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this webinar is designed to help small businesses understand the basics of how to do business with federal agencies it's all about helping establish businesses win federal contracts welcome to the Florida procurement technical assistance centers overview of contracting with the federal government the goal of this webinar is to provide you a firm foundation for your first meeting with your local PTAC so that the first meeting and the ongoing discussions with your PTAC specialists are as productive as they can be for you and ultimately lead to your business's growth and success there are certain things you will and won't get from this webinar we will be addressing many questions and topics that you should be considering before jumping into this new market but I won't be able to give you the answers because the answers are dependent on your particular business situation however I will be sharing best industry practices that have been used by those who have gone before you and have succeeded I will also be sharing with you some of the most used tools and resources that will help you get started on the right foot first a little bit about the program the procurement technical assistance center program or PTAC was authorized by Congress in 1985 in an effort to expand the number of businesses capable of participating in the government marketplace it's administered by the Department of Defense defense logistics agency or DLA the program provides matching funds through cooperative agreements with state and local governments and nonprofit organizations as well there are 94 procurement technical assistance centers our p tax across the country with over 300 local offices nationwide here in florida government contracting specialists provide support across the entire state so there's always a p tax specialist near you the PTAC program not only supports federal government contracting but also state and local government contracting assistance as well in three basic ways by providing educational services such as the webinar that you're viewing today information services to include contract research and technical information and one-on-one confidential consulting services where you can sit down with a government contracting specialist to talk about the details of your business specifically some of the things that we provide include assistance with contracting laws policies and procedures assistance with registrations to include the system for award management help with the Metra Protege programs the DLA internet bid board system or dibs and assistance in securing preferred small business certifications to name a few let's get started this presentation today follows the Florida six step gateway process to government contracts we'll start off by looking at some good techniques to evaluate this market to see if it's suitable for your business and then moving forward we'll look at some good solid ways to plan out your approach from getting you where you are today to your next government customer will look at some mandatory registrations that every government vendor must have in order to do business in the federal sector well look at some good preparation techniques to help you optimize your chances for success we'll also look at actually pursuing opportunities and this is what most people would think of in terms of developing a proposal submitting it to the government for evaluation and ultimately being awarded a contract or achieving that positive result so let's start off by looking at some good techniques for evaluating the federal government mark place if it's right for you and where you fit in so a good place to start is where you're at today and that's by attending a workshop but there's no reason to stop with today's workshop we would encourage you to continue by looking at other available online webinars training programs and opportunities to learn more about the federal government arena there are excellent training programs available through the SBA or Small Business Administration classroom on their website at SBA govt also through the national app Tech Association there are a number of events and sites and training opportunities that are available there as well also it's always a good idea to attend a vendor orientation most government agencies will have a periodic orientation for new vendors that can learn about how to do business with that agency when solicitations are released how to become aware of those solicitations and what are the upcoming contracts that are gonna be issued by that agency and again we are at the evaluation stage of this process however it is a good way to start getting immersion into doing work with various agencies we also recommend forging a relationship with a business advisor we would hope that that would be with a PTAC specialist however there are a number of business advisors that are available to you to assist you to include the SBA the Small Business Development Center or SBDC and score to name a few one of the things that we recommend very early on especially in the evaluation stage is to take a look at a solicitation now solicitations are called many different things they could be called a ITB or invitation to bid which is generally associated with a firm fixed price contract usually a construction contract rfqs which are requests for quotes or request for qualifications RFP or request for proposal or itn invitation to negotiate regardless of what the solicitation is called it can only benefit you to take a look at either current solicitations or solicitations that have been recent really released the idea here is to become aware of what's going to be required of you to bid on projects submit your offers and ultimately win a contract now I will say that if you're new to this if you've never looked at a solicitation keep in mind the purpose of doing this at this point is to just become familiar with what the requirements are we're not producing a proposal we're not responding to an opportunity we are simply trying to gain an understanding of how to operate in this new marketplace so the point is that it will be overwhelming at first there'll be many terms acronyms that you may be unfamiliar with and that's okay you can turn to your PTAC specialist to help provide clarification and clarity and what those terms mean and how to read through a solicitation the first solicitation you may download may be sizable it may be 500 pages or more keep in mind that there's many solicitations all solicitations are not created equal if the first one that you download will take several reams of paper on multiple volumes keep looking solicitations can range from 500 pages to 50 pages and very short 5 page solicitations so keep looking gather your questions and you want to bring those questions to your first meeting with your p-tech specialist so where do you find these solicitations a good place to look is at the federal procurement site bata Sam dot