See if we can hear. I'm gonna I'm gonna give a couple of, minutes for everyone to start joining in. So Another minute or so, and then I can stop. So I will go ahead and start. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to, the educational webinar series with GovSpan. My name is Artisha Meehan, and I am the head of federal at public sector at GovSpan. And it is my pleasure today to, have Jennifer Schaus and Adam Fett from GovSpan join us for our webinar, GSA schedules, requirements, and strategies for success. And let me get to the next slide. The agenda for today, quick introductions, getting into the presentation, and then we'll have a question answer session, at the end of the webinar. Please feel free to use the chat function to ask your questions. Also, a quick reminder, slides and links to the recordings will be sent to all the attendees, after the webinar. So don't worry about that. We'll be sending everything. Our speakers today, of course, Jennifer Shouse, principal at Jennifer Shouse and Associates and a good friend of AI and GovSpend. Adam Fed was a chief revenue officer at GovSpend. And, Adam, I'm actually gonna hand it over to you to welcome and introduce AI, Archisha. Thanks, Jennifer, and thanks everyone for being here today. Good morning from sunny Charlottesville, Virginia, just south of the Beltway. My name is Adam Fade. I'm the chief revenue officer at GovSpin and AI. We're excited to bring the webinar to you all today. Thank you to Jennifer and her team for all of their leadership and education, not only today, but over the years. We're excited to continue our partnership, with she and her colleagues. Just thirty seconds about GovSpin, and AI. We are a technology first, data and market intelligence firm. We're based in Boca Raton, about ten years in business. And we largely started in, in the state and local public sector space ten years ago. We've grown over that time about two hundred employees, many of whom are based in South Florida virtually across the United States and a large contingent of us here in Charlottesville. But we bring to together the best of not only federal data via our acquisition of AI several years ago, but also across a much broader spectrum of public sector data, including state and local data. We've watched an exciting new module called meeting intelligence, where we're using AI transcription and a bot that we've trained over the last year to transcribe public sector meetings in both the federal and state and local spaces. So we encourage you to reach out to us. Thank you to our clients, who are here today, and those, of you who, have not heard of us or reached out, we'd love to hear from you, at any time. Thanks again, Jennifer and Artisha. Let's make it a great webinar. Perfect. Thank you, Adam. So a little bit about AI in terms of the data that we integrate. We're sort of pulling in eighteen datasets in one platform to allow reporting and analysis that was not previously possible. And I wanted to we we thought it would be good to do a quick overview of the GovSpend, specifically under the GSA multiple award schedule, before we sort of launch into the GSA schedule requirements and strategies for success because, you know, the data does help in making the right decisions and make the right strategies to grow your to make your GSA schedule successful. And I know Jennifer will talk about it a little bit, but just to give you some background, AI wanna say it was in two thousand eighteen or nineteen, and Jennifer can correct me if I'm wrong. But that's the time when, GSA, started transitioning all the various twenty four schedules, like the schedule seventy and few others that we all are very familiar with, were consolidated into the mass schedule. Now this transition has happened over time, but I think we're pretty much done with that. And when I'm looking at the data, just keep in mind that the DOD contract have a ninety day delay before that data is made available through FBDS. So when AI when I'm talking about the f y twenty three numbers, the DOD numbers will definitely increase. I also wanna make sure that, you know, we talk about the fact that, looking at data is important, and analyzing it as we're sort of trying to make the right strategies and decisions. And while the number is overall, when you start using things like keywords and NAICS codes and PSE codes or fine tuning by agency, all the numbers change and sort of give us a much better picture of our specific market. But, you know, I always like to say that numbers change once we start filtering and fine tuning our searches. Looking at, you know, the overall award spend, we've seen the total contracts award go up from about six hundred and eighty eight billion dollars in f y twenty two to about seven hundred and seven billion dollars in f y sorry, in f y twenty to seven hundred and seven billion dollars in f y twenty two. As of a couple of days ago, we are looking at about six hundred and forty two billion dollars that have been spent in f y twenty three. This number, of course, is gonna increase. And then just looking at the awards on the GSA MAS schedule, we've seen those numbers be at about sixteen billion dollars in f y twenty, go up to about nineteen billion dollars in f y twenty three. So that's about three percent of the awards. Now one thing I wanna say, you know, make sure that I talk about is that this is just looking at the awards under the MAS schedule. There are multiple other schedule types within the GSA such as, eight a stars and things like that. But when we start looking at all of the various schedules, and vehicles from including the GVAX at GSA, that GSA manages. It's more than sixty odd billion dollars in f y twenty three, which is approximately ten percent. So the use of these various GSA schedules and vehicles is definitely there. And I think that's one of the reasons why we wanted to have this webinar to talk about how do you get a schedule, should you get a schedule, and how do you make it successful. Right? So the numbers definitely tell us that the government is using the GSA schedule. I took a deeper dive into the top agencies that actually use the schedule, and, of course, there are no surprises to look at agencies such as the health and human services or DOD or the VA, and, of course, GSA. What I did wanna point out is, you know, the increasing use of the schedule. AI found that pretty interesting to note that, you know, the Department of Treasury, as an example, from four hundred and twenty three million dollars in awards on GSA schedule went up to, about eight hundred and twenty two billion dollars in f y twenty three. Department of Interior's seen a similar growth or, as I like to say, use of the schedule as has energy. So I think it's really important to analyze which agencies are using the various types of schedule and how does that look when we start putting in keywords that are specific to your industry and what you sell. AI wanted to also take a deeper dive into the NAICS codes that are being used. The top ten NAICS codes, no surprises to see, computer related NAICS code. Keep in mind, schedule seventy has, you know, transitioned to the mass schedule, so we are definitely gonna see, computer related NAICS codes. But it's also interesting to pay attention that, engineering, NAICS codes, also in the top ten, as also facility support services, security guards. And I was actually surprised to see the office of, certified public accountants, but sort of gives you a good idea of how the various, how the schedule is being used to purchase a variety of solutions. Top ten GSA schedule, you know, again, no surprises, to see Dell and GDIT and, of course, Carahsoft on it. But it's also interesting to see KPMG as also Ernst and Young, and it sort of starts tying in with the top ten NAICS codes that we saw. Wanted to also do a deeper dive into contracts that are being awarded as small business and other than small business. And it's interesting to see a pretty equal mix of contracts being awarded as small business and other than small business. To me, it sort of tells me that we do have a lot of small businesses that are also using the GSA schedule, and it makes sense in many ways. But also looking at the types of set aside, right, on the schedule. And, of course, small business set AI, but, also, it's it's good to see, SDVOSB and eight a and women owned small business set asides being awarded through using the GSA schedule. And then I also always like to point out that when we look at NAICS codes and we put in keywords, it's also important to pay attention to the various PSC codes because that sort of really ties into GSA's categories. So Yeah. Yes. Just one moment. Brett Shepherd online says, should we be able to see the slideshow right now? Brett, I'm, able to see Oh. The slides. Is anyone else could anyone else chat us if they're not able to see our slides? AI may I see them. Slides. Okay. Okay. Brett. Awesome. Thanks, everyone. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Brett, we'll work with you to get you those slides. Thanks, team. Thanks, Artisha. Forgive me. No worries. Yeah. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the PSC codes and the very fact that it is important. Also wanted to quickly draw your attention to the top place of performance. Again, sort of ties in with what we would expect if I look at the top states where, you know, where the top common contractors are knowing you know, we will definitely see Virginia, DC, Maryland, Texas, Florida, and California, but it's good to see Alabama also on this list, as also the New York State, Georgia, and Illinois. And then sorry. AI wanted to go ahead, not back. And then I wanted to sort of, you know, close my presentation with the fact that we are here to grow our business, grow our AI, and, it's important for us to also understand what's coming up, what's expiring on the GSA schedules. And I would always say we would wanna filter this. And, you know, as Adam said, we are happy to have a conversation with you and show you what it would look like for your schedule type and the type of products and solutions you sell. But it's it it's just to give you a quick look. We have almost twenty one million dollars in awards that are expiring in the next twelve months on the MAS GSA schedules. So it's it is a good amount of of, awards that are expiring. And, again, the top NAICS codes sort of tie in with the NAICS codes that we've seen, that fall in the top ten categories. And then also in terms of the top GSA schedules where the contracts are expiring include organizations, of course, such as Dell and GDIT, but also other organizations such as, Janus Research and Minburn Technology Group. So, yeah. Anyway, having said that, I am gonna, do let us know if you have any questions. My contact information is also there at the end of the slides. I know Adam I see Adam's put him put his, email too. So thank you, Adam. So having said that, I am now gonna hand over the presentation to Jennifer. Jennifer, we're excited to have you with us. And just quickly, for those who don't know Jennifer, Jennifer actually started her career at Dun and Bradstreet Corporation, ultimately moving into the company's government sales division in Virginia. She stayed in the federal sales and BD role, with other firms till she actually started her own business. She definitely has a passion for entrepreneurship and, you know, started her business. I