by John C Smith

Created on: April 03, 2009

Small business get your piece of the stimulus pie, become a government contractor!

Become a government contractor, With the current state of the economy only one sector seems poised for growth. The Federal Government is about to start spending billions of dollars to stimulate the economy. Some of that money will pass through to the state. Did you know that law requires government purchases worth from $3,000 to $100,000 be directed to small businesses? The government also sets a goal that 23% of all contracts go to small businesses. With the government looking to give a huge piece of the stimulus money to smalll businesses now is the time for many small companies to grow.

I would suggest the first step any small business take is finding out which federal agencies or sub agencies are looking for your products or services. One place to find this information is the Federal Procurement Data System or (fpds.gov) There you will find a detailed list of all governments past purchases. Each agency also produces a procurement forecast with contact information, you can find these forecasts at FedBizOpps.gov this is the governments exhaustive contract solicitation website. You must register in the central contractor registration, an entry into the CCR is required for doing business with the government. Government procurement officers routinely search the data base to fulfill contracts under $100,000 help them find you and your services by including the codes for your product categories, (Federal Supply Classification Codes) and Product Service Codes. Both sets of codes are available at outreach systems.com.

Normally it could take a small business two years to receive a government contract but today the government is trying to send more contracts that way due to the recession. You can find all contract opportunities worth more then $25,000 on FedBizOpps.gov

In 2008 some 45,00 solicitation appeared on the site. The government bid solicitation process can be a long one. With attachments they can be a hundred pages long. READ them all, the government is very picky and you can be disqualified from submitting an offer that is too long. At these sites you will also find local city and state solicitations. According to the federal government a small business is defined by a number of things. A company that has been in business at least two years with a majority owner and operating manager who are socially and economically disadvantaged, certain types of ethnicities automatically qualify as do businesses owned and operated by Veterans and Woman. The time is now to become a government contractor, and since small businesses will receive a large chunk of the stimulus there will be many contracts and plenty of funding to go around.

I suggest that when placing a bid you include the number of employees you have now and how many you would be able to hire. It is important to remember that the government is trying to stimulate the economy so the more your business will contribute to that the more likely you are to receive a government contract.

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