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  • GSA the World's Biggest Customer
    The most confusing aspect of a GSA proposal is the requirement to disclose your discounting practices. GSA uses the disclosures to negotiate a discount equal to or better than the best discount you have extended to your commercial customers...
  • Closing a Sale Part Two
    Companies holding multi-vendor contracts minimize the amount of competition they face since a public bid isn't necessary...
  • The Role of the Contracting Officer
    As indicated above, federal contracting officers have far more influence on a purchasing decision than commercial purchasing agents...
  • Distinguishing Messages Win in the Federal Market
    Everyone thinks their competitors are worthless and that they alone have the best product or service known to man. Federal end users have heard "we are the best" so many times that it makes them scream when they hear it...
  • Are Federal Bids Wired?
    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...
  • Small Businesses and Federal Sales
    The following question often surfaces at our seminars, "What procedures should be followed by small businesses eager to participate in the federal market?" The answer to this question is that a small business should implement an aggressive federal s...
  • Selling Services to Federal Agencies
    Our newsletters repeatedly emphasize the need to establish a relationship with end users when selling in the federal market...
  • Think of Proposal Writing As the Last Step in a Sale
    Our federal sales seminars stress that your sales efforts and proposal-writing process should be one, highly-structured undertaking...
  • Should You Have a GSA Schedule?
    A common comment from attendees at Fedmarket's Federal Sales Academy seminars is: "Long time federal customers are now telling us we need a GSA schedule to do business with them...
  • Submitting Proposals to the 'New GSA'
    In our previous installment, we discussed how the General Service Administration (GSA) is becoming more stringent and rigid with respect to its review or evaluation of GSA Schedule offers...
  • Guard Against Audits
    The General Services Administration (GSA) is increasing the number of pre-award audits of vendors with GSA schedule contracts up for renewal...
  • GSA Visits Contractor Sites
    GSA will visit you to make sure you're tracking your GSA sales properly. GSA's auditors will also pay close attention to whether you have offered better pricing to the "basis of award group" defined under your GSA Schedule contract...
  • Is There a Magic Bullet?
    We recently received a call from an engineering company that hasn't entered the federal sales market...
  • GSA Schedule Competition in Real Life
    For political reasons the federal government takes the position that competition for federal contracts is 'full and open"...
  • Eliminate GSA Schedule Audit Risk with a Compliance Program
    Many contractors get an award of a GSA Schedule contract and think that their work is complete. The reality is that the tough work has really only begun. Compliance issues are of critical importance and are often overlooked or even ignored...
  • GSA Schedule Buying Scenario
    Let's assume that your company is an information technology service business that has sold a web site development project to an end user at a military base in your area...
  • GSA Schedule Price Reduction Clause (PRC) Compliance
    Our previous newsletter discussed the importance of identifying price reduction clause compliance early before the potential money claw back risk piles up...
  • What Drives Companies to Pursue GSA Schedules Part II
    It's not just size of market that drives a company to pursue a GSA Schedule...
  • The Government Buys Everything
    It is now August 2005 and the federal government will be closing its accounting books in September 2005. Your business contacts are just finding out now how much money they have to "use or lose...
  • GSA Expo
    The GSA Expo 2005 is coming up May 3-5, 2005 at the San Diego Convention center and anyone with a GSA schedule should at least try to make it a point to at least attend the show and meet up with your key contacts at breakfast, lunch, dinner or even ...
  • How to Make them See You - Creating Urgency
    Message left at 10:00 a.m."Hello, this is Eileen Kent and I’m in town today. My understanding is that you’re responsible for continuity of operations...
  • Running into Old Friends in City Procurement While Teaching in Michigan
    A funny thing happened to me in Warren, Michigan, during the break of my Winning Government Business class for Detroit at the end of September of 2004...
  • Agency Uncovered
    When I taught "Winning Government Business" and "Selling to the Government" this week, I found there was an interesting trend in the attendees...
  • OMB reports over use of "Name Brands" in Specifications
    Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reports over use of "Name Brands" in Specifications from the Sales Firing Line, Eileen Kent Says, "Surprise, Surprise!"Challenge to Government Contracting Officers: "Don't Use Name Brands in RFPs" A memo was sen...
  • Formula for Government Sales Success Depends On Many Factors, But The Number of "Impressions" Each Week is The Manager's Key
    Business owners are constantly challenged with the issue of what to expect from their government sales executives in terms of time management, goals and actual results...