know she'll talk a little bit about what she does. But I am, you know, I've known Jennifer for many years, and we've collaborated. And, it's really exciting to have her come and talk about requirements and strategies for success. So having said that, Jennifer, I am going to let you, take over and, let me know as you want me to, move the AI. Super. Thank you so much to the GovSpan and AI team, particularly Archisa and Adam. Thank you both for allowing me the opportunity to present. Thanks to the, I believe, five hundred plus participants that have have registered, particularly if you're out on the West Coast. You had to get up probably a little bit early. But I I've seen a couple questions come in, regarding the slides, and, I believe that those will be available. We'll put them probably on our AI dot net site, and I believe the presentation is being recorded. So, so if you're taking furious notes, just, keep in mind that the slides will be forthcoming. Okay. So let's go ahead and dig in, just in the interest of time. I think we're here for maybe, two hours, and we're gonna leave time for questions. So just a little bit about the agenda here. It's pretty basic. No, no major AI, and we'll, we can move to the next one to, tell you a little bit about us. So, coming to you live today from Washington, DC, and, as Archiza men's mentioned, I have been in federal contracting for twenty plus years. I've got the the gray hair to prove it, as well as some wrinkles. Anyway, our primary service is helping companies navigate the federal market, but we specifically focus on companies that are established and revenue generating. So whether it's commercial companies that have been out there for several years and have a couple million in, in revenue and are scratching their head and scratching their head and considering the federal market to balance out their portfolio of customers to mitigate, risk, in times of, economic decline. Those would be ideal clients, and we're helping them, understand what, what departments and agencies AI their product services or software, what contract vehicles they should be on or not, and then really kind of executing that with business development and marketing. The market analysis, the data, I would direct you to, two sources. One is just going to be if you've got, time to do it, go out to all the public, websites that are out there and use the sam dot gov and FPDS and USA spending and all of the GSA sites. But I think a better use of your time that would be more efficient and effective is, working with the team at GovSpend and FedMind to use their data. It's a very easy to use platform, and, and you'll get opportunities, in your inbox. It's just a, a great tool to use and have, and there's no other sector like the federal market where there is so much data that's out there. So, one of my big talking points is just use the data to make decisions. Don't go on feeling. Don't go on because everybody else has this contract vehicle or this certification, therefore, I should get it. No. Use the data to drive your decisions. And the the last blurb here on this slide is, that we've got over six hundred plus complimentary, videos or webinars, whatever you wanna call them, on our YouTube channel. You subscribe to our YouTube channel, and, the team at AI has provided, for any of the webinars that we've done that required any data. We've used the GovSpin, FedMind platform for that. So I wanna thank you guys for your support over the years for, for pulling data, and we can move to the next slide. So just a little bit about GSA, and with five hundred plus people, it's kinda hard to, to hit everybody, but I'm gonna, probably say some things that a lot of people know, and then hopefully, some talking points that, that are new to, some of the folks on the line as well. So GSA is not appropriated agency, meaning that they do not receive any taxpayer funding. So how do they get their money? They get it from the, PBS, Public Building Service. So the federal buildings that you see, are operated by GSA, so you can call them a, fairly large real estate commercial real estate, agent. And then they've got the schedules program, and through the schedules program, they charge, AI, I'll call it a GSA tax. More formally or more properly, it's known as the industrial funding fee. So for companies that are on the schedule, they have to pay GSA a certain percentage, point seven five percent of their GSA schedule sales only, back to GSA. It's more or less a wash because the client, whoever is purchasing from you through the schedule, is actually paying that. You're just collecting it and passing it back to GSA. So that's kinda how they get their funding. GSA, if you also don't know, is kind of the operator or overseer of, the various, websites and databases, so the sam dot gov and federal procurement data system, USA spending, and all the rest. So that's, GSA AI of in a a nutshell. I could go into more detail, but, let's go ahead and move on to kinda get to more of the, the meat and potatoes here of the presentation. So, as far as GSA, the schedules program and getting on to the schedule, which is really what we're talking about today, it's absolutely not required. Just because GSA does a great job of marketing themselves does not mean that you need to be on this contract vehicle. It is only a marketing tool, and I should have put not required in red, but, it's really just a feather in your cap. It's a ticket to the dance. You're still going to need to find a dance partner, and you're still going to need to invest time and money into that that effort. So don't think that just because you're on the schedule that suddenly your phone's gonna be ringing or you're gonna get emails or or whatever it is. It does give you credibility, and it does show that you're serious about the market. It does show that you've got past performance and that you're, a legitimate company, so it can help with, again, that credibility, but, again, not required. You'll hear it referred to as FSS, Federal Supply Schedule, or just the MAS, Multiple Award Schedule, and that's exactly what it means, multiple awards. So there's about eighteen to twenty thousand companies that have been awarded the schedule. And as Artisa mentioned, over the last several years, GSA has gone through this process to consolidate, all of the various schedules that they had into one main schedule. So now if you submit a proposal to get onto the schedule, you are just on the GSA schedule. You're not on the IT seventy schedule. You're not on the, AIMS, the marketing and, advertising and integrated marketing schedule. You're not on the MOBIS schedule. You're not on, you know, the list goes on and on and on. Everyone now is just on the GSA schedule. And then the way the vendors are, designated or segmented is by their special item number, and there's three hundred and twenty three special item numbers. These special item numbers correspond, and sometimes are exact copies of NAICS codes. So whatever it is your your industry does. So for example, five four one five one s is the special item number for IT professional services. Now some of the, again, special item numbers will be, will mirror exactly a NAICS code, and other times they won't. But your first step, if you were scratching your head and considering this GSA schedule, is to first, understand what special item number or special item numbers, your services, your product, or your software, fall under? Where are you categorized? The by having a schedule, it's also, going to require that you demonstrate past performance, that you've done this type of work before. Your past performance does not, and I'll repeat, does not need to be with government agencies. It does not need to be with a subcontract or as a subcontractor. Your past performance could be with a church. It could be with your, with McDonald's, it could be with anybody. Past performance is past performance is past performance. You're also going to need to produce invoices to demonstrate that you have sold each of the line items that you're proposing to GSA. Now as an exception, they will take copies of, proposals, and there are other, exceptions there, but, my focus is on working with companies that meet or preferably exceed those requirements because those are the companies that are going to be best positioned for success should they get the schedule. The other focus of the schedule is that GSA is obtaining your lowest prices. So if you're selling widgets for a hundred dollars and you typically give a discount to, universities of fifteen percent, GSA will also want that fifteen percent discount. We'll get into to pricing a little bit later, but this is just kind of a general overview. So, again, not required. A lot of companies on the schedule, and it is, again, segmented by your special item number. Let's, let's move to the next slide, please. So it is one of many, many, many options for the government to purchase from you, and it should say federal government. And so the GSA schedule can be used across all of the federal government, whether it's Department of Defense, as you saw in the earlier slides, or the VA, or the GA its GSA itself obviously uses the, the schedule. The state, local, and education market, which is the SLED market, there are some instances where they, do have the ability to purchase off of the schedule. Sometimes you have to educate them on that. For example, California has something called the CMAS, CMAS, and that stands for California Multiple Award Schedule. Texas has TXMAS, which is, again, the Texas Multiple Award Schedule, and they will, I'll say quote unquote grandfather in your GSA schedule information. Now it's not just a simple checkbox that you're, you're signing off on. There is definitely going to be some paperwork as there always is in, government contracting. The schedules only and then also, quasi government entities. So, the World Bank, the Red Cross, the IMF, the IFC, the IADB, a lot of the the UN also have the ability to purchase off of the schedule. So if you are, in fact, selling to any of those, verticals, the GSA is an option. Again, you may have to educate them on this. The schedule, if you took a pie chart and you said, how does the government purchase? You're gonna have a big chunk for full and open competition, which is going to be everything you see on sam dot gov. You're gonna have a a slice of probably, I don't know, maybe, fifteen to twenty percent, on set asides. That's gonna be the small business, women owned, veteran owned, HUBZone, eight a, and all the other check boxes that are out there. You're gonna have other agency vehicles, which I think I have a slide on that, which, you'll get into, specific contract vehicles for specific departments or agencies. But GSA is really only used a small percentage of the time. It does represent billions of dollars, but it's one, again, of many, many options that the government has. Once you're on the schedule, there will still be, competition. It will actually be more fierce than what you have on Sam dot gov because these are the real serious players. And a lot of AI, companies think that because they're on the schedule that it, negates the need for proposal writing that is in fact false. So you will still need to write proposals. You'll still need to, include your your pricing, and we'll, again, get into more details, the pros and cons, of that. So let's go ahead and move to the next