govt I would encourage you to visit that site initially look under the area that says contract opportunities and under the keyword search section enter keywords that are associated with what you do and again it does not have to be an exact match to what you do we're only trying to garner a basic familiarity with how the federal government works so for example if you provide lawn care services try putting in landscaping or mowing or grass cutting that's probably going to get you pretty close to where you win you're going to end up being in looking for opportunities download a solicitation print it out take a look at it so one of the things that is a mandatory requirement of all federal government contractors is to have a familiarity with federal government acquisition regulations it is a highly regulated environment and marketplace and having a basic understanding of what is going to be required of you is imperative now this could include an understanding of CFR s or Code of Federal Regulations you'll often see references to what is called the far or Federal Acquisition regulations and many times even individual agencies such as the Department of Defense will have supplemental agency regulations and then it moves downstream from there to include services and individual commands now I'm not suggesting that you need to be an expert in all the details and have a lawyerly understanding of every possible granular detail however what we recommend is to have a familiarity with it so a good comparison is accounting as small business owners we need to know a lot of things but we can't be experts on everything accounting oftentimes is one of those subject areas so being able to read a profit and loss statement having an understanding of how to understand the overall financial condition and health of your company is is important however we do not need to be certified public accountants we hire experts for that the understanding of federal government acquisition regulations is very much the same it's important to have a basic understanding of it to understand when certain subjects are beyond your current knowledge and who you can turn to for clarification and more in-depth understanding oftentimes that those clarifications in that understanding will start with your P tax specialist and then many times will lead to an attorney who specializes in federal government acquisitions your PTAC can help connect you with all those resources so that's the first initial steps in evaluating this new market some good first things to do and then moving forward from that point it's a good idea to start assembling a plan now I'm not going to be addressing the mechanics of how to assemble a marketing plan there's plenty of information available on how to do that however I will be addressing what I think are some of the more important components that you should be capturing in your marketing plan for federal government contracting one of the first things to consider when drafting your plan is to have an awareness of the different levels that federal agencies make purchases at the different thresholds so for example at the micro threshold which is typically a credit card purchase or sometimes called ap card purchase the government can make a credit card purchase if the individual is authorized for up to $10,000 many federal government acquisitions and purchases fall into this category from there there's a mid-level purchase which is oftentimes referred to as a simplified acquisition procedure or si P that's above the micro purchase threshold of ten thousand up to two hundred and fifty thousand the key point about si P purchases is that most of them are reserved for small businesses and then finally moving up to the largest level of purchase or large purchase are any acquisitions that are above two hundred and fifty thousand dollars up into the billions of dollars these are usually procured through beta sam.gov or GSA typically they will take the form of an invitation for bid or a request for proposal or RFP the point is that in your marketing plan for doing business with federal agencies it's important to consider targeting to being focused on perhaps a certain section or certain threshold of purchases now that doesn't mean that your business has to stay at that level forever and ever however you need to find a place to get a viable foothold and to win that first contract oftentimes at the micro or si P level that's where many small businesses will find their first contracts and then from there going up the ladder and growing as they build past performance and more experience in doing work with federal agencies so where can you find information and develop better insight for your government marketing plan well by doing your legwork by doing your due diligence and a good place to start is by looking at past contracts oh it's important to note that over ninety percent of all federal contracts are cyclical in other words they repeat so taking our example of landscaping services if a federal installation needed landscaping services or groundskeeping services last year they will need them again this year and that good old grass keeps growing they'll need it again next year so by looking at past contracts who those contracts have been awarded to how much was that contract awarded for and when is it coming up for recompete will provide good information good Intel and will help you focus your marketing plan on your next government customer a good place to look for that information is at a site called USA spending gov and that contains all past contracts that have been issued by the federal government a good place to look for present opportunities is by looking on the site that we've already visited and looked at and that's beta sam.gov that site provides a listing of all active act acquisitions in various stages and that's where you're going to be able to find what's currently available and what's currently being recompete 'add and then finally in doing your due diligence look at future acquisitions many agencies will publish any future acquisition opportunities that they are anticipating now agencies do the best they can they do not put out acquisition forecasts for small purchasing amounts such as micro purchases what you'll typically see in those acquisition forecasts are generally the larger contract activities however it still will provide some information about what's going to be coming up over the next year to two years so these are all good things that you can do to develop a familiarity with the market to develop an idea of where to focus your energies and efforts and what agencies are buying what you provide so in identifying your market and finding your target what we're trying to do here is find the agencies that are purchasing what we offer and we're trying to find viable opportunities winnable opportunities now there are all different kinds of ways here in narrowing this definition this is just a few but something to consider is maybe