Are you continuously trying to move the needle on your government contract sales? I thought it would be a good time for Government Contractors to take a step back and consider any lost profit centers. There are so many actions you can take to improve government sales, but here are the top ten in my experience.

1. Get a Contract Vehicle – Like a GSA Contract

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   There are many reasons to get a GSA Contract: Access to exclusive bidding opportunities, simplified acquisition, validation as a “Verified” Government Contractor. The process to get a GSA Contract is complex and frustrating, but the pay-off can be extremely rewarding. It takes months to get on contract, but getting started today will establish your company for the coming months.

2. Get onto DoD Emall

   Not every category is offered on DoD Emall, but they are a growing area for Defense spending. If you can get your products onto Emall, then you should.

3. Set Asides

   If the majority owner of your company is a woman, minority, or veteran, then you will likely qualify for a Set Aside. Federal Agencies try hard to meet their Set Aside goals every year, so if you are not taking advantage of this then you may be missing out.

4. Drop your price for the busy season

   The GSA Advantage system offers a “Sale” option, where you can drop prices for a specified period. In the busy season, this could set you apart from the competition. Why not offer some deeper discounts Open Market as well?

5. Email past customers 

   Federal buyers are just like Commercial Buyers in that they are research a product or service before a buy. Why not help them out and direct them to your offerings by educating them. Your experience can be a great asset to them, saving the most important resource for every Contracting Officer: TIME. You could send them new product profiles, notifications of price drops, Case Studies, etc.

6. Debrief and/or Protest on lost bids

   You can’t win them all, but are you losing more than you feel you should? This shame spiral will continue until you debrief with your buyers. This will give you a rare peek into their brain, allowing you to refine your proposal writing process. Every successful contractor I have ever worked with debriefed often, and protested lost projects that they felt were unfairly lost.

7. Teaming Agreements

   I know, you despise your competitors, and your personal goal in life is to destroy them. Well, in the Government Contracting world, you may need to work with them on large integrated projects. So, you should probably befriend a few of your better competitors and feel out any ways you can work together to serve both of your interests. There is enough government spending to go around.

8. Explore new Offerings

   Once you have taken a large market share in a sector, the question will become, where next? Doubling and tripling your federal revenue depends on how you grow your offerings because often times, the funding in your market will not change much. This is a great way to utilize your growing rolodex of federal buyers.

9. Improve your Proposal writing

   Baseball players spend hours every day at the batting cage to improve their batting average. If you are not continuously learning about how to improve your proposal writing, then your batting average will stay the same or decline. How can you make your proposal writing process more streamlined, so you can submit more in less time? How can you make your proposal stand out as the most intuitive and impressive one?

10. Make sure your bid trapping is up-to-date

    FedBizOpps (FBO) and GSA E-Buy are great areas, and many opportunities find their way through these systems. However, they are not the only ones out there. So, you must pursue everything you can. There are some helpful services out there (Like FedBidSpeed) that will pull the bids and organize them for you, paying for this service is money well spent.