slide, please. So the schedule is initially it's a five year contract with three five year renewable periods, so in essence start to finish it's a twenty year contract should you meet all of the requirements, should you exercise all of those renewable periods, and should you be a compliant vendor. And part of that compliance is bringing in at least twenty five thousand dollars per year through your schedule. Now let's say you've got a schedule, but, you have zero sales through your schedule, but you've got a five million dollar contract with the air force that is not through your schedule. GSA does not care. They want that twenty five k to be coming through your schedule. So, and this is why I mentioned that, GSA is a non appropriated agency, and it's important to understand how they get their funding. They get it again through this, industrial funding fee, this point seven five percent of your GSA schedule sales. So in that example where the, you've got your contract with the air force for five million dollars at the end of the quarter or or the monthly basis, you're either you're paying GSA that point seven five percent. Again, if you have zero sales through your schedule, you're paying them zero. If you've got a AI million dollar contract with the air force that is through your schedule, then you would pay them point seven five percent of that, of that amount. So GSA, if you try to put yourself into the shoes of the, of kind of the the powers that be there, GSA is motivated by the dollar. You have to think think of them almost as a for profit entity because they are getting their funding through the GSA sales. So, they're gonna be more motivated to shepherd you through the process if you're a larger business that submitted a proposal to get on to the schedule versus, a smaller business simply because, a larger business probably has a greater chance of, bringing in more revenue through the GSA, and we saw that in the slides that Archiza presented earlier with a lot of the, big name companies that are at the top of the list for GSA. One thing to keep in mind is that your GSA rates are a not to exceed rate. So if you're, again, selling widgets for a hundred dollars, and GSA negotiates you down, let's say, to a rate of ninety dollars, and ninety dollars is suddenly your GSA rate. As you start bidding for business through your schedule, you're gonna be encouraged to give a rate lower than your GSA rate. So your margins will be obviously a lot slimmer. And I it took me a couple of tries in college to get through, economics class, but, I don't think you need to have a economics degree or be a econ wizard to know that lower margins, you're gonna need heavier volume through your schedule. So unless you've got a pipeline of multiple opportunities, opportunities, meaning you've had conversations, you've got some warm leads, you've got some decent prospects that, again, wanna buy from you through the schedule, this is probably not the path for you. Also, of those eighteen to twenty thousand companies on the schedule, more than half of them have zero sales through their schedule. Is that a bad thing? Yeah. Probably, because they're not meeting the twenty five k per year sales AI. Now I did fail to mention that the first year of your schedule, GSA more or less gives you a pass. So, that twenty five ks should be for the first two years and then twenty five ks every year after. Now these sixty the sixty percent of the companies that have zero sales through their schedule, they may have millions of dollars outside of the schedule, and that's great, but GSA won't care because, again, they need to self fund, and they need to quote unquote tax you on your GSA sales. So, don't go down this path whether you're going to complete the proposal yourself or hire somebody like us to help you with it, unless you know again that you have warm leads that prefer to use the schedule because again it is one of many many many options. Okay. And we can move to the, next slide. Okay. So now we're gonna talk about the proposal requirements, but I will stop and see if there's, any questions that came in based on what I have already covered. If it's something that's more detailed on pricing, we're gonna get to that, but, let me just pause here, take a sip of coffee, and see if anything's come in that I need to answer. I I think, we, AI no. I think we we've got questions about past performance and things, which I'm sure you'll cover. Okay. And I think one question is, is getting on the schedule the same as getting Sam certified? And I no. The answer to that is no. So yep. Correct. Yeah. Sam is just your kind of basic, almost kinda like having a library card. It's you know, it doesn't really, you know, AI you too far. It's you're just registered in the database to do business with the government, and that's it. It doesn't, put you on any vendor shortlist or anything like that. A GSA schedule is, a little bit more advanced for, experienced companies that have done the the market research, that have built a pipeline of opportunities, and, and so forth. Okay. A couple of raised hands. So Okay. You guys, the people who've raised hands, could you please just chat us your questions? That would be really good. One of the questions is agencies say that we also buy from the GSA, but not always. So what does it mean? So I think it means exactly what it says. I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, but I think you need to dig a little bit further. So, talk to your customer and, you know, we're providing widgets. We're providing whatever it is that your solution is. And, you know, mister and missus customer, if we were on the schedule, is that going to help you, purchase from us? Is this specific solicitation that we're talking about, this specific opportunity, is that something you're going to put on the schedule? So, you you know, there's a a long sales cycle, so it sounds like you're kind of at the very, very, beginning of that. And and so that conversation, that relationship will hopefully eventually develop where your, your prospect will be more specific and detailed, and maybe you need to speak to more, people within the department or agency, and you need to either create this opportunity or there is a an opportunities slash solicitation that's out there. This is kind of just the beginning of the, the snowball. Okay. I think we can proceed on some of the questions we could ask. I'll ask you towards the end maybe. Okay. Super. So the proposal AI, again, it's always important, I think, whether you're selling, shoes or, or GSA schedules or data or whatever it is to put yourself in the shoes of the, you know, say, quote, unquote customer here. So to understand what is GSA's goal by having companies on the schedule. First and foremost, and the main focus of the schedule is for GSA to secure basically your lowest price, in other words. They put it in fancier terms that they want better than or equal to your most favorite customer, And your most favorite customer is not your, the customer that has a really cool logo or they've got pictures of dogs on their website or they take you to lunch every Friday. The most favorite customer is the customer that, is getting your lowest price on a regular or standard, basis. And they also wanna make sure that you have done, the type of work that you're proposing in the past. So they're basically doing all the vetting upfront, on your pricing, on your past performance to make sure that you are, in fact, a, financially stable company. Once you kind of go, you pass muster and you jump through all their hoops and and check all the boxes offered GSA, then you're you're kind of on this vendor shortlist, this qualified list of companies that, again, if somebody sees that you have a GSA schedule, they know that you've met all of these requirements, and are, let's say, a, you know, a credible, legitimate, company. So it does give you some, I'll call it street cred, but, it's not something to pursue if you're new to federal government contracting and you don't, and you don't really understand the market or the vernacular, or you haven't been to networking events. You don't have a pipeline. You're not using a you know, there should be some, level of sophistication in your business, as it relates to government contracting before you pull the trigger on GSA. So let's go ahead and move to the next slide, please. Okay. So some information that you're going to, disclose to GSA, and these are really the the big ones, are your financials. Nobody else is going to see them, just GSA. So you'll need your, last two years, full years, balance sheet and income statement. If there are any losses, you'll need to explain why you had losses. And then sometimes there's an additional financial review, based on some of the ratios in your financial statements. They don't need to be audited. It can just be a printout from your, QuickBooks or whatever, financial platform you're using. Past performance, you're gonna need to have copies of contracts. Again, past performance does not need to be with the government. It does not need to be with a AI. It can be with seven eleven. It can be with the church. It can be with little sisters of the poor. It can be with whomever. A customer is a customer is a customer, and same thing there with invoices. You'll need invoices to show that you have sold these products, services, or software, whatever it is your solution is, in the past. And again, invoices can be with any AI. You just need to show that you have sold these solutions in the past. And let's keep moving, please. So the proposal, the main sections as most people will probably know are the administrative, the technical, and the AI. We're going to break these down and so let's move to the administrative. So in that administrative section is where you plug in your financials. There are two tests, and I would highly encourage, anyone that's even considering the GSA schedule just to take these tests for educational purposes. AI time here for the readiness assessment and pathway to success is probably, I don't know, maybe an hour and a half, if that, depending upon how savvy you are with navigating some of the GSA, databases because there is some research that, is required. But there's a series of questions in regards to how many companies, on the particular special item number that you're pursuing have zero sales. And when you do the research and you print out the, you pull up the Excel spreadsheet and you see, wow, there's, you know, two hundred and forty three companies that have this special item number, this, you know, I don't know, let's say IT services, and, two hundred and twenty of them have zero next to their name. To actually see that spreadsheet, it can be daunting. And this is why, again, the marketing and the sales and the business development should happen up front and be the first part of your process. So, again, the readiness assessment of the pathway to success are GSA tests. You can find those on the vendor support center AI should have put the website in there but it's vsc vendor support center dot gsa dot gov. If you're using an authorized negotiator so for example all of our clients have signed a authorized negotiator form that says that we are submitting the proposal to GSA on their behalf. And then you've got to have a copy of your SAM record making sure that your NAICS codes match the NAICS codes for the special item number, and then you've got