Easiest Government Contracts to Win

Current or recent past performance makes future contract wins easier.  Unfortunately, penetrating the Federal Government contracting market as a 1-person company with no past performance is nearly impossible…unless you leverage industry “insider” knowledge! Therefore, gain market penetration by alternative ways, finding those easiest government contracts to win.

2 Key Points to Detect Market Penetration and Find Hidden Market Opportunities for the Easiest Government Contracts to Win

Subcontract to Get Rolling!

There are exactly two ways to make money in the Federal Government contracting industry.

First, you can either directly support the government on a prime contract. Second, and easiest government contract to win,  you can have a subcontract under the prime contract holder.

Winning Prime Contracts to Gain Market Penetration

To win a prime contract, you write a proposal that fully commits your company to perform exactly in accordance with contract requirements. Therefore, your company is 100% responsible and accountable to your government customer to comply with all contract terms. This is a daunting task with some risk should you not have any experience in this industry.

Unless you already have experience in the Federal Government contracting industry, then focusing on immediately winning prime contracts is not your best strategy for market penetration, obtaining your first contract and therefore, not your easiest government contract to win.

1. Without any corporate current or past performances that you can cite, your company’s proposals are not scored as well, and your win probability is low.
2. You can learn a tremendous amount about writing proposals by supporting an experienced prime bidder as a member of their bid team.
3. As a subcontractor under an experienced prime contractor, you can gain tremendous experience and insights into how to effectively manage a contract and avoid the very real risk of “winning yourself out of business.” For most first-time entrepreneurs in the Federal Government contracting industry, subcontracting is the easiest government contracts win and the most efficient way to achieve market penetration.

Becoming a Sub Contractor to Avoid Market Penetration

When trying to obtain a subcontract there are two distinct phases:

1. Being selected on a prime bidder’s bid team before the proposal is submitted, and
2. Being added to the contract team after the prime bidder has been awarded the contract.

Each phase requires completely different approaches. Government Contracting Academy can guide you in obtaining subcontracts in both phases!

#1 Join Proposal Teams to Avoid Market Penetration, Easier Government Contracts to Win

The traditional way to obtain a subcontract is to be part of a proposal team, working together on a large bid effort.

Join prime bidder’s proposal team by entering into a teaming agreement can be easiest government contracts to win .

• Teaming agreements delineate your proposal support obligations and your “work share” should your proposal team win.
• Teaming agreements also include a Non-disclosure Agreement to prevent sharing team members’ proprietary information learned during the bid effort.
• A teaming agreement may also include an exclusivity clause which states that you cannot join another competitive bid team.

Although this is the conventional approach to pursuing a subcontract, joining a bid team is a non-trivial task.

You’re competing with scores of other small businesses to be selected by the prime bidder to join their team. In case you missed the subtlety, you must first win the selection process just to join a bid team that will compete to win a prime contract award. In the legal field, this would be considered double jeopardy. You should also be aware that subcontracting plans are only evaluated on very large prime contract bids, so prime bidders are usually only willing to entertain teaming with set aside companies for very large opportunities.

Using this approach alone, you may tremendously limit the number of opportunities that your company has at winning. However, there is a more pro-active way to join a bid team.

Select the prime bidder!

Instead of being the small business seeking selection by a prime bidder, you turn the table and select the prime bidder!

Government Contracting Academy will show you ways to put your potential success in YOUR hands and not some arbitrary large company’s hands. They will also show you the best subcontracting opportunities. Here’s a hint…its not always the larger company and the larger bid effort!

#2 Join Contract Teams to Avoid Market Penetration, Easiest Government Contracts to Win

After a contract is awarded and the work share is divided up by the bid team, hard-working entrepreneurs still find their way to a sub-contract.

Here’s why.

Doing Business Development

Some of the prime contractors bid partners invest incredible resources to do business development and help write the proposal. Following the award, they under-resource the transition and staffing of the contract.

Simply stated, they spend countless hours helping to win the contract and then neglect to hire the billable positions that will provide them profit!

Understaffed Contracts are the Most Overlooked, Easiest Government Contracts to Win

In some cases, a successful bid team member makes a business decision and walks away from their subcontracting responsibilities. While attempting to staff their positions, they realize they underpriced their positions and cannot make a profit by hiring people at their predicted salary. In either case, they leave the prime contractor with an understaffed contract.

On understaffed contracts, the prime contractor’s program manager is under a lot of pressure.

• His government customer is constantly asking “where’s the rest of my team?”
• His corporate manager is constantly demanding that he increase his “burn rate” by staffing more people who bill more hours.
• Although the program managed will almost always try to staff vacant positions themselves or through an existing bid team member, these stressed folks will listen to anyone with an immediate solution.
• An acceptable immediate solution is tremendously better than a great solution when it’s too late to matter.

Identifying Contracts with Staffing Challenges

This strategy is simple.

Identify contracts with staffing challenges and then approach the prime contractor’s program manager with a stack of “ready to work” candidates.

For many program managers, you are an acceptable immediate solution to their problem. Although this is a simple strategy, it leverages two components that are difficult to identify.

• How do you identify contracts with staffing issues?
• How do you find qualified people to pitch to stressed out program managers?

Government Contracting Academy provides “insider tips” to improve your probability of success obtaining subcontracts.