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GSA Schedules
- Webinar: GSA Schedules 101 - Demystifying GSA Schedules
What is a GSA schedule and why do I need one? Get your answers here.
Federal Sales Training
- Webinar: GSA Schedules 101 - Demystifying GSA Schedules
What is a GSA schedule and why do I need one? Get your answers here . - Federal Sales 101: Winning Government Business
Fedmarket's most popular course, eight-years in the running. Whether you are new to the marketplace or a seasoned veteran this class will jump start your sales endeavors. - Federal Contracting Action Plan
Federal Contracting Action Plan- A Lead Development Workshop . - Teach Your Onsite Contract Employees to Sell and Win!
A seminar for Primes who want to keep their customers. . - Writing and Managing Winning Proposals
Write less, win more. If you can't afford to waste another minute or dime writing another losing proposal this class is for you. - Advanced Proposal Development Workshop
Improve your ability to manage proposals, reduce rework, and create proposals the evaluators can use to choose you . - Security Clearances, Uncovered!
Proven techniques to obtaining a security clearance. - Webinar: WOSB Get Ready to Win Set-aside Contracts
Be the First to Win Women Owned Small Business (WOSB) Set-aside Contracts. - Webinar: CMMI - Everything You Need to Know in 4 Hours
Designed to address frequently asked -- but seldom answered -- questions about CMMI(R) . - DCAA Audit Workshop
DCAA audits are a fact of life for Federal Government contractors, be prepared . - Winning Federal IDIQ Contracts
Indefinite Delivery / Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) multi-award contracts are the wave of the future .
Proposals
- Proposal Framework Services
RFP-specific proposal artifacts to give clear direction to your proposal effort. - Advanced Proposal Development Workshop
Learn how to manage, structure, and write a winning proposal. - Writing & Managing Winning Proposals
Write fewer proposals; win more .
Sales Tools
- WOSB Federal Sales Program
Place your WOSB in front of over 48,000 federal contracting officers .
Articles
- Message to Management: Why Should My Proposal Writing Capabilities Concern Me?
Federal proposal writing is inherently chaotic, a drain on billable hours, and crucial to revenue generation... - 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... - Internet Posting of Legislation and Stimulus Projects is a Good Thing But...
The Obama administration is keeping its promise of more transparency in federal contract and grant spending. At the state and local level, grants may become contracts; we hope. The status of stimulus project funding legislation will be posted at recovery... - Should You Fear Federal Contract Oversight?
During the Presidential campaign the democratic candidates stated that they would reduce federal contracting dollars. Now we have bailout and stimulus initiatives, both probably stimulating the amount of federal contracting dollars... - The Value of Federal Marketing
Some believe that marketing is a critical component to having success in the federal market. Marketing efforts make the public, official buyers and end users aware of your company and your products or services... - The Role of the Contracting Officer
As indicated above, federal contracting officers have far more influence on a purchasing decision than commercial purchasing agents... - Turn Apprehension About the Economy Into Positive Action
Anyone who reads the business news knows that the economy is slowing down and the probability of a recession is increasing. While we all hope that an economic downturn will not occur, smart business owners should position their companies in case one does... - 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... - Federal Sales and Self Interest, the Contracting Officer
The previous installment discussed the motivation of end users in the federal purchasing process. This installment looks at the motivation of contracting officers... - Federal Sales and Self Interest, the Federal End User
The next four installments discuss how self interest impacts people involved in the federal buying process. Buyers in the commercial and federal sectors behave in the same manner... - People Buy Not Agencies
Contrary to popular belief, people buy in the federal market, not agencies. The only way to make a federal sale is to contact a buyer through a direct sales call... - Should We or Shouldn't We
Should you join the parade to grab some of endless flow of federal contracting opportunities? The federal government has always been an extremely lucrative market; world events are just making it more visible... - Let the Light Shine In
A huge problem that newcomers face when trying to enter the federal market place is that it is enormously difficult to find end users (the person with money who needs what a company is selling)... - Developing a Federal Sales Plan
How early should you identify a sales opportunity in the federal market? The answer is that an opportunity must be identified before anyone, including the customer, knows that an opportunity exists... - Entering the Federal Market
You are a small to medium sized business located outside the Washington, DC area and you have decided that you want to enter the federal market. What should you do? 1... - Multiple Award Contracts: The Wave of the Future
Multiple Award Contracts (MACs) have the following characteristics. Awards are made to a number of vendors and the winning vendors compete among themselves for business... - Stepping Over the Line
Our newsletters and sales seminars continually emphasize the importance of customer relationships; building solid relationships with your customers is the core of a successful federal sales program... - Selling Services to Federal Agencies