some other, boxes checked that are going to be required for the GSA proposal. That's the administrative section, it's pretty easy, pretty straightforward, and we can go ahead and move on to the next one which will be the technical. The first two pieces here, the corporate narrative and the quality control, those are both documents that GSA has. It's you download the solicitation. They're right in there. They both ask about six or seven questions about the company history, how your company resolves problems, how you work on multiple projects at the same time. This is your opportunity to shine and tell GSA about your business, so feel free to or I would encourage you to please answer those fully and completely. Don't leave anything black blank or don't leave anything, that's ambiguous. Just be very specific and and clear. Another opportunity to shine here is the past performance. So for each SIN, there are going to be specific requirements. Some of the special item numbers require, two past performances, some most are typically one, some have, oral presentations associated with them. So based on the special item number that you're pursuing, you need to read the requirements to find out what, what the specific, what the particulars are for that sin, but, most of the time it's a narrative that's there's about ten questions to that or ten, various data points. You're also gonna need to submit a copy of the contract. Again, this can be a contract with McDonald's, Little Sisters of the Poor, the Red Cross, whomever it is. It does not need to be government. It doesn't need to be with a prime. However, if you do have past performance with the government, I would highly encourage you to, to use that. There's also a time, AI say, limit on this. The your contracts could not have ended, before, three years. So let's say you're submitting your proposal to GSA next month, which would be November twenty twenty three. Your contract could not have ended before November of twenty twenty two. There's also another section here within the technical section where GSA will want basic references, company references, and so if you are a government contractor already, which would be helpful for a variety of reasons you can submit your CPARS if not there are some data points that you'll submit for your company references. Again this is all in the solicitation we can go ahead and move to the next section which is going to be pricing which is really the, the big, the big mountain here in the proposal. So you'll submit your AI list whether you've got a commercial price list or you're using market rates. You will then have to justify each and every single line item that you're proposing with an invoice. Again, if you don't have an invoice, GSA will take a proposal. That proposal does not need to have been accepted. It is just a proposal. I prefer to work with clients, again, who have actual invoices for their line items, simply because I find that established companies that are pursuing the schedule, have better success than somebody that is just starting out and doesn't quite have an invoice. There's also a price proposal template. This is a GSA form. Again, you can find in the solicitation that has, probably about a good twenty plus columns in it, that you'll need to populate. And again, don't leave anything blank there. This will include your commercial price list. It'll, disclose who your most favorite customer is and the rates that they are getting, as well as your rate that you are proposing to GSA, which should be better than equal to or better than your most favorite customer. The other component of the pricing success section is your EPA. This is the economic price adjustment, which looks at how your pricing is negotiated for the out years of your schedule. So as I mentioned, your schedule is initially a five year contract with three five year renewable periods. So in essence, start to finish, it's a twenty twenty year contract. And so, depending upon how your pricing is structured, you're either going to have a economic indicator, some sort of percentage that maybe is based off of either your commercial price list or, Department of Labor's, table AI, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Maybe an indicator there of, two or three percent or whatever that, that number is. So, pricing section is a little more complex, but important to know kind of, at a high level what is included in that. And I'm not gonna go into too much detail on some of these things, but they're we will talk about pricing as we as we move to the next slide. So, again, as I mentioned, you're either going to, have commercial rates or market rates for your, product services or or software. And when GSA is looking at your most favorite customer, they want to know who is getting standard discounts. So standard discounts would be we always give a it's written into your policies, a ten percent discount to nonprofits and associations, or we always give a five percent discount to state and local, government or universities and education. Nonstandard discounts would be, hey. We started the business last year. In the first month of the business, we gave a twenty five percent discount, something, you know, outrageous to Northrop Grumman because, we just wanted to win the business. We wanted the past performance, we wanted the experience. That would just be a one off discount. GSA then should not be entitled to these nonstandard discounts. They're really looking at your standard discounts, what's part of your normal policies and procedures, that makes up a significant portion of your business. Your non standards are really again just these one off discounts that you gave simply just to win the business. And let's go ahead and move to the the next slide. So, the GSA will conduct two litmus tests. So you've submitted your proposal to them, and what they will do is first compare your the rate that you're proposing to GSA to your standard discounts. Again, your standard are the we always give a ten percent discount to associations and nonprofits, and we always give a five percent discount to state, local, and education. The second thing they're gonna do is compare your GSA rates, your proposed rates, to the other companies on the schedule. So what you should be doing right here is, bells and whistles should be kind of, going off in your head, and you should know that there is a, website or websites, I should say, plural, where you can go and conduct this research. So before you decide to go down the path of completing all of the administrative, the technical, the pricing, and then you submit your proposal to GSA, and months later, they finally respond to you, and they say, hey. Okay. You're selling widgets for a hundred dollars, and you're giving a discount to, state and local or associations of ten percent discount. So that rate then brings you to ninety dollars, And, ninety dollars is kind of your most favorite customer, so you're offering GSA a rate, let's say, of, eighty eight dollars, so you're lower than your most favorite customer. But shame on you, vendor. You haven't done your homework up front to learn that all the other companies on the schedule, or the average rate of the, of your services on the GSA schedule is really, let's say, I'll just use something extreme here, seventy dollars. Well, this again is why it is so important to do that homework upfront because you want to know where your prices fall within the other as it relates to the competition on GSA. You also wanna make sure you're comparing apples to apples. So if you're selling labor, let's say you've got a a program or project manager, just a kind of generic job title, with five years of experience and a minimum education bachelor's degree. What you wanna do before, and before is in all capitals red and highlighted, before you decide to get onto the schedule is go on to the GSA website, look at the other companies that have project managers with five years of experience and a bachelor's degree. And if they're if the average rate is seventy dollars, GSA most likely is going to negotiate you down to seventy dollars because they're gonna say, why should we let you on to the schedule at a rate of eighty eight dollars when we can buy from seven hundred other vendors at seventy dollars? Again, you wanna compare apples to apples to the same education and the same minimum years of experience. So this is where, kind of making that go no go decision can be helpful. Perhaps as your company grows and you're able to bring your labor costs down, with volume and additional contracts and you can kind of fall within that seventy dollars per hour, The GSA schedule then might be in your best interest, but this is really the most important part of the schedule. It's the the whole focus of the schedule is for GSA to get your lowest rate, so, you would be foolish to not do this homework up front, and and investigate the rates and the average rate for each and every whether it's products or or labor or software, whatever it is you're proposing, to GSA. So, again, do your homework up front, and then make a decision about is this, contract vehicle even in your best interest because it may potentially be a liability and put you out of business because you're not able to be profitable. And let's go ahead and move to the next slide. So, you've submitted this proposal to GSA, and, what happens next, again, because the whole focus here is pricing and GSA just kind of squeezing you as much as they possibly can. During the price negotiations with them, they will ask for additional discounts on each and every single line item that you propose. They're also going to ask for prompt payment discounts, volume slash quantity, meaning, hey. If we order if somebody places an order through the schedule for your solutions valued at, I don't know, a million dollars, then we want a one percent discount or whatever it is. So, just be aware that, again, this whole focus is them squeezing you as as tight as possible, and so you need to know how much you can budge, and you'll know what cards they're holding if you do this homework up front. So again, you'd be very foolish to go down the path without doing that homework. As I mentioned previously, your GSA rates are only a price ceiling, so as you start bidding for work, you through your schedule at least, you are encouraged to give lower rates than your GSA rates. So again, the lower margins, in my opinion means that you're gonna need heavy volume through the schedule, and if you don't have it then the schedule may potentially be a liability for you. Okay. And we can go ahead and move to the next slide. So, some pricing considerations here. A lot of AI, companies come to us, and they have been subcontractors from the day they started their business until, let's say, you know, four years. And then now they're like, hey. We've been a sub to ABC company, and, ABC company has a GSA schedule, and we see that they're getting a lot of work. And, you know, we've built some relationships, that we think we can steer to the schedule, or we've built some relationships within other departments or agencies, and they're asking us to get onto the schedule. But their biggest concern then is that their rates, are so low because as a subcontractor, the rates are typically dictated to you by the prime contractor because they need to make money. Again, you can do homework here to find out, the price of labor for, each and