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. The size of a particular GSA Schedule market is not a meaningful number if only a tiny slice of the market is actually available to your company. A laundry services company in the Chicago area has a limited geographic area in which it can realistically deliver its services. The key question for this type of company is "Are there federal offices or installations in our locale, and do these entities need our services?"

Once that question is addressed, the next question becomes "How much of the available work is currently held by incumbent contractors, and how much of it is new work?" By doing research, your company should be able to make a reasonable estimate of the available contract dollars within reach of your company.

A company selling office supplies rather than services has a different set of questions to answer because office supplies can be sold by telephone to virtually any federal customer regardless of location. The critical questions are: