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Government Contracts

nolanola

New Member
Seeking advice about bidding on government contracts. We have registered for Sam.gov, identified our NAICS codes, and searched for opportunities. Does anyone have insight as to where to go from here? If you have experience with bidding, do you have any tips? Would it benefit our company to seek 8a certfication? How do we pursue sub contracting opportunities?
Thank you in advance for any guidance you can offer.
 

jimbug72

New Member
About 10-12 years ago we spent 6-8 months pursuing govt. contracts. In our experience it was all just one big race to the bottom. Lowest price pretty much always won and I don't think any of the payouts were ever really worth the hassle, which is why we quit bothering with them after a relatively short time. Maybe things have changed since then, but I would wager not for the better.
 

Joseph44708

I Drink And I Know Things
Seeking advice about bidding on government contracts. We have registered for Sam.gov, identified our NAICS codes, and searched for opportunities. Does anyone have insight as to where to go from here? If you have experience with bidding, do you have any tips? Would it benefit our company to seek 8a certfication? How do we pursue sub contracting opportunities?
Thank you in advance for any guidance you can offer.
If you know someone, You're in.
If not, it's a waste of time.
Good Luck.
 

Solventinkjet

DIY Printer Fixing Guide
If you know someone, You're in.
If not, it's a waste of time.
Good Luck.
We've done a bunch of government contracts for printers and run into this a lot. The purchaser knows a guy he wants to buy from so he makes the description of the machine so specific that it could only be one brand. We lost a contract on a printer once because ours had a 3% difference in the required humidity range. Even though our machine was faster and cheaper.
 

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
I got a big federal contract at a company I used to work for and had no ins at all. It was an IDIQ, indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery that was capped around $2mil a year. It was a sole source for multiple items and nobody that bid on it caught it. I went higher on the stuff that they would use in quantity and lower on the oddball stuff that I wagered they would not use which put us as low bid in total but with higher pricing on the good stuff.
I have also bid a lot of local municipal contracts, those I did not care for one bit. They line item each thing so the pricing is all in the toilet and they dictate the terms of how you do business. What solventinkjet said is also true, if they want a specific vendor or product, they will make it work through the bid spec. They also usually have a convenience clause which gives them an out when they decide that they don't like you or they want to help out their buddy.
The good thing on some of them is they may bid out 18x24 parking signs where you drop your pants on those and then usually pick up a lot of other non-bid work where you can make your money back but that can be a gamble as well.
 

kevinsstelly

New Member
Government contracts are a low-margin line of business! There are exceptions but they are rare! Everything must be considered and risk taken into account!
 

Jean Shimp

New Member
If you can become certified as 8A it will go a long way in giving you an edge over the competition. The SBA has a lot of free training programs that can help you decide if you want to go ahead and pursue government contracting. It can be very lucrative, but there is quite a learning curve to understand all the requirements and specifications. Personally I find the government contracts to be more trouble than they are worth as long as I have enough other sign work to keep me busy.
 
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