every company that's on the schedule or their products. So do that homework, because if, let's say, Northrop Grumman's rate for a project manager is, seventy five dollars, then, they're probably going to dictate a rate to you that is obviously lower than that because they need to be profitable. So before you start knocking on doors of prime contractors, particularly as it relates to GSA, you wanna do some sleuthing to find out, is it going to be worth your time? You know, you don't wanna go through all this effort to then have Northrop Grumman or whoever the company is say, okay. We we'll, we'll give you, you know, AI, PM, jobs for, sixty five dollars an hour. Again, that might put you out of business, so, do that homework. Some things that you can, consider or or do is for each of your labor categories, you could build out levels. So if you do have a project manager at a very low rate that could be a project manager level one, and then you have a higher rate for level two, level three, level four, and you can always make modifications to your schedule to get higher rates there, or you can just wait it out as your business grows, as you get some higher commercial rates, and continue to kind of watch the GSA averages to to get to a point, where your rates can then, substantiate a you can, build a higher rate based on education, experience, and other factors that go into pricing. Let's go ahead and move to the next slide. So some strategies and tactics I've more or less, have already kind of laid them out, but AI repeat them here just for the sake of making some, some points. So again, do your homework that the more time you spend up front doing the homework using the databases like GovSpend and FedMine, to look at opportunities, to look at AI, It will make you more efficient on the the back end because you'll be proactive and not reactive. You'll be pursuing opportunities. You'll be cultivating relationships that you can steer towards the schedule or steer towards, I don't know, an eight a set aside or whatever it is, whatever kind of contract vehicle that you have in place. Have the conversations with your prospects, your customers. What contract vehicles do they prefer? Because, again, GSA is one of many, many, many, many choices. It's not the only game in town. Do you have enough sway? Do you have is there, you know, a technical capability that you have or a superior skill set, that you can build into a a labor category that can then help shape a solicitation that would then be designated as a GSA schedule purchase. Do you have enough sway with your customer to to kind of guide them down that path of GSA. And, again, the best way to do that is through having something that's unique, whether it's, as I mentioned, superior skill set or technical capability that's going to limit your competition. Limit by number of, competitors that are seeing the solicitation, but, again, as I mentioned, the competition on the schedule will be more fierce. The last bullet there is the pricing, within the multiple award scheduling. And, are you gonna be competitive? Are you that should really say are you gonna be able to stay in business. Now every twelve months, you can increase your prices on the schedule, but you're gonna be limited by how much you can do that. So if you're getting on the the schedule, it's just kind of a starting point knowing that the out years you can, increase your rates, and you you kinda wanna roll the dice there. Again, keep in AI, sixty to sixty three percent plus of the companies on the schedule have zero sales through their schedule, so, it still comes down to having, relationships. It's still gonna be very similar to what you see on sam dot gov, but if you're seeing, a solicitation through the GSA, eBuy portal, you're you're late to the party. There's been a relationship in place most likely, that somebody has guided their their customer there. Let's move to the next slide, which I think is probably gonna say some of that. So again, contract vehicles, yes. They limit, competition, but the competition's gonna be more fierce because the companies all are going to have that same past performance. Their pricing's gonna be competitive. So what's the differentiator? The differentiator is going to be the relationship that you have, the eyeballs that you looked into, the hands that you shook, the the chemistry that you have with the customer, how you've explained your solution to them. It's just a smaller set of eyes, again, seeing the solicitation, but more fierce competition. So as I mentioned, when you do see opportunities on sam dot gov, you're most likely late to the party, and same thing with the GSA eBuy portal. If you're seeing a solicitation there, you're you're much too late. There's, ninety nine percent of the time, a relationship that's been in play, by a company that has guided their, customer to purchase from the schedule. So, keep that in mind and have a a realistic view of the schedule. And I don't mean to be a a Debbie Downer here with, you know, the schedule is, not a good tool. It certainly can be. It has its benefits, but, it typically works well for more sophisticated companies. And by sophisticated, I just mean that you you understand the market. You know the acronyms, you can talk the talk, you're involved in, government contracting associations, you're at the networking events, you understand the difference between a program manager and a contracting officer, and you've got a subscription to, FedMiner or GovSpan, and you're you're using data on a regular basis. And let's move to the next slide, please. So some other, contract vehicles, just as an FYI, just kinda paint a broader picture here. Most departments I think almost every department does have their own contract vehicle. So some of the, more popular ones are listed here in ABC fourteen, NASA SEWP, DHS EGLE, DISA has ENCORE two, army has something, state department, OPM, like, the list goes on and on and on. So GSA the differentiator with GSA is it can be used across all of the federal government. So if you're talking to somebody at DHS, maybe they don't wanna purchase from GSA because they're, again, going to have to pay that point seven five percent, which you'll collect and then, pass back to GSA. Maybe they wanna purchase from the Eagle contract vehicle. So you can use the AI, GovSpend database to, and hopefully, Archiz and, Adam will correct me if I'm wrong, to pull up data, on those various contract vehicles to find out, you know, how much if you're selling IT services, how much is going through DHS equal, how much is going through whatever it is to find out what is the preferred, contract vehicle for your, for your customer because that's what you wanna do is make it easy for the customer. The government is inundated with paperwork and forms, as will you be if you're a government contractor. So the the the best thing to do is make things easy for them and simplify it. And so if if GSA is what's coming out of their mouth and, and you've got a couple customers that are indicating GSA is their preferred tool, then that's the path you wanna take. If, if they're mentioning some of the other contract vehicles that are out there, then, that's probably, the avenue that you want to take as well. And then also where are you most competitive? And the answer to that really comes in the research and the homework, again, which you can do in yourself or use the GovSpend fed AI, database to get those answers. And let's, move to the next slide. So your marketing, as I mentioned, should really be done upfront, but let's say you have done the marketing. You've got customers or prospects that said, yes. We wanna purchase from you specifically through the schedule. And, so you go through the process. You get onto the schedule, and you're you're rocking and rolling. Some just basics, that I unfortunately see a lot of companies do not do. You should have that GSA logo on your website, and that logo should then be a hyperlink over to your GSA Advantage price list, to make it easy for prospects, prospects, to make it easy for partners, to make it easy for anybody to purchase from you. And your website should really indicate that you are a government contractor. If it's just a a small portion of your business and you want it only to be a small portion of your business, that's a different story. But if you're really trying to grow your public sector, presence in that portion of your, client portfolio, then you really want your website to scream government and, and having your capability statement on your website and everything else can be helpful. But once you've got that GSA schedule, again, put that GSA, logo and your contract number on the back of your business cards. Make sure it's on your capability statement. Make sure it's in your auto signature again with a link to the price list. Again, make it easy for the government to find you, to understand what you do, to to understand what your pricing is for each and every line item. And you also wanna make sure that once you're on the schedule that you remain compliant, and that is, anything from accepting the GSA, mass modifications, making sure that your price list is current, that it's posted, that you've got the right author authorized negotiators, that you're making modifications, if and when you need to, whether you're adding SIMS, deleting products, adding labor categories, or whatever it is. So there's there's a lot to it. There's still, work to be done once you're on the schedule. There's always gonna be a cost to doing business. So whether that's the, the outward facing business development marketing folks that are out there shaking the hands, or the back office, reporting, the compliance, accepting the MAS mods, paying the industrial funding fee, making sure that everything is, as it should be. There is you're not just on the schedule and then it's a home run or a silver bullet. It doesn't, it doesn't really work like that. So make sure that you still have the, the bandwidth, the, the revenue, the the money and time and effort that it's gonna take to maintain successfully maintain a schedule. And let's go to the next slide. Yeah. And so, again, do that homework before you make a decision about, as you would on any other solicitation that you see on sam dot gov. I'm sure your company has a process, and if not, you really should have one on, what sort of kind of matrix and questions you go through to, decide is this solicitation something that we're going to pursue or not. Again, that should be a process, a standard operating procedure within every business, and so that the GSA schedule is itself a solicitation. It's an RFP, request for proposal, and so you should go through various factors, many of which I mentioned in today's presentation to decide if this is in your best interest or if this will actually be a liability for your company. Use all the websites that are out there to get data and information, including GovSpend and FedMind. You also, again, wanna have conversations face to face, and be proactive in the market. If you're just, standing around looking at sam dot gov for opportunities and you're not being, then then you're being, reactive, again, you just wanna really be proactive and define what it is you do and who who within the government is purchasing those, solutions. And so at the end of the day, you know, a government contractor is a government contractor is a government contractor, and