Our newsletters repeatedly emphasize the need to establish a relationship with end users when selling in the federal market... - The Bid or No Bid Meeting
The bid/no bid decision should be made before or immediately at the time the RFP released... - The Consequences of Writing Losing Proposals
Previous installments have discussed the need to pre-sell a client prior to the announcement of a public bid and the need to write proposals in the voice of the customer... - Improve Your Proposals: First, Deconstruct the RFP
The proposal writing process starts with the Bid/No Bid decision. Ideally, a yes decision will be based on what you know about the customer from sales efforts carried out well before the Request for Proposal (RFP) is published... - How Proposal Evaluators Think
Many people who have evaluated federal proposals have attended our proposal writing seminars. Without exception, they say the following: Give us exactly what we asked for in the RFP, no more or no less. Avoid sales pitches without substantiation, e... - The Customer is the Key to Winning Proposals
Most successful federal contractors understand relationship sales and sell the customer before writing customer driven, defensive proposals. Yet we hear over and over: "we are new and they won't meet with us"... - Process Versus Content
Proposal writing involves both process and content. Effective proposal writing processes are important but proposal content rules over process... - Presenting Corporate Experience
Corporate experience summaries show the core capabilities of a company. Like resumes, in many companies they are not as well documented as they should be... - 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... - Solving the Proposal Writing Dilemma
Our last installment discussed the haphazard and disjointed federal proposal writing efforts that take place in most companies and why they occur. This installment presents concrete steps that can be taken to minimize the problem. 1... - Structure and Automate Your Sales and Proposal Processes
In a recent Fedmarket installment "Integration of Sales and Proposal Writing," we recommended that you integrate the sales and proposal- writing process... - Corporate Experience and Resume Database
In a recent installment "Solving the Proposal Dilemma," we recommended that you invest in building a database of up-to-date resumes and corporate experience and actually keep it updated... - Write the Executive Summary Early
In a recent installment "Solving the Proposal Dilemma", we recommended that you write the Executive Summary before the proposal kickoff meeting... - Implement an Incentive System
In a recent installment "Solving the Proposal Dilemma," we recommended that you use an incentive system to compensate your best technical writers when your company is the successful bidder on a federal opportunity... - Implement Version Control
In a recent installment "Solving the Proposal Dilemma," we recommended that you automate and "version control" your old proposals and Management Plan boilerplate... - Proposal Page Limitations; What's Not to Like?
In a previous installment " The Art of Not Being Eliminated" we discussed the simplicity and clarity that federal evaluators desire in a proposal... - Wild Cards Can Delude You
An attendee at one of our proposal writing seminars stated that her company calls blind bids on FedBizzOpps solicitations "wild cards". Every once in a while when the stars line up correctly they play a wild card and they won one last year... - Two of the Deadliest Proposal Writing Sins
A service company's two greatest assets are its corporate experience and the background of its staff. Often, both assets are not presented effectively in a company's federal proposals... - Curing the Two Deadly Sins
The previous installment discussed the problems associated with waiting until the last minute to tackle critical issues and providing overblown corporate experience and personnel chapters for federal proposals... - Best Practices and Best Avoided
Our seminar staff recently completed one of our monthly seminars on proposal writing. As we do in every class, we discussed how proposals should be written to be the "last proposal standing" or, said in Fedmarket-speak, a defensive proposal... - Working with Teaming Partners to Draft Proposals
No one person or corporation is an island. If you are like most successful contractors, you team with other organizations to write winning proposals... - Red Team Review Guidelines
A couple of installments ago, we wrote that the process many companies use for proposal reviews is "broken." We discussed why and how to mitigate the issues that seem to plague proposal reviews (see What is Wrong with the Proposal Review Process?)... - More on Defensive Proposals
In an earlier installment, we defined a defensive proposal as follows: One written not to be eliminated from consideration by the proposal evaluation committee The proposal written with the goal of being the last proposal standing A presentation... - Hot Buttons Tell Your Customers You Get It
From last week's post, you probably took away that the proposal theme (see The Proposal Theme: A Rhetorical Infrastructure for Selling) is not just some fluff language... - Templates and Federal Proposal Writing
Templates can play an important role in federal proposal writing. If a company wants to win a bid opportunity, the proposal it submits in response to a federal Request for Proposal (RFP) must be unique... - It's the Outline, Stupid
Effective written material is always the result of a process which began with an outline. Proposal evaluators want concise, easy-to-read information free of fluff and sales pitches... - How to Write Losing or Unsuccessful Proposals
How to write losing proposals is not a particularly positive topic to discuss. However, many federal contractors seem quite adept at preparing such proposals so the discussion is most likely a worthwhile one... - Technical Writers Crave Structure
