Like any venture into a new market, entering the the Federal marketplace is fraught with questions demanding careful consideration.
How does your product become KNOWN in this market?
How does your product become WANTED in this market?
Who is the COMPETITION and is this a LEVEL PLAYING FIELD?
Will you recapture entry costs and then make a profit?
Typical considerations, right? Seems like prudent and reasonable questions.
But let’s look at some actions you can take that are specific to the Federal marketplace to answer these questions.
GET TO KNOW THE MARKET.
Before you can become known by such a vast marketplace, it’s probably most effective to get to know the market. Understanding the Federal organization is pretty easy. What with “transparency” being all the talk, Organization charts are pretty mandatory in all Federal organizations. The best way to approach this is from TOP and work DOWN. Start with www.usa.gov which will give you a description of the 3 constitutional branches, Executive, Judicial, and Legislative. And within each of these 3 branches, you’ll find that they break down into numerous departments as well as independent agencies.
It will become pretty obvious, pretty quickly that org charts are really limited in terms of the knowledge that they provide. They tell about the WHO, alright, but don’t give you much in the way of WHAT or HOW. It’s at this level that paying attention to each organization’s “mission” starts to become important. So, in addition to Org Charts, agencies’ websites will provide you a lot of information as to how they conduct business. Again, transparency… so there are very few Federal agencies that do NOT have a website.
FIND OUT WHAT THEY AGENCIES BUY AND WHO THEY BUY FROM.
“Public Advertising” is an age old Federal term defining how all Federal agencies must do business. Years ago, the Federal government would publish the Commerce Business Daily and everything to be purchased and all awarded contracts were published in this yellow document. Today, a new on-line website called “Beta Sam” has been made available to the general public. www.beta.sam.gov allows sophisticated browsing and searching of all procurements above the micro-purchase threshold. You do not need an account unless you wish to automatically track opportunities, save searches, and be notified of updates. Here you can see Request for Quotes, Proposals, Information. You can also see award announcements. You might see notices for “Industry Days” and “Bidders Conferences” that will give you up to the minute specifics on how a Federal agency works or what it plans to buy.
GET HELP FROM YOUR CHAMPIONS:
The Federal Government knows that Small Businesses are an integral part of our country’s greatness. As a testament to that, years ago, the US Small Business Administration (SBA) was created under the Executive Branch. The SBA is chartered to provide Small Businesses with loans, advice, etc. In addition to the SBA, most individual agencies have what are typically termed as Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization Specialists (SADBUS). Consider it a miniature SBA that is stationed within the agency and is focused on assisting small business that want to do business with that agency. Once you have identified the agencies that are your likely prospects, the SADBUS should be one of your first calls.
This blog could go on and on, but ENOUGH is ENOUGH. Read our other Blogs or please reach out to us directly. We’re here to help.
