Buy low, sell high.

So you are thinking about getting a GSA contract for your firm, but which schedule do your products or services fall under?  The GSA Schedules program covers millions of products and services so it’s no wonder you may be confused.  We’ve produced a mindmap infographic that depicts the list of GSA schedules visually.  It partitions the schedules into some logical groupings:

In previous articles, I have talked about all the valuable information you can obtain by using the USASpending.gov database.  This free database houses substantial information about government spending of all types – contracts, grants, entitlements, and you can parse this data in any number of ways.  I often use it to research my clients’ competitors to see how much and to whom they are selling.

Why do you want to obtain a GSA contract?  That is one of the first questions we ask prospective clients when they call inquiring about our GSA schedule services. Some demonstrate they have performed considerable research, really thought this through, and are well informed.

In recent years, we have also heard from firms who had never sold in the federal market but had received cold calls from a huckster promising that simply getting a GSA contract would yield millions of dollars in contracts!  We quickly dispel them of the notion that while it can be lucrative, it is not a guarantee.  We also talk about whether entering the federal market makes sense for them, and all the other government contracting options available to them in addition to GSA.  More recently, firms have expressed concerns about protecting their ongoing business in a constricted federal market.

Changes Likely to Affect your MOBIS contract

Several MOBIS SINs Being Merged

In January 2013, GSA will significantly redefine several Schedule 874 MOBIS SINS, including:

2012 GSA Schedule Winners and Losers

2012 was a challenging year for many federal contractors, and overall contract dollars declined 9%. GSA Schedule contractors fared much better, however, where the overall decline in GSA schedule sales declined less than 3%. 

I recently asked government contracting officers what they would ask Santa for, if indeed there was a Santa just for government contracting officers.  In particular, I wondered what would be on their wish list of improved business practices from you, their government vendors?  I also asked them what you could do better to improve agency/vendor relationships and the value you deliver?

TurboGSA Publishes New EBook

A GSA schedule contract remains one of the best contracting vehicles for small businesses that want to sell commercial products and services to the federal government.  In fact, a recent analysis by TurboGSA; a leading GSA consultant, finds that about $15 billion a year goes directly to small businesses through GSA schedules. Federal agencies are keen to buy from GSA approved vendors because it simplifies the buying process for them and they know that the vendor has been determined to be a credible vendor by GSA.  But despite its popularity with agency buyers, there is some confusion in the market about this program and many small businesses still do not understand the basics of getting a GSA contract.

How Small Businesses Use Innovation to Thrive in Federal Contracting

I recently read an article in USA Today about how federal agencies are coming to realize that small businesses are innovation hubs whose creativity allowed them to deliver better solutions more cheaply.  The article discusses how NASA used a small, 40-person firm, Honeybee Robotics, to develop a robotic lab assistant for the Mars Curiosity Rover.  Some very important lessons can be learned and applied to small businesses seeking federal contracts in other industries.