a focus on the sector of government that you're interested in first of all there's there's two big divisions in federal contracting there's civilian agencies such as NASA CDC and then there are Department of Defense agencies such as the Navy the Air Force the army so that is one of the first big segmentations in the federal market and then from there focusing in on perhaps a location do you want to look at contracts that are in your regional area perhaps you want to look at contracts that are within driving distance here in Florida we typically are ranked as number five in the country with the number of contracts and amount of federal spending so it is an opportunity rich market in Florida many small businesses in getting their start in government contracting find it difficult to service and support a contract that is two time zones away it's much more convenient to be in the same basic location and close to their headquarters that can be more efficient in delivering the operations and support of the contract it's something to consider every small business is going to be different there'll be different circumstances depending on the conditions of your business but something to consider is the location of the contract and then of course always important to consider the requirements of the contract what are the functions of the contract what is the agency looking for but not only just the the products or services but there may also be bonding and insurance requirements or maybe licensing things of that nature so where do you find the answers to these questions by going back to our practice solicitation that we downloaded in the very early stages of this presentation many of the answers to the questions that you're going to be generating here are going to be found back in that solicitation and again your PTAC specialists can help you to rapidly find those indicators of requirements in the contract so that you can again position yourself for success as we move into the later stages of business development so moving forward we've evaluated we've said yes this is something that we're interested in we've got a good solid game plan that gives us some areas to focus on there's some mandatory registrations that are going to be required of us in order to get into this market let's take a closer look at what
those are so for starters before you can start any government contracting you're going to need to start a business now that's one of the areas that the procurement Technical Assistance Center program does not typically support however there are a number of resources through the Small Business Administration who can help you with that to include the SBDC the Service Corps of retired executives or score the Women's Business Center or WBC and the veterans business outreach centers or V Bock now these are no-cost public service resources and experts who can help you start your business if you would prefer to have a dedicated for fee professional who is going to help you with that I would encourage you to take a look at the Small Business Resource Network or SBR in that is a network a referral network of professionals who not only help businesses get started but other expertise and resources as well to include attorneys accountants and financial assistance you can visit that site at SB RN dot o-r-g so we're going to assume that you've started your business and we are ready to go with our government contracting regulations one of the first thing that you're going to need to do is to look up your business codes now there's two primary codes that you're going to encounter in federal contracting and those are the North American industry classification system or Naik's codes the other one is the product and service codes or pscs this is also referred to sometimes as federal supply codes or FSCS although there are different coding systems the same basic theory is the same between all coding systems for the for the government and that is they are a numerical classification with a product or service so in other words the best way for me to explain this is by providing an example so if you provide lawn care services we'll stay with that example here what do you call that if you're a government agency and you want to advertise that you have that requirement what do you call that well you call it mowing grass cut grass cutting landscaping do you get out the thesaurus and look up every possible word associated with that activity well that's not an efficient way for the government to conduct its acquisition activities it's not an efficient way for agencies and businesses to connect with one another so the solution is to assign each each type of product or each type of service a code and that's the way that the government classifies that purchasing activity that expenditure it's it's its line item and its budget it's the way that it advertised that opportunity you'll see opportunities advertised on beta sam.gov that are organized by their Naik's codes it's also a way that vendors can quickly find those opportunities and also identify themselves by what functional areas that they support many times when you first talk with the government contracting professional one of the first things they will ask you is what are your next codes or what is your nice code and you can have multiples it doesn't mean that you have to have one for example construction companies will oftentimes have numerous snakes codes they will of course have their primary Naik's code under the construction activity but they also will provide roofing services HVAC maintenance plumbing electrical services and each one of those is a different mix code other companies will just have one primary Naik's code and that's it it doesn't mean that more is better it just means that the it identifies what your company does and how it can support federal agencies very important concept to understand the basis of the different coding systems so now you've identified entity ated codes are with your business you're gonna need to complete your dun & bradstreet Duns registration or data Universal numbering system this is a free registration that's available to all government contractors by visiting the website on the screen what you'll do is once you arrive at the site it will ask you to input your company name and location and it's going to query the site to see if you're already registered and have already been issued a Duns number if you have it then it provides the option to go ahead and apply for a Duns number if it's a short five step process you'll go ahead and submit your information it generally takes about 20 to 30 minutes to complete the registration request and then usually takes a few days for word dun & bradstreet to issue you your Duns number once you have your Duns number then as a as a contractor who wants to do business with the federal government you're ready to move on to the next step and that's going to be completion of what they call your Sam registration or