A common perception about federal public bids is that they are "wired," implying that the bid is set up or rigged to favor a particular company. They are not wired in that sense but in a practical sense they may favor the incumbent contractor or one or more companies that have done the following:

• Convinced the end user, through pre-selling, that they offer a superior product or service
• Taken the time to get to know the agency and the specific requirements of the procurement through pre-selling or through having done prior work for the agency
• Demonstrated in previous contracts with an agency that they are proven performers
• Proven to the agency, through references from other customers, that they are a reputable vendor

Most public competitions involve many companies although the number of companies with a real chance of winning will be few. The true contenders will usually have one or more of the characteristics listed above. Keep this in mind when your business is considering bidding on a public procurement. The question each business should ask is whether it has been aggressively pre-selling the opportunity and has personally met with the customer. If the answer to this question is "no," then don't waste your time and money bidding on a contract that is open to the public.
It isn't.

Purchases made through public bids represent a relatively small percentage of buys made in the federal market. More often, purchases are made through multiple award schedule contracts or modifications to existing federal contracts.

An opportunity may be put out for public bid if:

• The agency knows a number of companies have been aggressively pre-selling the opportunity and the only option, from a political standpoint, is to conduct a public bid
• The project is large and highly visible
• The vendor the agency wants to work with doesn't have a GSA Schedule contract and there isn't a prime contractor available to use as a conduit
• The contract that was originally bid publicly comes up for re-bid
• The agency needs to pad its public bid numbers
• The agency truly doesn't have a vendor pre-selected (yes, this happens on occasions)

Don't bid on a public procurement if you haven't done significant advance research. A bidder must have all of the background information in order to understand the nuances of the deal. There is always a back story and the vendor which eventually wins the contract will have uncovered all of the intelligence well in advance of the posting of the bid.

This article is an excerpt from the new book "Rolling the Dice in DC". The book is written for managers and sales people and describes the day-to-day dogfight of competing and winning in the federal market. Read this book if you want to know the good, bad, and the ugly of the federal market, what it takes to enter the market, and the potential returns.