everyone's gonna have, you know, the same or similar, line items. They're gonna have similar prices. So the differentiator, again, is relationships. So that's really where you would need to get out there and beat the street, go to the events, get involved in the government contracting association, shake some hands, look at people on the eyeballs, have meaningful conversations, and, and I think those will help you be successful not only in government contracting, but, with your schedule as well. And I think that may be towards the the end here of my slides. There might be one more. So conclusions. I'm not even sure that AI yeah. Schedule is not for everyone. And just because you meet the requirements doesn't mean that you should pursue it because what if your customer prefers to purchase through DHS EGLE or the NASA SEWP contract or they have a different procurement process that they like to use. But you do wanna make sure that if you are going to pursue the schedule, that preferably you exceed all of the, basic requirements. AI I'm not saying that you can't be successful if you're if you've got a substitute, proposals for invoice justification during the process, but, most of the time, you're gonna be more successful. Again, if you're a little bit more of a mature company that understands the market, has the relationships, is embedded within some of the departments and agencies. And, again, as I mentioned, there is a cost of doing business whether you've got a schedule or not. So just keep that in mind that this is just not going to to be a silver bullet for you. And, I think we can move to the next slide, which I think might be it. Questions? Yes. So we have quite a few questions. And just as a reminder, we will be sending slides and a presentation out, hopefully, by tomorrow. I'm gonna start the questions from the top. The first one was please share how a fresh vendor can be in a GSA schedule contracting from scratch. I think this was almost at the beginning, and you've answered the main points. But, obviously, if they wanna work or talk more about their specific situation, they can reach out to you, I think, Jennifer. Sure. Yep. And my contact information is on I have one. Okay. Yeah. The next one is, please, okay. Can one's past performance be a corporate job since I am still starting out? Say that again. Can One's past performance be a corporate job, I guess. A salary job, maybe? I don't know. AI don't I'm not sure I'm exactly, understanding the question, but, if you're saying for, past performance, AI mean, I guess it depends on if the, if the work was done under the the company. I don't know if we're talking about the corporate narrative, we're talking about the thin, project experience, so maybe, contact me separately for that. Okay. Perfect. But I but I think one of the things that we see quite often is that it's a relatively new business, and they don't have the past performance within the business. And it's important to build that up, right, within the business itself. Yeah. I can't stress enough how, the successful companies that are successful on this schedule, again, are more sophisticated, more mature, have been out there, have responded to a couple, proposals on sam dot gov, have built relationships. You're embedded in government contracting associations. You're signed up for news publications from GovExec, DefenseOne, all the the various portals and that sort of thing. And, and so if you're just starting out, it's probably, again, not in your best interest. Yes. The next question is on the fees. For clarity, is the point seven five IFF fees chargeable in addition to the GSA rate, or is the ceiling price set? And then when does it have to remit point seven five of the ceiling price? In other words, if an item costs hundred dollars, does the purchasing agency pay me hundred point seven five, or does the agency pay me hundred and I remit point seven five of the hundred dollars? So the point seven five gets, built into your rate. So, you negotiate with GSA for your rate, and then they're gonna add in the the point seven five, the customer. Let's say the air force is purchasing from you. They're gonna pay the the burdened rate with that point seven five. You extract that point seven five, submit it to GSA. So it's kind of a wash, if that makes sense. Yeah. If we, the manufacturer, sell through our authorized resellers, do our reseller submit the IFF or the manufacturer? Whichever on the schedule submits it. Yep. Do you see emergency management consulting services on GSA schedule, or is it more technology based? Okay. You have to do your research on GSA, and AI believe that, Artis, I think you had had a slide on kind of the top, numbers. So I'd say go ahead and work with GovSpend and AI. And and I would also say the a better question might be or a different question might be, I should say, is when you do your homework, you shouldn't be saying what's being purchased through GSA. You should really start with a very wide net and say, what is the government purchasing? Let's say you're selling widgets. So how much does the government federal government purchase in widgets? And then you should have a a pie chart or graph or spreadsheet that says, you know, two million is going through the GSA. Seventy five million is going through full and open competition. Thirty million is going through simplified acquisition. Twenty five thousand is going through OTA. Fifteen thousand is going through sole source. And there's, again, all the other contract vehicles that are out there, so don't take a narrow focus on GSA and then just say, oh, I'm going after GSA because twelve point six million is being procured of my solution through GSA. Look at the whole picture. Yes. And I'm so glad you said that because we see so many situations where we don't see much sales for that product or solution on a GSA schedule. It might be on a NASA SIP or something like that. But and yeah. It's it's very important to look at the data. So thank you for emphasizing that so much. What do you feel is the primary catalyst for getting your first job on the GSA schedule? Well, again, marketing should be done. Sales and marketing and business development should be done before you decide to get on the schedule. So once you're on, it should really just be a a layup because, and I don't mean to be sarcastic, but, again, the most successful companies are the ones that have built the relationships, have shook shaken their hands, have talked to the prospect, and the prospect has indicated, yes. Once you're on the schedule, we'd love to purchase from you. So that once you're on, you circle back with your customer and, close the deal. So, it's really just using your own, pipeline of opportunities, your own relationships. The the reason that you got on the schedule is should be the reason that you then go back to, you know, Joe Schmo at department of ag or wherever he or she is, to say, hey. We're on now. Let's let's rock and roll. Right. It shouldn't be a ton of work once you're on the schedule if you got on for the right reasons. Yep. And that's important, getting on for the right reasons. Yeah. What happens to the sixty percent of the companies that don't have sales on the GSA schedule? Do they get in disenrolled? Yep. So what happens is, that twenty five k the first year is a grace period. So, but, if that's why you're getting on for the grace period, again, this is really not in your best interest. So what happens is GSA will send a letter to the companies basically saying, hey. You haven't met your sales quota. This is part of the terms and conditions that you promised you're gonna bring in at least twenty five k. And so they will ask for a list of, the opportunities that you submitted or the proposals that you submitted, that were GSA related, what other kind of business development and and work you've been doing. And sometimes they'll, give you an extension based on how how aggressive you've been in AI to pursue GSA, contracts, but, you really shouldn't find yourself in that position. Again, if you've done the homework upfront to understand, is this really the right contract vehicle that my customers prefer to purchase through? But they will eventually, yes, cancel your schedule. And then you can, reapply to get back on, but, they're gonna scrutinize you a little bit more than the initial, pass that, that you went through to get on. Thank you. Yep. Next question is if we have an active agreement in place that is non GSA, do they expect us to convert it to GSA? I guess that's at the agency level if they can you read that one more time? I'm sorry, Achesa. If we have an active agreement in place that is non GSA, do they expect us to convert it to GSA? It's a very ambiguous question. So active agreement, is that, contract? Is it with a prime? Is it with the government? No. Like Yeah. I think it's ambiguous. So Yeah. We need more clarity, or they can Yeah. Specifically to you later on. Okay. The next question is if our MFC is a large hospital system doing multimillion dollars a year, are we required to be as low as that, or can we get close and justify the reason? So if, let's say this large hospital is getting a, I don't know, twenty percent discount from your company, and it's based on volume because they're spending, let's say, five million dollars a year with you, then, basically, you have to position that to GSA as AI, hey, GSA. If you also spend five million dollars a year with us, then we will also give you a twenty percent discount or twenty twenty one percent discount. So GSA always wants to be your best AI customers, but, again, at similar volume and similar, quantity. So make sure that your agreement with this, hospital spells out in very specific terms that it is you've got clear parameters that, you know, a a threshold of five million, you get a twenty percent discount. If you spend six million with us per year, you get a twenty five percent discount and and so forth. So, if you don't have something like that with the hospital in place, I would highly encourage, a revised agreement, because that will, help make your case to GSA that they then need to meet the same requirements in order to get those great discounts. Perfect. Next question is, are there any AI requirements surrounding past performance? How recent must they be? Yep. It's on the solicitation. Yep. So for the past performance, again, your contracts cannot have, ended. There's a three year limit. So let's say you're submitting your proposal November of, next month, then your contract cannot have ended before November of twenty twenty. Got it. Next question is on the financials. The financials need to be for the entire company or just for the sector of the company that serves government clients? Nope. Your entire balance sheet and income statement. Interesting. Okay. For contract for past performance examples, is there a contract minimum dollar amount for those to qualify like there is for Oasis plus? No. But you want something that's substantial. So a higher dollar amount would be helpful, as would if you do have direct federal government contract experience, I would encourage you to use any government contracts. Again, you're not gonna be dinged or there's no less points given if you've got a contract with, your local church or, you know, ABC company. Got it. We often find there is a significant slowdown in the sales cycle once our deals reach procurement. How does GSA compare to