A Primer On Winning Government Contracts

For government contracting to go well, you need to know exactly how to use contract terms and understand current federal rules and relevant case law. This book gives you ready definitions for national contracting terms, phrases, and acronyms used in government procurement. This saves you time and makes your procurement program stronger. The terminology is completely up-to-date and reflects changes in laws and rules. Some of the terms are directly related to government contract law, such as the rules and procedures that the federal government must follow. This book gives clear explanations of both general and agency-specific federal contracting terms. This essential guide to today's government contract terms is set up in an easy-to-use alphabetical format and has full cross-references. It will help you buy goods and services quickly and with confidence.

What You Can Expect:If you are reading this book, we assume you have already decided to start a government contracting business or have already started one, and you really want someone to tell you what to do next in simple terms and without a lot of fluff. This book is a primer - a general how-to book. We focus on the essentials and explain the steps you need to take, why you need to take those steps, and the order in which you should take them. Where applicable, we cite resource references and websites that provide more detail for people who want to dig deeper.Why We Wrote This Book:We started, own and co-own several businesses. Some are government contracting businesses, and we wish this book had existed when we started our first one. Such a book, with topics and sections specifically for government contractors, would have saved us a lot of time, energy and money. After talking to many new business owners, we recognized that they, too, wished for a book written by serial business starters, who could offer step-by-step procedures to follow and would share their lessons learned.We Love What We Do!We love the business world, but mostly, we love helping others start their own business, achieve their business and life goals, and eventually, write their own success stories. We hope that as you follow the steps in this book, you will be on the way to achieving your goals in business and life, too.

He who knows and knows that he knows is wise; follow him. -ANCIENT PROVERB During a long career of public service as a government procurement and contracting official, I am still surprised to find big, successful corporations making the same mistakes that neophytes in government contracting mak~. And this is particularly true in the matter of writing proposals, which are the crucial element in most major procurement awards. It's true enough, as many suspect, that the big, well-known company has something of an edge over the smaller, lesser-known company com peting for any given government contract-psychologically, at least: The typical government executives, whether contracting officials or program managers, tend to have a bit more faith in the ability of the large company to carry out the program successfully. All things being equal, then, the big company is more likely to get the nod. However, because the large companies are well aware of that, many tend to become "fat, dumb, and happy"-they try to coast or rest on their laurels. That is, they get careless about making a strong enough case for themselves in writing their proposals. And when they lose, often to smaller companies, they are both puzzled and outraged. They have for gotten that all government procurement is a competition-usually both technical and cost competition-and that the "little guy" can win against the "big guy," if he tries hard enough. And especially if the bigger guy is a bit careless and does not put out his best effort.

Federal contracting . . . easy? With the fourth edition of Federal Contracting Made Easy, it is! Whether or not you consider federal contracting easy, it is certainly easier with this guide. Used successfully by thousands of contractors and feds, this book offers practical, hands-on, no-nonsense advice. Now in its fourth edition, Federal Contracting Made Easy lays out the entire federal contracting process in a readable and easy-to-understand style. This book covers how government procurement works, what you can do to cut though the red tape to speed your way to winning a contract, who the key players are, and tips for overcoming obstacles. New in this edition: • Discussion of government-wide acquisition contracts (GWACs) • Updates on women-owned small business • New status of service-disabled veteran-owned small business • Expanded list of relevant websites and resources • Introduction to the new System for Award Management (SAM) Whether you are about to enter the competitive world of federal contracting or have been bidding for contracts for years and are now looking for updated information and ideas, this is the book you need. The federal government awards billions of dollars in contracts for goods and services every year. This book will help you win a piece of that business.