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Rolling the Dice in DC The federal government has an almost impossible job when it comes to
buying products and services. The government makes over $390 billion
worth of purchases annually, ranging from paper clips to space ships,
and it often needs product and services overnight in response to natural
disasters and acts of terrorism. Contracting organizations are underfunded,
understaffed, and insufficiently trained and their contracting
decisions are subject to scrutiny from Congress and the press. Yet it is
Congress that writes the regulations and doesn’t provide the funding. The government has been forced out of necessity to implement valuebased
procurement rules and multi-vendor contract programs, both of
which limit competition. The market was never completely competitive
and it has gradually become less competitive over time. The public tends to believe that the federal market is open to all because
taxpayer money is being spent and they see public bid announcements.
Political pressure, expediency, and the government’s attitude of “let
sleeping dogs lie” have contributed to the public’s perception that the
market is competitive. Many companies have tried to enter the market
without success based on this general perception. While federal
procurement officials do not intentionally mislead the public and the press
about competitiveness, the truth is that the federal market is not all
inclusive. This book explains the federal sales game and how it is played in the real
world. The market is insider dominated partly out of necessity and partly
because procurement rules are outdated and Congress has not provided
the funds to improve competitiveness. The federal market is difficult to penetrate but, once you have cracked
it, the market is extremely lucrative. Small businesses have a particularly
hard time cracking the market. Yet small business preference programs
can cause a start-up founded in someone’s garage to grow to over
$100 million dollars in revenue in a few short years. The chapters
that follow will explain how a small business can make this happen. This book is written for managers and sales people, not contract
administrators. It describes the day-to-day dogfight of competing
and winning in the federal market. Newcomers to the market may be
discouraged by some of the topics and truths discussed. Continue reading
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. This book is
not for you if you only want to know how to pick low-hanging federal
fruit and whether there is a magic bullet for entering the federal market.
The focus is selling, not how to comply with federal red tape and
administer federal contracts. Win them and then worry about the red tape. The author is the CEO of Fedmarket.com and has more than forty years
of experience in selling to the federal market. The following individuals
collaborated on the content presented in this book:
Some of the points in this book may appear a touch cynical but they are
presented with tongue in cheek and in an effort to make a dry subject
mildly interesting. Richard White
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