ABC - Always be closing… it’s a famous sales mantra.  But in order to close more government sales and obtain Federal contracts, you must first generate significant number of qualified leads.  And you cannot develop a significant amount of Federal sales leads before you first attract agencies to your firm.  This process of acquiring prospects, converting them into leads, and making them your Federal clients is known as the sales funnel and all deals begin with filling the top of the funnel.

The United States Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is an executive branch agency responsible for establishing policies to reduce, and hopefully eliminate, conflicts of interest between the federal government and its employees.  The OGE establishes regulations, standards of conduct, and training programs on the many forms of criminal ethics violations.  As you might imagine, the potential for conflicts of interest is high in government contracting.

Traditional methods for generating Federal leads include trade shows, seminars, direct (junk) mail, email blasts (spam) to purchased lists, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and print and media advertising.  These outbound methods are where firms push out the message to the four corners of the country hoping that it resonate with that needle in a haystack. Those techniques are very expensive…and are far less effective than they used to be, especially in Federal marketing, for a number of reasons.  First, Federal employees, like all of us, are inundated with marketing interruptions an estimated 2000 times per day.  In order to cope, Federal buyers have constructed creative means to block those messages:

Continuing with our discussion of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program, recent rule changes have affected the program and its offerings.  The SBA recently published a final ruling, scheduled to take affect on March 14, 2011, that will strengthen the 8(a) Program by preventing waste, fraud and abuse.  In sum, the Final Ruling should better ensure the benefits of the program properly flow to the intended recipients.

Do any of these thoughts ever cross your mind?

The U.S. Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program helps small and disadvantaged businesses compete in the marketplace.  The Program provides mentoring, procurement assistance, business counseling, training, financial assistance, surety bonding, and other management and technical assistance to qualifying firms.  The program targets firms that are owned and controlled at least 51% by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals and aims to help these entrepreneurs gain access to the economic mainstream of American Society. 

Each year, the President proposes an annual budget for how the government’s resources should be allocated among its many departments, agencies, and programs.  Congress then appropriates funds through legislation.  Departments and agencies then award much of these appropriations to private businesses that provide the products and services they need in the form of contracts, grants, loans, etc.  While this process is simple enough to teach in middle school civics classrooms around the country, keeping track of, and understanding where and by whom the government’s vast resources are ultimately spent can be a complex task.

Have you looked at your GSA Advantage listing lately? GSA launched its new version of GSA Advantage last month, but not without problems.

In his State of the Union Address two weeks ago, President Obama referred many times to the importance of small businesses and the role they play as the backbone of the American economy.  As a small business owner, you might then wonder why it seems so difficult to enter into a business relationship with the government.  Navigating the complexities of government contracting can be quite challenging for a firm that cannot dedicate personnel and resources to the issue. 

Interested in selling to the government, but not sure a General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule Contract is worth the cost and effort?  Consider the facts: Federal Agencies prefer to buy from GSA Schedules, GSA Schedule sales exceeded $38.8 billion in the 2010 fiscal year, and a Schedule Contracts is potentially a 20 year contract with the world’s largest client.  So, while it is possible for your firm to sell its product or service to the U.S. government without getting on a GSA Schedule Contract, it certainly isn’t advisable in most cases.  A GSA Schedule Contract can quite literally take your firm’s government business to the next level.