Technical (Solutions) writers crave structured outlines for the following reasons: 1. Most don't like to write, and structure increases their confidence. 2... - Figure Captions, the Unexplored Selling Frontier
Given the following table: Number of Personnel Position Responsibility 1 Project Manager Management of the project 1 System Architect Software architecture 1 Data architect Database architecture 3 Business Analyst Identificat... - Phrases to Delete
A large majority of federal business requires proposals, and federal proposal evaluators are sophisticated professionals who have read every self-serving statement known to man... - An Approach to Structuring Your Technical Approach
The Proposal Architect, Fedmarket's web-based proposal writing tool, uses a table-driven approach to developing a detailed technical approach outline... - 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... - GSA and Most Favored Customer Pricing
A recent newsletter discussed that the General Service Administration (GSA) has encountered procurement problems and has initiated a "Get It Right" campaign to improve acquisition regulation compliance... - 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 Schedules and Small Businesses
As reported in earlier installments, the federal government's use of multi-vendor contracts to buy products and services is steadily increasing... - GSA Schedule Competition in Real Life
For political reasons the federal government takes the position that competition for federal contracts is 'full and open"... - What Drives Companies to Pursue GSA Schedules?
Sales numbers for a particular Schedule may be interesting to look at, but the numbers are all large and not particularly useful to individual companies... - 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... - Four Cold Calling Tactics
Many readers of "On the Firing Line" have asked about my thoughts on whether it is possible, in the post-September 11th world, to make personal cold calls on federal buyers... - Small Businesses, Take Note...
While 2005 is starting to 'ramp up' to be a successful year for savvy federal contractors and prime vendors, we all know that we need to continue to fill the pipeline through brand identity and face time in front of our potential federal buyers and ... - One Page Capabilities Statement Available in a Simple Format Saves You Thousands of Dollars in Full Color Brochures
As you have been placing your six additional calls a day, I would bet money on one response you are getting from the buyer or end user:"Send me information."At Fedmarket.com, we have a running joke. We call it the "polite blow-off... - 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... - Michigan Sales Executive Networks His Way to Success in Washington, DC
October, 2004 -- Stuart Newman, Sales Executive, of 3 Leaf Group from Oak Park, MI says he made it his mission to meet key federal government decision makers at a recent government human resources conference in Virginia... - Finding a Great Government Sales Executive
We were asked by a recent attendee of our "Winning Government Business" class in Atlanta how to find a great person to sell his products and services... - 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... - Cold Caller Adventure: State of Colorado
During the week of August 15, 2004, I was teaching a "Winning Government Business" at the Burnsley Hotel at Grant and 10th Street... - When You're On the Sales Firing Line With The Government, Problem Solving Requires Open Communication With Your Client
Many clients and other contacts tell me that they become extremely impatient with the federal government's "hurry up and wait" attitude. For example, a client might receive a call today for a quote due by tomorrow afternoon... - 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... - 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... - The Katrina Response Report is Out and the Government is in Pain - It's Your Turn to Find the Problems and Fix Them!
The following is a sampling of the headlines and quotes I've heard or found in the media lately. In summary, the stories indicate that the government is in dire need of your assistance. WASHINGTONPOST... - In Government Sales, Don't Believe Everything You're Told or You'll Lose
The government is made up of influential people - - some of whom make million dollar decisions every day. However, the active word here is that they're "people... - More Hot News Puts Private Sector "On the Sales Firing Line"
It seems that I see more and more headlines that virtually beg you to make the cold call. The government is literally pounding the table asking for your help... - Help The Government Solve Problems
Although the federal government is made up of hundreds of agencies, the few that we seem to hear about in the news are the Department of Homeland Security, the military and the Intelligence Community... - 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... - Selling IT: Business Development
In our newsletters, we talk a lot about the importance of advanced knowledge -- knowing about an agency, its people, its nuances and, most importantly, its program goals... - 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: Marketing IT to the Government
In this article, we define marketing as activities to make the public, official buyers and end-users aware of your company and your 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 Business Opportunities Under the E-Government Act of 2002
The E-Government Act of 2002 (EGA) created a number of sales opportunities for IT services companies. The EGA authorized the following amounts for e-government projects... - 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...