system for award management that can be found at wws am gov now although the two sites are identified with the same acronym Sam earlier I had referred to beta sam.gov and this one is sam.gov the federal procurement system is going has been going through a nation over the last few years and they're starting to merge multiple legacy systems together into one unified procurement system so currently that is in transition so as it stands today those two sites are operating very closely with one another but they have not been fully integrated at this point in time so the point is that the two are associated with one another there however they are separate from one other one another at this point so very similar in the name the same name Sam but two different sites one provides beta Sam provides your information for acquisitions and contract opportunities this particular site or wwm gov is where you need to go to register your company in order to move forward in doing work with various federal agencies I would once you arrive there there's going to be several things that you're going to need to do the first one is to establish a username and password and you'll notice in the upper right hand corner an option for proceeding forward with that step also under the Help section I would encourage you to take a look there as well there are some helpful how-to step-by-step videos that are available to you that walk you through the process many PTAC clients will utilize our services to help them complete the registration step so if that's something that you need assistance with please engage with your local p-tech give them a call set an appointment and they would be happy to assist you in in the successful completion of your Sam registration as you're going through your Sam registration towards the very end if you choose to do this yourself or with your PTAC specialist towards the very end the second-to-last screen you're going to be presented with the option to complete your sba dynamic small business search profile very important that you click on that option and that will open up a separate window you're gonna want to complete that and again this is part of your Sam registration process towards the very very end you're gonna go ahead and click on that option and that is going to enable you to fill out your complete profile for your business that profile is going to be available to government purchasing professionals prime contractors that are looking for subcontractors and any other small businesses that are looking to possibly team so we encourage you to go ahead take advantage of that option visit that site complete the profile and as as fully as you possibly can it's something that you can always go back in and alter refine polish it as your business changes of course that information should be updated on a regular basis as well but essentially the sba dynamic small business search or what is commonly referred to as DSBs it's essentially the search engine for the government in finding small businesses and again I'll harken back to one of the topics I addressed earlier and that was with the different thresholds of buying and under the S ap purchase or the mid-level purchase all those purchases are reserved for small businesses for the most part so oftentimes an agency will go to this database the dynamic small business search in doing their contract research in determining are there enough small businesses out there capable of providing the required products and services of that agency is needing so this is usually one of the weld used research tools that are used by government buyers and decision-makers so you want your profile to be as polished as it can possibly be again your P tax specialist is very familiar with with this requirement very familiar with that database and has seen a lot of companies who have registered and understands how to help you polish that profile of your company so now we've completed our basic registrations for doing business with federal government agencies what are some things that we can do to prepare ourselves to really increase our chances of winning that first contract let's take a closer look first of all by developing some good solid marketing tools now there there's not one set of marketing tools that is a one-size-fits-all for everyone this is going to be different depending on your business your market sector whether you provide services or products or or what type of agencies you're focused on whether those are civilian agencies or DoD agencies all the things that we referred to earlier are gonna become important here in developing your marketing tools and they're gonna help you develop a focus in your messages so some of the things that we ask you to consider include a a good solid business card that is focused on your government customer one of the things that I like to do is I'd like to put my Naik's codes on the back of my business card perhaps along with my dunnan's Bradstreet Duns number and any small business certifications that I may have and I like to when I hand business card to a government decision maker I like to show them the back of the card first because I'm speaking their language and immediately I'm communicating to them by having those various codes in there then I'm in the government market field and I understand their language because that's the way that that government procurement professionals speak is in acronyms and codes and so by capturing that not only on my business card but on my other marketing materials I'm communicating to that customer that I have got my registrations in place that I have got all my tools in order and I am ready to do business with their agency I also recommend creating a page on your website that focuses on government well I'm not suggesting that you completely revamp your website what I am suggesting is you may want to create a separate page or tab that refers just to the government and the reason being that the government views themselves as being different and rightly so they are different it's a different type of buying activity it's a much more rigorous kind of transaction it's very regulated there's different ways that the government buys and by having a separate tab on your website you're immediately communicating to that customer that you understand that they're different and that you are focused on making sure that you're meeting their requirements in the way that they expect them to be needed so having that separate area and not only on your website but in a lot of your messaging is very important also word of mouth is is holds true with government contracting just like it does with any other type of business development activity and oftentimes people that are new to government contracting say well I don't know anybody well maybe you do and maybe you don't sometimes your best connections are through some of the professional relationships that you have you never know who somebody knows so oftentimes by reaching out to say