city, county, government in terms of sales process, and how quickly do they move once they accept a proposal? Do you have any suggestions to speed up the cycle? It almost feels we were talking about this yesterday. Yeah. So GSA is federal government is slow. It's hurry up and wait. Get your proposal submitted before they make an update to the solicitation. Right now, they're on, refresh number seventeen, which means that, they've updated GSA has updated this consolidated schedule seventeen times. And, I'd say the proposal prep can take anywhere from a month to two months or longer depending upon, if you're using consultant or not or, or kinda how, fast or not your your company is, putting the, proposal information together. You submit it. It can take anywhere from thirty, sixty, ninety days to get the welcome letter, another thirty, sixty, ninety days to go through negotiations and talk about the terms, conditions. They will then issue what's called the FPR, final proposal revision letter. It recaps the terms, conditions, and your pricing. You sign off on that. You get the award, and and, basically, the clock is ticking for the twenty five k. But and then the the federal sales cycle, you're always gonna see spikes in q four, so that's, July, August, September. And so GSA, purchases through the schedule will mirror more or less the the federal sales, spikes and peaks and valleys, but you also probably wanna do some due diligence, and you can get this data from AI and GovSpend on your specific, PSC code and NAICS code to find out, you know, when those are typically purchased. You should really be specific and really have hard data answers for your solution. Yes. Okay. Next thank you. Our next question is, with the GSA, GSA wouldn't approve your pricing if you're significantly higher than other similar GSA vendors. Correct? They would negotiate the pricing. Correct. Again, comparing apples to apples. If, if you've got a a PhD with twenty years of experience and, some sort of certification that's building at two hundred and fifty dollars an hour, you're comparing that to somebody with a same job title but a bachelor's degree and five years of experience, then I obviously, you're not comparing apples to apples. So make sure that you do that that homework and that you're being very, judicious in, selecting the right per parameters on that, on those websites. Okay. Next question again, it's about rates. You know, what about the COVID rates that drove up rates? A lot of companies have not increased the GSA contract, and the rates are lower than market rate. How do you overcome this? Just going for a price adjustment? Yep. You would just make a modification. Maybe take an average of, look at the Department of Labor BLS, or if you've got a commercial AI list, then if your commercial rates have gone up, then, you could submit some sample invoices, a copy of your commercial price list. You can usually get a bigger bang for your buck going that way with the, commercial price list strategy versus using, government data. That's just my opinion, though. So, the next one is, will GSA tie discounts to volume as in x amount of volume equals three percent discount? Yeah. So you're you more or less dictate, and disclose disclose and, provide to GSA, hey. If, one of our our basically, you have standard, pricing policies and procedures. So if your standard pricing policies and procedures show that somebody's ordering, you know, ten of ten widgets, then they get a one percent discount. If it's between eleven and twenty, they get a two percent discount, etcetera, etcetera. Or that could be, equated to a certain amount of spend. And the example that we talked about a couple questions back with the hospital that, you know, spends five million dollars a year, therefore, they get a twenty percent discount or whatever that number is. So you will disclose that to GSA, and they want will want something that's equal to or better than those volume discounts. But, additionally, after you submit your proposal to GSA and you're in that negotiation phase with them, they will sometimes ask for volume discounts. And and usually, they're gonna be very aggressive. So just, be be prepared for what you can and cannot, AI. If it's gonna put you out of business, then, you might wanna have a a counteroffer, ready. Okay. Next question. What about small start ups without any past performance either with public or private sectors? Again, I think I know you covered this in your presentation. I think the audience can answer this question for me. It's, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you gotta start somewhere. Right? But, GSA is, it's like giving somebody a I don't know. Maybe this isn't a good example. A Lamborghini that is, you know, just, getting their driver's permit. Like, you're not ready. Yeah. What is the point of a discounted GSA rate and then encouraged to continue to discount upon contract negotiations? I think this is When you're on the schedule, your GSA rates, again, are only a price ceiling, and you're encouraged to give discounts through your schedule as you start bidding for GSA work. What's the point? It GSA then feels that they will be more attractive as a as a resource, as a, vendor shortlist to the other departments and agencies so that the other departments and agencies know that, hey. This is the the lowest game in town. Yes. I think there's a question about GSA startup springboard program. Is there a different website for that? Yep. So the the StartUp Springboard, basically allows companies I in my opinion, the Springboard is best suited for joint ventures. So two companies that at least one perhaps has a a lot more experience and maybe even has a schedule. So when joint ventures are formed, there that new entity has a new tax ID number, and that entity is not itself going to have any past performance, but you can pull from the two businesses from their own respective past performance. That to me is really the best way to use the springboard. Again, if you're just starting out, you just registered in Sam last month, you used to work for a government agency, your business partner also worked for that agency, or maybe they work for, you know, one of the, Booze or or whoever it is. And you guys are like, oh, let's start a business together, and we can use our our, you know, our experience over the years as our our past performance. Yeah. You can you can go that route, but, if you, again, don't have the relationships, then I'm always hesitant about the springboard again unless it's a joint venture. Okay. What are some ways to see solicitations that we should use on a regular basis to be ahead of the game? So I I'm gonna send that question back to you, Archiza, and just the the GovSpin AI platform. Totally. Totally. It's all about and and I keep coming back to some of the things that you keep saying. Right? It's all about relationships, doing your market research, what vehicle is being used, where are those contracts, what price. Yes. So, definitely, we can show, what are the solicitations, and how to be ahead of the game using data. So, yes, totally happy to do that. Adam and I are happy to take and look at those referrals all the time. Same with sales plug. Thank you. Next question again, can you be on multiple contract vehicles? Yes. Yes. Yep. And it's interesting. It's very interesting doing market research, plugging in the data, putting in keywords to really understand, hey. Should I go on, you know, a seaport? Should I go on NASA's soup? Should I be on a schedule? What type of schedule? You know, it's really important to look at data. Right. And and let me just say real quick. Sorry to interrupt. So GSA, what we're talking about today is really kind of the vanilla GSA. GSA has OASIS Plus, STARS, METS. They have all different, we'll say flavors of GSA schedules. The one that we're talking about is, the one that's used, we'll say, the majority of the time in as it relates to GSA purchases, I guess, we'll say. So, actually, today AI, I think, four o'clock or maybe yeah. Four o'clock is the, OASIS GSA OASIS plus, solicitation, but that's specific NAICS codes. You gotta have specific, past performance and, you know, different metrics to meet. This is just kind of the the main bland, again, vanilla GSA schedule. So, again, use the data to find out who where you're gonna have the the path of least resistance, where you're gonna be most competitive with your skill set, with your pricing, with other competitors, and use the data to make decisions. Don't do this on instinct or, because you see the GSA logo everywhere you go. Yeah. Next question. To get past performance, is it best to target primes and go in as a sub? I think you did touch on this a little bit. You have to know. Register in sam dot gov, and you can respond to any solicitation. It's better to be the the direct contract holder. If you're a sub, those primes are gonna dictate rates to you that are gonna be ugly. And you may take the business just to to take the business and and get the past performance, but then, then you're stuck with, rates that are terribly low, and you're gonna have to hire people that are, you know, at a lower, let's say, skill set that are probably gonna do shoddy work. And so that whole strategy could kind of backfire on you. So there's nothing that holds you back from responding to, solicitations that are on SAM dot gov that don't require a GSA schedule, that don't require whatever the, the solicit I mean, there's plenty of opportunities out there, and there's also opportunities that you can find that don't show up on Sam that are below that twenty five k that the government can swipe their, p card for ten k or or less and, and get some contracts that way. Yep. And they could I mean, I I think you answered this earlier, but even the past performance at the state local education level could count as past performance, right, for the GED? Absolutely. Can your work experience as a w two employee be considered in past performance? I'm not sure about that. But for the corporate experience, yes. Yeah. Okay. Is there any content or resources that can be provided on proposal writing? We've got, on my website so on jennifer shaus dot com, if you go over to the tab called webinars, there are, probably thirty different topics. One of the topics is proposals. And, within there, there's probably fifty to seventy five plus complimentary webinars on proposal writing. Thank you. If all your past performance as a sub contractor, do you recommend waiting to get on a GSA schedule? Again, I think it's a Yeah. Market research. Right. Use the data to make decisions. Don't just, again, be be proactive, not reactive. And when you do the research, look at the entire federal market. So you've got a a pie chart. You've got a spreadsheet that has specific numbers for your specific product solution, whatever it is you're selling, so that you know. Yes. There's seventeen million and three hundred and twenty three dollars and eight cents, that's been purchased of my product in the last fiscal year, and here's the agency breakdown and who spent AI, and here's the contract vehicles, and here's what went. Full and open competition, and here's what went. Because if, let's say, ninety percent of what you're selling maybe went full and open competition, you don't need a schedule. You probably wanna use any, money that you have and allocate that towards sales, business development, and proposal