An update to our earlier articles about A recent rule (February, 2011) from the U.S. Small Business Administration that offers preferential government contracting to Women Owned Small Businesses in 83 industries.  The Small Business Administration  has finally approved four organizations to act as Third Party Certifiers under the WOSB Program. The four organizations and contact information are:

Last  Friday (06/24/11), the Small Business Administration released its 2010 report card on the amount of government contracts going to small business.  The annual Scorecard measures how well federal agencies achieve their small business and socio-economic prime contracting and subcontracting goals. Almost  $100 billion in government contracts went to small businesses which was 22.7% of all federal contracting dollars, just shy of the government’s goal of 23%.  Overall, the federal government got a B.  SBA gave out 13 As, 5 Bs, 4 Cs and 2 Ds to the agencies. 

FedBid, the “reverse eBay” of federal contracting websites, is quickly growing into a powerful contracting tool.  Its goal, which it largely succeeds in fulfilling, is to provide federal buyers and contractors with a simple and responsive online marketplace.  Federal Agencies and Departments create a listing on FedBid.com for the specific products or simple services they need.  Companies then search those listings to find someone buying what they are selling.  If they find a match, they can enter a bid and potentially win the contract.  As you can see, “a reverse eBay” aptly describes the FedBid process, as the contracts are essentially auctioned off to the lowest qualified bidder in real time.

Our friends at GovFresh.com brought to our attention the availability of a series of video that the Department of Justice has produced that explains what FOIA is and how to make FOIA requests.

Update on the New SBA WOSB Contracting Program

SBA will be holding a web chat session on March 31, 2011 at 1:00 pm (ET).  This session provides small businesses with an opportunity to discuss the new Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) federal contract program.  This program is designed to attract more woman owned small businesses into federal contracting.

For years government contractors have been using traditional marketing techniques to gain the attention of Federal clients.  Email blasts, direct mail, conferences and exhibitions, brochures, advertising have all been used to varying degrees of effectiveness.  But about ten years ago, the effectiveness of these traditional methods began to decline.  And in the past few years, their effectiveness has declined precipitously. But what has caused this decline?

First Month of Women Owned Small Business Set-Aside Program a Success

In January the GSA/Fed Marketing Blog reported on the U.S. Small Business Administration’s approval of a government contracting set-aside for Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSBs).  On October 7, 2010, the SBA published a final ruling to be effective on February 4, 2011.  The ruling created contracting directives in specific industries designed to channel 5% of all Federal-contracting dollars towards WOSBs.  For more information on this rule, please refer to the original post, “New Rule Sets Aside Billions for Women-Owned Small Business Contracts.” For an updated analysis of the program’s certification process, based on the first month of operations, please read on. 

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 General Services Administration (GSA)  encourages businesses to apply for GSA contracts, especially small businesses.  The Federal government benefits from having many diverse businesses participating in the GSA Schedules program.  While the government welcomes responsible companies into the federal procurement process, they insist on discipline and compliance. 

What influences an agency to take action, to launch new programs, to do more training, to buy your products?  Agencies act for many different reasons including but not limited: response to presidential directives and initiatives, congressional mandates, inspector general reports, technological change, trade association meetings, and articles in the media.  I encourage all my clients to routinely review media that focuses on Federal business (See FedBiz: Stay informed via Federal Magazine).