your accountant or your lending institution if you have a relationship with your bank or your bookkeeper or vendors or other teaming partners people that businesses that you're a team with and letting them know that you are now focused on generating business in the federal government market sector you never know where that next referral is going to come from so by spreading the word you're increasing your chances also one of the marketing tools that we strongly recommend that you develop for your company is a capabilities statement or oftentimes it's referred to as a cap statement now a cap statement our capability statement is basically a one or two page brief resume of York of your company oftentimes it's requested by government agencies or prime contractors that are looking for subs it is typically an overview of what you do how you do it it identifies your business codes your small business certifications your Duns number your location it will talk about your past performance it will talk about what you are exceptionally good at and essentially why should we do business with you it is a it is a short leave behind or many times an introductory piece that again is a emphasize ur of your company it's a resume and like resumes capability statements generally won't win you the contract however a bad capability statement can sometimes cost you the opportunity so we would encourage you to put some time into this work with your PTAC specialist to develop a very refined focused and polished capability statement that presents your company in the most professional way possible one of the other things that you can do in preparing yourself for government contracting is to look at small business certifications that you may or may not be eligible for now there are multiple certifications available in the federal government contracting arena so let's take just a moment to discuss those on the federal side there's generally for mainstream small business certifications that are administered and governed over by the SBA or Small Business Administration and they include the 8a small disadvantaged business program the woman-owned small business program the service-disabled veteran-owned small business program and the historically underutilized business zone certification those are the four primary preferred small business certifications and again there's more information about those available through the SBA site which is s ba da ga OV e also your p tax specialist is well-versed and we can help you in identifying those certifications and help you through the pathway to applying for those also there's something called the SDV OSB or service-disabled veteran-owned small business certification available through the VA center for verification and that is a separate certification that is issued by the VA the Department of Transportation also has something called a DBE certification or disadvantaged business enterprise is typically applied and is active for any vendors or contractors that want to do transportation related contracts that of course would be for example with the Florida Department of Transportation or any transportation related entities such as ports airports shipping ports and public transportation as well as public utilities oftentimes will fall under d-o-t DBE certifications and then finally there's also third-party certifiers that are also will issue small business certifications and those are wide and varied as well so the question is frequently asked well which one is should I go for should I go for all of them and it's a very commonly asked question the answer however is sometimes a little bit more complex so the first thing is are you even eligible for it do you qualify and by going to the various sites either the SBA the VA the Department of the transportation or third prior third-party issuers that's gonna provide you some guidance also your PTAC specialist can help you answer that question as well but more importantly something that should be considered is is it valued by the agency is it valued and is it applicable by the agency itself so for example for the VA for any set-aside contract under the SDV OSB or the just the regular vo SB or veteran owned small business certification any contract that's set aside by the VA it is required that that vendor has received that certification through the VA system also SBA for the various certifications those are generally applicable across all federal agencies and then of course the d-o-t certification is applicable to Department of Transportation related activities so it's going to be dependent
n one your eligibility and to where you're focusing your business development activities in other what words what agencies are you pursuing work with and of course you would pursue the certification that is applicable to that agency so this is a very brief overview of small business certifications if this is something you would like to discuss more please bring it up as a topic of discussion with your PTAC specialist so moving forward we've evaluated the market we've got a good solid plan it's gonna help us reach our goal we've completed our mandatory registrations we've got some good things prepared to optimize our chances of success now let's look at actually what all that has been done for and that's pursuing an opportunity and ultimately winning winning the work so let's look at some of the procurement sites that you should consider in looking at solicitations now this step is similar to what we did earlier what I discussed earlier and that's Donald a solicitation take a look at it become familiar with it that was early in the evaluation stage now we're in the pursuit stage now we're actually going to download some active solicitations and take a look at what those requirements are and look at actually bidding on some work producing a proposal submitting it and going through the evaluation of our offer and and and hopefully receiving that contract award so where do you find those well right back to where we've been going all along this journey and that is starting at bata sam.gov that's a good place for a finding most federal government procurements and and RFPs would recommend that you go there first and one of the things to note here is that a lot of the things that we had done accomplished earlier in evaluating the market in researching opportunities in looking at requirements for various agencies those are starting to gather momentum here for us and that activity was not just research it wasn't just identifying opportunities and agencies but now we're developing knowledge and know-how in the use of that database so that now we're really effectively utilizing the system querying it correctly to identify viable opportunities for our business so we're really building our our procurement muscle there if you will one of the other sites that you may want to consider looking at especially if you provide commodities you're gonna want to look at the Defense Logistics Agency