We have summarized the findings that have been posted on a popular contractor forum, which we guide you to at the end of this blog.
- Registering on the govt's CCR.gov website is the first important step.
Anyone selling any product or service (from pencils to building roads) to the govt must register. Not registered, no big contracts.
- And yes, once registered you will be inundated with solicitation emails from everybody and their maiden aunt. This is all part of the requirement of open govt and the Freedom of Information Act. There are many companies that sell (often useless) services to millions of companies looking to make money off the govt.
- Companies like Onvia and Demandstar are just selling a service of consolidating all those govt RFPs into one place and then emailing that list to you at a fee. This service is not really necessary for Federal bids, but could be very handy for the numerous small govt agencies like counties, towns, schools, police etc.
- Other than everything being available on the internet, the govt procurement procedures haven't changed much since the early 1980s.
- FBO.gov (aka FedBizOpps) is the best (govt based) free website-tool.
Here anyone can research any and all open Federal Govt Requests for Proposal (RFPs). This website includes listings of contracts already awarded. Note: this is for contracts valued at $25,000 or more. If you find something you want to bid on you must contact the govt purchasing agent at that govt entity/agency. Of course the first thing they will ask is; are you registered with CCR.gov?
- According to FBO.gov for contracts valued at less than $25,000 the proper govt website is OSDBU.gov (the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization). But so far this has been useless, at least during our research. All we can get out of the website is that indeed their mission is to help small companies and they list all the fancy Conferences they put on (for govt agencies not contractors). We are still working on this one.
Many contractors expect, or hope, the govt to change its ways to benefit them. In reality the winners making money will be the people who figure out how to work within the govt's own strange world. And there are several big companies that have done just that over many years.
We believe that now is the time to get your foot in the door, because serious govt spending is just around the corner. It will be painful for anyone new to get started, but it is not going away.
A lot of additional information can be found at a popular contractor forum called ContractorTalk. We suggest you check it out and sign up (for free) to participate. Information about this specific topic can be found at
http://www.contractortalk.com/f16/getting-jobs-us-agencies-rebuilding-america-51902/