In previous installments we stated that GSA Schedules are the sales closing mechanism of choice for small businesses. They are always open for bid and they cover all major industries; two critical characteristics unique to GSA schedules. Politically, the General Services Administration (GSA) professes to be small business friendly; anything less would be considered heresy within the bureaucracy. Yet GSA has stated publicly and through tighter qualification requirements that too many small businesses are being awarded contracts and then not generating enough sales to justify GSA administrative expenses and awarding and maintaining the contracts. GSA's bureaucratic lifeblood is the industrial funding fee (IFF) collected on schedule sales. Many small businesses are not paying enough IFF in GSA's view.

Our last installment about GSA's new 30 Day Proposal Evaluation Program illustrates the new tighter requirements in that the 30 day program requires that a vendor must:

• Have a minimum of $100,000 in cumulative sales (primarily or entirely commercial) over the last two years.
• Have a minimum current ratio of 1.5, based upon the Offeror's most current year's financial statement.
• Have been in business for at least two years.

Although these are now requirements for participating in the fast track 30 day evaluation program, we expect the same or similar requirements will become GSA schedule solicitation provisions that a vendor must meet to awarded a contract. The GSA schedule program would then be closed to many small businesses.

In short, get your schedule now before it is too late. In his new book Rolling the Dice In DC, Richard White recommends eliminating the IFF in order to stimulate competition and encourage small businesses to do business with the federal government. Don't hold your breath although this recommendation makes sense. The sensible way is not usually the way of the federal bureaucracy. Elimination of the IFF would require Congressional action and small businesses are not the highest priority of Congress right now.

Start the GSA Process Today and Have Your GSA Award Letter in Hand this Summer,
Ready to Take Advantage of the Government's 4th Quarter Spending Spree

If you want an award letter from GSA on your desk by July 1, 2007 you better act now.

If you submit your GSA proposal by mid-March it will be mid-June before you receive your GSA Schedule award. The governments 4th quarter, the months of July, August and September, are use it or lose it months; federal agencies either spend their remaining dollars or they lose them. The government's 4th quarter is a very profitable time for federal contractors, be ready to do business with them by having your GSA Schedule in hand.

The truth is in order to have a proposal ready to submit to GSA by mid-March you will need to attend the March 6 - 8th GSA eLab. If you decide to pay a company to prepare your GSA Schedule for you, they may not have a proposal ready to submit to GSA by March 15 or even March 30th. Why? Because there is no urgency for you to actually collect and deliver the corporate data a full services firm would require in preparing your proposal. We see it all the time. We have full service GSA clients that began the process last year and still haven't gathered the corporate data needed to complete the process. There is no urgency for them; it's too easy to put the task off another day, another month, or in some cases forever. The GSA eLab creates the urgency for you. You commit to attending and begin gathering the data you need to bring to class. It is a little like being in school again, your paper is due on Tuesday, no excuses. That's the secret of the eLab, you are focused, no interruptions, no distractions. A GSA specialist works with you, you waste no time searching for answers to questions you are unsure of. This is the reason for the staggering success rate of our customers; the GSA eLab creates the intense focus required to get the proposal finished in 3 days or less.

Our eLab is effective because we force our customers to focus and plan for the future.

Fedmarket.com's GSA Proposal Preparation eLab has helped hundreds of companies obtain GSA approval.

Sign-up for our GSA Proposal Preparation eLab today!

Register Online - Click Here

Or Call 888-661-4094 ext. 8 to Register by Phone

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