or DLA site it's often called dibs a lot of commodity purchases are purchased through the Defense Logistics Agency as well as services I don't want to diminish their need for services there's there's also a high need for services but you will see frequent posting of various commodities and supplies as well you may want to consider looking at a GSA schedule and again sort of the same story there as DLA you'll see a lot of commodities just through GSA although you will also see services as well that may be something for you to consider and then also there's something called the S ap I had referred to it earlier that's that mid-level purchase or simplified acquisition procedure those generally occur on two sites Fed Connect which is at wwf/e d co NN ECT dotnet and the links are provided below underneath the description here also unis on will conduct many s AP acquisition activities as well so if that's a threshold as we discussed earlier that you're interested in focusing in on that's something that you identified in your marketing plan then I would encourage you to take a look at either either one of those sites or both of them you may want to monitor both of them Fed connect and unis on acquisition so these are going to be your primary sites and I've just got four listed here there are literally thousands of various procurement sites where you can find contracting opportunities however these are the mainstream sites that I would recommend that you start with and then from there branching out and again it's all going to be dependent on your business what you provide and what your capabilities are but start with bata sam.gov once you're at bata Sam some of the things to be on the lookout for are first of all you're gonna want to register you're gonna want to create that username and account and that is going to enable more features that you can utilize on the site such as setting up customized searches saving contracts for automatic notification and taking advantage of the full capability of of that database you're gonna want to look at specifically contract opportunities I would encourage you to utilize the full feature filters capability of the website that's where you can really drill down into the opportunities by Naik's code by location by say set-aside type if you're interested in just looking at say women-owned small business opportunities for example or you're interested in just looking at certain opportunities from certain branches of the federal government so again let's say you're looking at focusing in on NASA for example you can filter those opportunities specifically by those agencies also take a look at the announcements section on beta Sam that's where you'll see a lot of publicly announced acquisition activities to include meetings business Expos industry days small business events on and on and on so those announcements always a good thing to sort of look at when you first visit the site keep using those keywords keep looking in a combination of filters that would include your your Naik's codes your location your keywords your set-aside by using a combination of all those things and again it's going to be each business is going to be different depending on your circumstances but by using a combination of all those things in concert it is going to help dial you in to the opportunities that are are germane and applicable to your business so beta Sam gov and again I know that I keep saying it over and over but it bears being repeated get together with your P tax specialist again that's the purpose of this presentation is to are you for for the first meeting and ongoing discussions with your PDX specialists get with them have them demonstrate the the use and utilization of this database and the whole idea is so that we minimize the amount of time that were we're struggling with the technology we're utilizing and efficiently to identify the opportunities start bidding and and receiving those contract awards and your p-tech specialist can help you with that all right there's also subcontracting to consider in in federal contracting many small businesses there get their first contract as a subcontractor and that does has multiple benefits it one it's much more rapid than then sort of the traditional acquisition pathway many times you can get yourself onto a subcontract very very quickly it also minimizes your risk because you aren't necessarily answering directly to the government for the entire contract you're simply servicing a small component of that contract and ultimately the prime is responsible for the overall performance and and the complexity of the obligations so and it also provides the the first time small business the opportunity to build some past performance to build some relationships and to hopefully watch how a large successful company does it so where do you find these opportunities there are many places to look one of the places we recommend starting with is through the SBA subnet site and again that link is provided below also on beta sam.gov there is a section for any kind of collaboration activity of the usually at the very very top of the banner you'll see a option for clicking on collaboration many opportunities themselves that will advertise the opportunity for subcontracting the SBA also publishes a directory of federal government prime contractors that have subcontracting plans I would encourage you to visit that document and download it and look at prime contractors who are obligated to subcontract and then finally every agency and generally most agencies sites will have a small business specialist stationed on site and that individuals a part of their duties are to assist small businesses and in onboarding with that agency and many times they know other contractors that are supporting contracts on site and they can provide information to you and who those contractors are so and I will encourage you to forge a relationship with those small business specialists they can be very beneficial to you so earlier I had talked about all the various types of solicitations but we're gonna throw a slightly different light on it at this point because here we're actually submitting an offer and again there's all kind of different forms that that solicitation could take when it's posted to include an invitation to bid a request for quote a request for proposal or an invitation to negotiate regardless of what it is you need to make sure what you're submitting is fully compliant and you've substantiated your approach with the government you need to make sure that it's delivered on time all right if it is if the if the RFP or the solicitation says that it's due at 1:00 o'clock on Tuesday and you come to deliver it at 1:05 chances are the government will not accept it so you need to make sure that when you're developing your offer that not only is it fully following the instructions of the solicitation to include when it's when and where it's delivered so very important to generate those offers there's no getting around this it is a reality of doing business with the government any federal government agency is that you're gonna have to at one point or another develop a proposal and submit it and this is that stage this is a primarily everything that has led up to this point in time has been preparing us for this so that we are not just throwing together some offer and hoping that somehow it's going to win but we're preparing our intelligence our insight our knowledge of the customer our knowledge of the competition and preparing ourselves as best we can to optimize our chances of success so that when we submit an offer its accepted as a successful offer and were awarded the contract an important part of that offer is going to be making sure that we meet all pass and fail requirements and these are going to be different according to the contract by going back and looking at that solicitation which by the way the solicitation will eventually become the contract so by looking at that solicitation that will identify what are the pass/fail requirements that we're going to be obligated to to support and provide in our response and that could include ISO certification it could include an ITAR compliance or international traffic and arms regulations compliance it could include compliance with a cyber security model certification which is becoming an increasing requirement across there all government contracting sectors it could be compliance with past performance requirements say for example the solicitation may require you to provide five contracts within the past three years of comparable size scope and complexity with the the contract that you're offering on it could be the requirement for certified and experienced personnel and key personnel on and on and on to include an insurance and bonding so again each one is going to be different where you're going to find the answers to what's required is by going back to that solicitation also one of the requirements that you're gonna often encounter is the the need to provide a compliant accounting system if the federal government does one thing they watch the accounting of expenditures and funds very very closely and that is is of course scrutinized very closely under all its vendors you will most likely encounter an agency called DCA a or the defense contract audit agency sometimes you may encounter the defense Contract Management Agency or DC MA both of those organizations generally have some role in in doing a audit of a contractor's accounting system the federal government requires its contractors to have an accrual-based accounting system and finally one of the requirements that is oftentimes of all contracts is usage of they call the I rap or W a WF wide-area workflow system and these systems are what you're going to utilize to submit your vouchers or or submit your invoices in order to get paid so in understanding and how to use those is important if at the end of the day you get done with the contract and you want to get paid you need to make sure that you have the ability to submit your invoice correctly in order to expedite your payment so again all these are something that your PTAC specialist can help you with so one of the last things that I want to touch on here in the in the pursuit phase or producing a proposal and this has worked well for me over the years and I call up my three C's and there there are other acronyms for this I've heard are called the five the five PS the the four S is but the basic idea is the same and that is to consider three things when submitting your proposal the first one is is it compliant am i meeting all the requirements of the solicitation has it asked me for five contracts in the last three years and and have I provided that has it asked me uh for resumes of key personnel have I provided that has it asked me for my proof of insurance and bonding and have I provided that so that's the first thing is a compliant that's the first of the three C's the second one is is it clear in other words is it clear to understand do for somebody who is just opening my proposal for the first time and they've never seen it doesn't make sense does it read well does it portray my company professionally does it follow the instructions of the RFP in a clear and logical way or am i jumping all over the place and and I'm asking I'm answering the first question ask that I'm asking answering the last question first and is it difficult for the government evaluator to follow so is it clear and then finally the last C is is my proposal compelling does it give good reason for the evaluator to award this contract to me and so those are my three C's for submitting any proposal to any government agency is it compliant is it clear and is it compelling and that's a good system to consider before when preparing your proposal and before submitting your offer to the government now that brings us to the last step of our Florida six step gateway to government contracts and that's actually achieving a favorable result being awarded the contract so let's take a look at what's entailed there so first of all when you're supporting your contract you want to make sure that you're operating within the rules and we've touched on this several times in the course of this webinar and of course those are things like your Code of Federal Regulations or CFR s and your Federal Acquisition regulations or far you also want to comply with any executive orders that may be in place that are that are over any government contracts that you're supporting and then we go down to the agency supplements such as the D far thorgy czars and then individual service regulations and individual office policies so it can go on and on and on the point of this is not necessarily to overwhelm you and and to say that there it's just overly complex it is complex I don't want to diminish that in any way however you don't necessarily need to be over you want to don't want to be discouraged by by all that you want to be organized understand what they are understand how they're applicable and most of all you want to be compliant because we've gone through this long journey together we've we've identified our agency we've submitted our offer we've got our small business certifications we've done all these we we've done our registrations when we win the contract we don't want to lose it so we need to make sure that we're compliant with with with all these requirements a good place to start is in the Federal Acquisition regulations section 9.10 4-1 I would encourage you to take a look at that section it's a it's a good section of the far that identifies what's required of those prime contractors and so it discusses things like having adequate financial resources it discusses things like having the necessary necessary organizational experience and accounting operation