rating. Yes. Few more questions. It's nice to see there's so many questions. We don't typically see that all the time. Is there any minimum number of LCATS you will need to submit pricing for? Must the pricing match your invoices? Yeah. So, you probably wanna have at least, four to AI. I'd say five is ideal. Five or more is ideal. You really can't submit a proposal with just two or three. That's, it's if that's all you've got, then, they're gonna GSA will, there will be some pause, and they will, there will be more scrutiny, with your company. So, I would, I would kind of rethink, you know, why are you really getting on to the schedule. And then you'll need an invoice for each, one invoice for each, line item that you're proposing. And if let's say you've got ten labor categories, if, if you have one invoice to ABC company and all of your labor categories show up there, that's all you need. If you've got five invoices and each invoice has two labor categories on it, great. So as long as you have an invoice to justify your rates, that's that's what's needed. Perfect. We are already on a GSA schedule. How do you verify if a customer is GSA eligible? I'm just trying how do you verify that customers are eligible? Well, basically, anybody in the federal government, World Cross, what did I say? World Bank, Red Cross, IMF, IFC, IADP. I mean, they've they've they've got the full list on the website. And then as I mentioned, some of the state and local governments can grandfather you in. There's some consortiums among the Midwestern states. But unless you're a a large business, I mean, I'm assuming the question is probably coming from a smaller to AI company. Like, focus on who the reason why you got on the schedule. Who of your prospects told you that that's how that they prefer to purchase and go back to them to seal the deal. You mentioned that if you find a solicitation on Sam or Ebuy, you're already too late. Is it because posting it on Sam is just a formality and they may have already selected the vendor? More or less. Or they've got, you know, two or three or four companies in mind. So, usually, you wanna look forward to start out. Sources sought, RFIs, request for information, those are kind of really when you wanna respond and be complete and comprehensive and as thorough and professional and everything else as possible. Make sure your website looks, you know, AI. I guess they're gonna check that when you respond to these RFIs and sources sought. And then eventually, these sources sought and RFIs will, matriculate over the the course of the next couple months most of the time, and they will graduate into a RFP. So it's usually when the government's saying, oh, we might need, I don't know, cybersecurity services for a database that we have on, I don't know, whatever it is. And so they'll put out a a source to sought and, you know, who can do this and what percent of the companies that responded are small business, what are women owned, and that will kind of help, shape the opportunity and what path that opportunity will go down. Is it gonna be set aside for, small business, veteran owned, and whatever it is? So any, any designations that you have there can be helpful to include. Perfect. Yep. It's always about market research, and we see so many agencies doing market research too through the presolicitations and so so so we always tell clients that please respond, please track those. It is the agency's way of trying to do their market research, see if there's another vendor that they need to be looking at. So, you know, it's it's thank you for saying that, Jennifer. Can you share any specific sites we can go to to do the market research of who is on the GSA and what they're charging? I guess that would be AI. Yep. AI dot g s a dot gov will take you to the labor, and then g s a advantage dot AI. I think it was on one of the AI back. Will take you to the products and software. Perfect. If I'm a construction company, can I apply for the construction management services on the schedule and submit my construction jobs as past performance? I don't see why not. Yeah. I think they can. The website for proposal writing webinars, it's, jennifer schroutz dot com. And when you get the slides and wanna share the contact, you'll find it there too. So, that was, where you could go to see the webinars. How do you market for GSA schedule? Oh, that's all Again, the marketing takes place up front, and, AI think I had a slide on just make sure once you've got the schedule that you've got the logo and your auto signature, the back of your business card, on your capability statement, on your website. I mean, those are just the cosmetic pieces, but it really does again, the differentiator is the personal relationships that you have with partners, with customers, with, you know, the the whole nine yards. Yeah. And and, Jennifer, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the schedule a way to make it easier for you to get that award, and and use it based on your relationships. Right? That's really what it's boiling down to in a lot of ways. Correct. Correct. Yep. Yes. He can help kind of, we'll say, box out some competition. You're not gonna want to ever eliminate competition, but, again, the GSA is, you know, vendor shortlist. So, if you're able to steer your customer to the schedule for your particular special item number, and it gets published on the GSA AI platform, the only eyeballs that are gonna see that are the companies that have the schedule, that have that particular SIM number. So, again, they're also gonna have been through that vetting process. They're gonna have comparable prices. Again, this is why relationships really, matter. Or if you have some sort of technical, superior skill set or a a technical capability that the others don't, this can be helpful. Yes. Thank you. Could you bid on work if the GSA pricing list only satisfies a portion of the LCATS needed as part of the proposal. Yes. Can you bid say that again. I'm sorry. Can you bid on Can you bid on work if your GSA pricing list only satisfy satisfies a portion of the LCATS needed as part of the proposal? I would encourage you to find a teaming partner, for those situations, and you can, do some easy due diligence on the, the GSA, website to, to find partners that are gonna have pricing that's kind of in sync with yours so that everybody's kind of, happy, going, down the path together. Or if you have labor categories that you can crosswalk. So if they're asking for a, IT systems engineer and you have a IT programmer that could kind of, work, then your proposal could say, our IT programmer actually functions as a IT, what did I say, systems engineer. Yeah. Couple of other questions. How do vendors update pricing to reflect economy while on a schedule? I know you answered that already. Yeah. We talked about BLS and the, Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the Department of Labor table five. Depending it depends on if your pricing is based on commercial price list or market rates and whatever the indicator, that was used. Perfect. Where do you find a list of all the vehicles you mentioned besides GSA? If you're a AI user, you could absolutely FedMind user, you'll find it with us, but, I think. Yeah. It's like NASA soups, Navy Seaporty, all of those. I mean, a lot of it's, you guys, the GovSpend, FedMind platform can, can get you that. For sure. Yep. How do you market your schedule once live? I think we talked about that. How do veteran owned businesses tap into the set asides? AI know you've got I I think, again, that boils down to relationships. Right? Right. Yeah. And and the need and how's that agency doing vis a vis its goaling and things like that. So Right. I know one more question. Any advice on getting into the US embassies abroad? That's that's gonna be state department, OBO, office of, overseas business offices is OBO, within state department. So AI, if you have a specific opportunity, do your homework first. Don't just contact the, state department OSDBU office, which, OSDBU is office of small and disadvantaged business utilization. So don't contact them and ask them to do your homework. Either go on to sam dot gov, go on to GovSpend or AI, and look at the actual solicitation that you're looking at. And when you contact the OSDBU, reference the, solicitation. Make sure you have a capability statement that's customized for that solicitation. Have the dates of when that's coming out. There should be a specific opportunity. You really need to be more specific. And sorry to be kinda tough love here, but, generally saying AI, oh, we wanna work with the, you know, whoever it is, Department of Agriculture's animal, services. No. Like, again, be more specific. It really narrow with your focus, with the solicitation, the opportunity. Really dig into the data, and don't don't ask these people to do that homework for you because, they've got enough on their plate. So, and, Archie, correct me if I'm wrong. No. It's it's, it's good, tough love. Okay. I I'm just laughing because it's always interesting when we talk to the Oztaboos just like you do, Jennifer. They want companies to become prepared. They wanna talk to companies that have done their market research. And I think we always wanna have those conversations, especially when we are talking with agencies that AI think tells them too that, you know, I'm talking to a company that's done their research, that knows what they're looking for, and that has specific questions. You know? So absolutely. I think that's all in terms of questions. Just so that everyone knows, please sign up for our educational webinar series. We have a few more that are lined up already, and, you know, we are in the process of adding a couple more. The one next month is gonna be on critical changes for small businesses with Maria Panicelli. I think that will be a webinar filled with a lot of information since there's so much happening. So did wanna let everyone know about our upcoming webinar series. And, in terms of contact information, Jennifer, we have your email. I know it's in all your presentation slides at the bottom too. If you all have any questions about the GovSpend, AI platform, please feel free to email me or Adam, and we will be sure to get back to you and make sure your questions answered. And I don't have anything else. Adam, I don't know if you have anything, but thank you for Thank you everyone for coming. Wish you a great start to the new federal year. Excited to hear from you, and thanks for all your questions. Thanks, Archisha and Jennifer. Thank you, everyone. Thanks, Jennifer, so much. Thanks, everybody. I appreciate, all the participants. Adam and Artisha, AI, GovSpend. It was, it was a fun one, and, appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Thanks. Bye bye. Bye bye.
Obtaining a GSA Schedule is challenging for companies of any size. To navigate the process and effectively leverage this contract vehicle, it’s imperative that you understand the requirements and strategies for success.
During this session, our speaker Jennifer Schaus, will dive into requirements and best practices for effectively utilizing this contract vehicle and demonstrate it’s power for marketing and business development in the federal sector. She will also enable you to make an informed decision on whether pursuing the GSA Schedule is the right move for your company.
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