The Trick to Win Government Contracts

So what is the “government bidding process” and how will it help me win government contracts?

Many businesses small and large enter the public sector trying to sell to the government and win a portion of the $7 trillion the U.S spends. These businesses typically try to win government contracts by jumping head first into the Bid & RFP process and bidding on as many Request-For-Proposals as they can. This is not uncommon because bids and RFPs are still the most widely known and common way to land government contracts.

However, there is a limited strategy in this approach, as businesses don’t know what or who they are up against or how the agencies operate behind the scenes. This forces them to use guesswork rather than well-researched information to decide how they want to chase contracts.

Another approach is cold contacting agencies and hoping to get the right person on the phone to listen to your pitch, but finding the right person and pitching from the right angle is more than a challenge. It’s not something that just happens. It takes knowledge gathered from research and planning to present just the right pitch.

Okay, what do I do instead to win government contracts?

Enter GovSpend, the most comprehensive platform for growing your government sales. GovSpend tackles the challenges of government sales using a combination of strategies that involve discovering leads, tracking spending trends, finding new opportunities, and building relationships.

Many businesses new to government contracting are unaware that 80% of it happens outside of the Request-for-Proposal process.

And it is awarded much faster than the average 3-9 month RFP process. If agencies are spending within a $25,000 threshold, they don’t need to go through the entire RFP process, and often take a few quick quotes or choose a vendor directly.

This 80% served as the basis for GovSpend’s platform. The platform addresses opportunities both inside and outside the RFP process

The first step…

When it comes to having a fair shot at winning government bids, the first step is making sure you’re seeing all of them. This can be challenging given the number of different sources agencies use to post their bids. GovSpend’s system compiles all the open and past RFPs into one database for you to search through and reply to. GovSpend collects bids from more sources than any other bid service and at a better rate.

The application’s search tools are also more comprehensive than other sites, whether it’s by searching for products by name, UNSPSC codes, NAICS codes, location, or agency type. Thanks to these search tools, GovSpend makes it easy to make sure you don’t miss an RFP.

The secret weapon…

But where GovSpend truly stands out from the rest of the competition is in its data-driven approach on how to earn more government business. It accomplishes this by offering a database of historical purchase orders. So not only are you viewing an agency’s open bids, you’re seeing where their spending has gone in the past. You can use this information to generate leads before a quote or RFP is ever released.

GovSpend’s unique historical spending database is the only one of its kind. It maintains spending data from over 17,000 government agencies and allows you to be proactive, target your audience, and never have to make a cold call again.

The spending database is full of purchase orders collated from government agencies across the nation on all levels of government; federal, state, & local. You are now able to track individual agencies spending, what they’re buying, when they’re peak purchasing time is, when are warranties expiring, or when it’s time to replace an outdated product. So now you’re ready to pitch to agencies right as they’re ready to buy.

In a lot of cases when an agency wants to make a bid purchase they’ll order sample products from a few vendors. This will show up on a purchase order as small quantities and is a good indicator that they’re preparing to send out an RFP. Once you see this you can start lining up your company to win that RFP, maybe even send your own product samples to that agency.

You can develop your quotes and proposals perfectly instead of rushing to finish them in time for a deadline. Very often the problem with RFPs is that an agency already knows who they want to award it to before they’ve even received the proposals. This is because they’ve already been discussing the project with a vendor they like and want to use, giving this vendor a foot in the door. This spending tool has helped us become that vendor with a foot in the door.

Whether an agency is going through or outside the RFP process, using all of GovSpend’s solutions in combination with each other lets you see the entire life cycle through each feature.

Over the years, these tools have helped improve the business strategies of thousands of small, medium, and enterprise businesses. So if you’re new to government contracting or even just a smaller business that wants to compete with the bigger guys, give GovSpend a shot and see how this powerful tool can help you win government contracts.

Hover over states to see open bids.

Hover over states to see Purchase Orders