubator for many successful small businesses. Currently, my small business clients produce over a Billion Dollars per year in federal sales. Many factors are inherent to each client that contribute to their success, and therefore to their failure, therefore I recommend you reach out to an industry expert such as ez8a or Fevital to discuss and help you build the correct plan for your firm.

Step 1: Getting Your Company Ready for Federal Business.

Company Factors – These are factors that a company should have before it attempts to market to the federal government. If one or more of these factors are not present your firm may need to refine its business model before you attempt to enter the federal space. 

1. Technical capabilities of the firm or its products. Is your product something the government uses and are you competitive with other firms in your field?
2. Geographical service location of the business. What agencies are in your service area, and can you service them?
3. Niche, have you carved out a niche in your industry that gives you an advantage over other firms that would be useful to the government?
4. Willingness to invest the time and resources needed to make your first sale.

Step 2: Obtaining any Preference, You Can for Your Business.

Preference in Federal Contracting – These SBA certifications give a firm an advantage when bidding on federal contracts. While having a certification is not “everything”, over the past decade I have seen a shift from firms with only the small business designation to SBA certification holders.

1. 8(a) Program Certification
2. HUBZone
3. SDVOSB (Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business)
4. EDWOSB or WOSB (Economically Disadvantaged / Woman Owned Small Business)

Step 3: Getting Your First Contract(s)

Obtaining Past Performance – The federal buyers are like the purchasing agents at large businesses. They are leery of firms that they do not have a history of doing business with. This makes the initial sale always the hardest. Therefore, here is what I consider the two best ways to obtain past performance.

1. Sole Source Contracts obtained using your SBA certification. You meet with a federal contracting officer, agree on a price and they can directly award the contract to you without placing the contract out for bid. In many instances, a firm starts small but over time as the contracting officer gains faith in your ability to fulfill the contracts gets larger and larger.
2. GSA Schedule contracts, allow a firm to use GSA eBuy, provide visibility for federal buyers conducting market research, as well as provide a governmentwide contracting vehicle. This gives your firm the ability to make initial sales, and with the 12,000 small businesses taking part each having over $1 Million per year in sales from their GSA Schedule contract alone, it provides many small businesses with a nice piece of federal work. 

Step 4: Time to Leverage Your Past Performance!

Leveraging Past Performance – This is the point you have been working to get to. Once you have gotten in the door, and now have past performance, it is now time to leverage that past performance to turn your firm into a larger federal contractor. I do this through the following two mechanisms:

1. Firms with SBA Certifications should now set their sights on contracts that are set aside for their specific type of certification. These contracts are generally much larger than sole source contracts, and past performance helps increase the firm’s win rate. The average number of firms responding to a set-aside RFQ is generally around three. Therefore, a win rate above 1/3 is achievable provided the firm has past performance and that that rating is “good” or better. 
2. Obtaining positions on key GWAC and IDIQ Contracts also leverages the past performance you have obtained. These contracts are formed when an agency or group of agencies wants to create a pool, they will be better at servicing that agency’s mission than going back to a pool of new contractors each time. These large blocks of money, generally on the low side in the hundreds of millions, and on the large side tens of billions of dollars, give access to large blocks of money with just a few recipients.

Step 0: Before You Do Anything, Call An Industry Expert to Discuss 

In this call the industry expert, ex8a or Fedvital or another outfit, will go over your firm’s current capabilities, your eligibility for any SBA certifications, and GSA Schedules. They then can develop a plan to get your firm through Steps 1-4.

They work with small businesses like yours every day and have designed services that both work and are affordable for small businesses. Neither ez8a or Fedvital charge for an initial consultation.