l controls and technical skills and having property control systems and things of that nature I would encourage you to take a look at that section maybe even making it part of your evaluation step in the in the very beginning of this contracting journey because it will be required of you downstream when you reward a contract so better be it's better to be prepared for this in the beginning rather than scrambling to be compliant at the end so I had discussed a little earlier I had I had talked a little bit about DC double-a and DC ma be prepared for a pre award survey and/or a contract audit this will frequently happen with in doing business with federal government agency that agency is going to many times a request that the contractor is audited to ensure that there accounting systems are correct that they're they're properly allocating their costs to the contract that their billing rates are correct and that generally their accounting systems are compliant with federal requirements there's quite a bit of information that's available on the DCAA site again you can find the link to all that information below but be prepared for it it is something that you're going to need to be again organized about and you're definitely one of going to want to be prepared for and not scrambling at the last minute reporting requirements very important with federal contracting there'll be a myriad of reports that will be required of you going back to the solicitation slash contract again the solicitation will become the contract so by going back to that document and looking at what the reporting requirements are are going to tell you what you're obligated to do in performance so things like timekeeping your cyber security plan yeah invoicing any kind of standards like that are all going to be identified in that solicitation and what's required of you and it goes on and on contracts are like fingerprints no two are created the same and even within one agency with similar contracting activities you'll see variations from contract to contract so very very important to make sure that you're reviewing that ultimately your contract is derived from the applicable federal acquisition regulations which are going to be the the far and your various service regulations and Command regulations so it could be a combination of your regulations the solicitation any amendments that are issued during the course of the Act was in activity and your proposal if you promise certain things in your proposal that say are above and beyond what they're asking for that will be incorporated into your contract so that's what your contract is is a combination of the regulations solicitation amendments and your proposal so make sure that you are complying with everything that they are asking for so now we talked about actually performing the work doing what we're supposed to be doing providing the service or goods you'll notice up until this point I've said very little about the actual functional elements of the contract we've talked a lot about regulations and the process and certifications and registrations and and all those types of elements and that is really a large part of government contracting is the administration of the contract itself and and operating within within those boundaries so now that is not to diminish at all the importance of doing the work doing what we promised that we would do now as established successful small businesses you should know your work you should know how to provide that service or to deliver those goods how to do it on time to deliver the level of satisfaction that the government that the customer is expecting to do it within budget and schedule and so forth so that's your expertise that's what you should be doing really really well and you want to continue doing that and making sure that you're fulfilling what the contract is asking for and it's really those two things in tandem it's not only meeting the contractual obligations but it's meeting the performance requirements of that agency and doing both of those functions equally as well and and meeting customer needs so that is paramount to your ability to do several things one when the initial contract win the recompete and grow your business in government contracting because winning the first one is the most difficult one and after you've won that you want to win more and by doing these two things very very well and paying attention to to both of these things simultaneously is going to improve your success rate and your your level of growth in government contracting so that brings us to the end of the presentation one of the things that I want to emphasize here as we close up is first of all congratulations on sticking around this long everything that that we've addressed today all the topics all the questions all the subject matter all the issues there's nothing that we touched on that the florida procurement Technical Assistance Center program cannot help you with these are the services that we support Florida businesses with day in and day out and I should mention that our services are available to you a Florida business at no cost so what I would encourage you to engage with your local p-tech whether you're a looking to pursue work as a prime contractor or a subcontractor as long as you have the commitment and interest and potential reach out to your p-tech specialist and connect with them it's a it's a relationship that can help you more rapidly win that first contract and ultimately grow and succeed in the in the realm of government contracting so in preparing for that first meeting what are some things that you can do one of the things that that we recommend is in that first stage of evaluation go ahead and download a solicitation before your first meeting take a look at it it's gonna as I had mentioned earlier it's gonna be overwhelming it's gonna be a little forward Tory to you if you've never looked at one of these before and that's okay because what it's going to do is it's going to invigorate that discussion with your P tax specialist it's going to create some very focused questions for you about specific things with the agency with the contract with the process of building business with the government if you can go ahead and apply for your Duns number moon cord with your username and password on your Sam registration would be a good thing to do as well but really the number one thing that you can do is bring your questions to that meet at first meeting with your P tax specialist and where do you find that person by visiting the website here in Florida which is WWWF PTAC org would be a area on the site for locations click on the P tax specialist that is closest to where you are and schedule an appointment so if you're ready for government contracts again I would encourage you to visit us online connect with us I'd like to add that this procurement Technical Assistance Center or P Tech is funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the Defense Logistics Agency I'd like to thank you for your time have a wonderful day and we look forward to meeting with you thank you
