GSA Schedules have been a popular contract vehicle for large and small businesses alike, but in recent years, small business has grown its share of GSA schedule sales significantly since 2013. That year, the height of sequestration, cutbacks, and reduction of wartime spending, the small business share of GSA sales was 32%.  For fiscal year 2016, that had grown to 43%; sales have grown from $11.4 billion in FY2013 to $13.5 billion in FY2016. Remarkable!

GSA has modernized its multiple-award schedule vehicle for human resource services to address contract redundancy and streamline the acquisition process for such service offerings.

Many firms obtain a GSA Schedule to gain an advantage in the government market. Companies put serious effort into acquiring the contract but unfortunately, less effort into training sales, marketing, and business development reps on how to use it effectively.  The results are sadly predictable.  Too many either languish in the lowest sales tiers, barely meeting the required $25,000 per year sales criteria to maintain the contract.  Worse, many others fail to reach even that threshold.

I understand why companies think government contracting seems so complicated.  They have been told to take a few simple steps, and then contracts will roll in. The most frequently mentioned 10 best practices for winning government contracts include:

A GSA contract can help you increase government sales. You know it, your sales people know it, but sometimes the boss does not. As your firm’s business development manager, you know you that GSA schedules are a critical tool to have in your business development toolbox.  But your boss is reticent. She prefers to wait until next quarter or the quarter after. Or perhaps they prefer to have you focus on chasing RFP’s, which is about as effective as playing Powerball!

The Federal Buyer’s Journey

Many contractors face the challenges of determining their place in the federal market and identifying how to pursue business. An important step in figuring this out is:

You will likely make several different types of changes to your GSA Contract during the 5 to 20-year period.  Your agreement with GSA is intended to be a living document, keeping up with changing times.

We tend to look at the modifications in three different ways:

• Refresh
• Revise
• Reinforce

The federal market is huge, and thousands of contracts are issued every year that has a value in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The bid packages used by the government usually contain a set of documents to which a bidder develops a responsive proposal. The four main types of solicitations are:

You submitted your offer to GSA many months ago, and after a protracted period of waiting, you finally got your GSA number.

A client called me recently to let me know that they “haven’t had much luck” generating sales under their GSA contract. Curiously, she went on to say that she recently lost a bid because “a competitor got lucky” and won it instead. Sadly, it’s not the first time I’ve heard this sentiment.  It made me consider the nature of luck in business development and government contracting.  What exactly is it? Is it real? Or is it merely an excuse for our own shortcomings?