  • Top Ten Mistakes, Relationship Killers and Wastes of Time
    Should your company try one of the approaches outlined below while trying to do business with the government, you will end up at a dead end and will have a seriously demoralized federal sales team. My Top Ten List of Mistakes is as follows: 1...
  • How Can You Kick Out the Incumbent?
    Companies with Key Relationships on the Inside Are Winning Government Business. How Can You Kick Out the Incumbent? Understand Your Customers and Solve Their Problems...
  • Selling IT: Sales and Marketing Basics
    Company managers new to government sales often view governments as bureaucratic bodies from another world, imbued with strange and mysterious procurement rules, rules designed to confuse and even intimidate...
  • Finding and Selling to End-Users in the Government
    In past installments, we talked about finding the "right" agencies, namely the ones that are interested in buying your company's products or services...
  • Selling IT: Buyer's Duty to Search Across Schedules
    In this installment of Selling IT to Government, we touch on an issue -- keywords -- that is of particular importance to federal multiple award schedule contractors. Yes, that's right -- keywords...
  • Selling IT: Teaming to Win Government IT Sales
    Government buyers often look for "complete solutions" off of multiple award schedule contracts, such as the General Service Administration's Federal Supply Schedules (FSS)...
  • Selling IT: State and Local Buys off of GSA IT-70
    The state and local market for goods and services is very large, over twice the size of the federal market. Yet for companies with a track record of selling to the feds, the state and local market can be mysterious, often daunting...
  • Commitment and Focus in Federal Contracting
    In the last installment you learned about some of the realities of federal sales. In this installment you will learn about the need for commitment and focus to overcome the inherent barriers to entry. First, you must commitment to the market...
  • Making the Sales Call to Federal Government Agency
    Companies new to the market ask us, "How do I find potential buyers to call on." Finding potential buyers can be difficult and will be the subject of the next several installments in this series...
  • GSA Schedule Teaming
    The General Services Administration (GSA) has become a sales and marketing machine. The thrust of its pitch is that the agency makes things "easy" for everyone,especially government buyers and end-users...
  • The Use of Letters of Supply for Sales to a GSA Schedule Holder
    For a variety of reasons further explained below, product vendors may choose to become suppliers to another company that holds a General Services Administration (GSA) schedule contract...
  • Federal Sales Require Patience, Persistence, and Perseverance
    Companies new to the federal market typically do not understand the lead times required to make a federal sale...
  • Doing Business with Prime Contractors
    We are frequently asked by small or medium-sized businesses whether they should attempt to sell directly to federal end users or sell to prime contractors through subcontracts...
  • Entry by Small Businesses into the Federal Market
    Small businesses often have a limited sales budget. For those located outside the Washington metropolitan area, selling inside the Beltway is too expensive and the competition too intense -- even if the sales dollars are available...
  • Picking the Low-Hanging Fruit - Federal Sales
    During the dot.com boom, venture capitalists turned up their noses at companies doing federal business...
  • Small Businesses and GSA Schedules
    Our small business readers frequently inquire, "Can a small business obtain a General Service Administration (GSA) schedule and what would cause us to be turned down by GSA?" Small businesses considering the federal market tend to think that GSA is ...
  • Writing Winning Proposals
    In order to win federal contracts, your company will have to write proposals in response to those Requests for Proposals (RFP's) in which it has an interest. The proposal-writing process is laborious, tiring, and expensive...
  • Government Contract Vehicles
    A "contract vehicle" is a broad term meaning different things to different people. We define the term in its broadest sense -it is a method under which a company may pursue and close a sale...
  • Preparing GSA Schedule Proposals
    Our speakers are frequently asked in our GSA Schedule seminars questions such as "Why is preparing the GSA Schedule offer so difficult? Our company has been working on our offer for more than six months and we are still not even close to having it r...
  • Yet Another Contracting Vehicle
    In a previous installment, we discussed the wide range of contracting vehicles used to close federal sales. We define the term in its broadest sense; a contract vehicle is a method under which a company may pursue and close a sale...
  • Entry into the Federal Market
    Our readers frequently inquire about the difficulties associated with entering the federal sales market...
  • Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Government Contracts
    Overview of the Process The General Service Administration's Federal Supply Service (FSS) operates the federal supply schedule program. The program leverages the purchasing power of the U.S...
  • Procrastination: Putting Off Preparing a GSA Schedule Offer
    Imagine this scenario. Your CEO has assigned a person in your organization to prepare your GSA Schedule proposal and upper management expects the same person to administer the resulting contract...