How to Find and Win Government Contracting Bids

You may have spent some time trying to grow your business by searching for government contracting bids, like identifying lists to get on, and even considering getting certified to improve your odds. However, there are more successful strategies you can use to help you win government contracts.

In this overview, you’ll learn how to win government contract bids by building relationships and staying ahead of potential opportunities.

Why you need to be proactive

If you wait for contract opportunities to be listed on various government websites, your work in creating a proposal is either too little or too late. The turnaround time for requests for proposals (RFPs) is short and leaves you with very little time to:

  • Fully understand the proposal
  • Develop a plan that best fits their needs
  • Prepare your resources and team
  • Write a meaningful proposal

Even more challenging is that if you lose a bid for a contract, may not receive feedback on why you weren’t selected.

How to build relationships

The government contracting process is specifically designed to prevent corruption and favoritism. However, relationships still play a critical part.

If you want to work in government contracting, you need to narrow your focus to the agencies most in need of your products and services. Then, you’ll need to understand the agency and its roles deeply. That means making industry connections with people who work on the ground level of the agency to determine:

  • What goods and services do they use?
  • What guides their work?
  • What are the “pain points” in their operation?

Your goal is to understand and predict their need before any government contract opportunity is released.

It’s also a good idea to build relationships with the contracting officers there, but you can’t pressure them to work with you or engage in unethical activities. The key with contracting officers is to establish familiarity and let them know your qualifications, even if there isn’t a current opportunity. You can do this by:

  • Sending up-to-date capability statements to contracting officers
  • Providing case studies about how your solutions have helped agencies in the past
  • Meeting with them regularly at industry events

With this information, you can prepare your resources and a thoughtful plan before an RFP or request for quote (RFQ) is released. As a result, you can quickly make an outstanding proposal that not only addresses the request, but truly addresses all their needs. The contracting officers still need to select the best proposal unbiasedly, but your proposal will be much stronger than other firms.

How to stay ahead of opportunities

Many government contractors skip over requests for information (RFIs), “Sources Sought,” and “Pre-Solicitations.” However, this is a missed opportunity – RFIs are another key step in getting an edge in government contracting bids. Here’s how it works:

  • The contracting officer sits between you and the agency’s staff. Their job is to ensure that contracts are awarded to the most qualified candidate. As a result, contracting officers often don’t know very much about the technical nature of the request.
  • The contracting officers gather information from the agency’s workers, but also need information about what the industry offers to meet those needs. This is what the RFI, Sources Sought, and Pre-Solicitation are for. It’s your only chance to meet with the contracting officer, and it’s an opportunity to advise them on what solutions are available and find out exactly when they plan to release a contract opportunity.

By responding to an RFI, you’ll know of a contracting opportunity before it’s released, how much the agency is willing to pay, and have a chance to influence how they write that final contract opportunity.

After your pre-solicitation meeting with the contracting officer, it’s time to assemble your resources and team. That means contacting your suppliers, the vendors you’ll need to do the job, and subcontractors. It’s important to get a good team in place, including employees inside your business, as well as any external contractors you hope to use as subcontractors for the job, with their Curriculum Vitae’s (CVs) and roles decided before an RFP is released.

How to focus your search

Building relationships with agencies is only possible if you narrow your scope. For your small business, it can be unrealistic to build a rapport with every government agency, nationwide or local.

You should commit to searching for opportunities from a small number of agencies – and sticking to that selection. That also means paying attention to smaller local government agencies. Often, their contract opportunities are more challenging to find because they aren’t listed on public webpages or easily accessible contract databases, and as a result, they’ll have fewer and less qualified applicants.

Don’t give up

Even if you lose a bid, you can still use it as another opportunity to build rapport for the future. After losing a bid, you can request a debrief from the contracting agency. This helps you improve your offerings, understand any errors in your proposal, and stay in good standing with the contracting officers.

Pursuit can help

Pursuit is a leading small business lender serving small businesses across New YorkNew JerseyPennsylvaniaConnecticutNevadaIllinois, and Washington. We provide more than 15 loan optionsbusiness advisory services, and insightful resources.

We’ve helped thousands of small business owners get the funding they need to achieve their goals and dreams, and we can help you, too.

Start your application today so we can help your business reach higher and grow!

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