If you’ve been awarded a GSA Schedule contract, you may be feeling relieved. After all, you’ve finally completed the lengthy process of putting together your offer, waiting for review, and going through negotiations. While getting a contract award is certainly something to celebrate, it’s also not the end of your work. What many contractors don’t realize is that it is just as important to maintain your contract as it is to acquire it in the first place. In this blog, we’ll cover ways you can optimize your GSA Schedule.
1. Optimize Your Special Item Numbers (SINs)
The first step in optimizing your schedule is to evaluate what Special Item Numbers (SINs) you’re offering. A good way to start is by checking your company’s SAM.gov registration. Each SIN maps to at least one North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code, and you must have these present on your SAM.gov account. While it’s important to ensure you have all the NAICS Codes you need, it’s equally important to make sure you don’t have NAICS Codes you don’t need. If your SAM.gov account is cluttered with NAICS for services or products that you don’t offer, you’ll find yourself being targeted for irrelevant opportunities.
Once you’ve made sure all your NAICS Codes are up to date, you may want to think about adding additional SINs. Ensuring you have all the SINs that are relevant to your company is a key part of GSA business development. If you feel like your offerings may be lacking, a good idea is to take a look at your competitors to see what SINs they are offering. You can also research which SINs have the most opportunities, by using tools like Schedule Sales Query Plus (SSQ+) and USASpending.gov. If you decide to add a SIN, be sure to pay close attention to the requirements. Some SINs have additional SIN-specific requirements, such as technical reviews or additional past performance narratives.
2. Optimize Your Past Performance Experience
Unfortunately, many contractors want to add SINs, but don’t think they have past performance to substantiate it. One of the most common misconceptions we encounter is that contractors can only use past performance projects performed for government customers as a way to add new SINs, but this is not true. In fact, many GSA Schedule applicants have no government contracting experience at all.
If you want to add a SIN, you can absolutely use commercial projects as past performance support. The only constraint is the scope and timeframe of the project. The project must have a similar scope to the SIN you’re seeking to add, and must have been either completed within the last two years or be ongoing with at least the base year completed.
3. Optimize GSA Schedule Your Pricing
Pricing on the GSA can be tricky—you want to make sure your rates are high enough that you can turn a profit, but low enough to still be competitive. This is why it’s crucial for contract maintenance to pay close attention to the rates you’re offering. Start by making sure you’re familiar with your Economic Price Adjustment (EPA) mechanism. The EPA mechanism governs when and how you can raise your prices. This is important information to know, as you want to make sure you are keeping up with price increases.
For instance, one EPA clause allows to you to raise your GSA prices whenever you make changes to your commercial pricelist. If this is the EPA mechanism your contract uses, you’ll want to pay close attention to make sure you’re raising your GSA prices along with your commercial pricing.
4. Optimize Your GSA Pricelist
In addition to optimizing your prices themselves, it’s also a good idea to consider your GSA pricelist. All GSA Schedule holders have a page on GSA eLibrary, where potential buyers can view your contract details, contact information, and their pricelist. It’s absolutely critical to keep your eLibrary page up to date, as this is where many potential customers will go for information about your company and your offerings.
The first thing to check on is whether your pricelist is actually published and visible on eLibrary. Your pricelist will not be published automatically when your contract is awarded—you must manually upload it through the Schedule Input Program (SIP). Once it’s published, you’ll want to make sure that you continually update it with any changes in price, modifications, or administrative details.
In addition to just making sure your pricelist is accurate; you also want to make sure it’s appealing. After all, this is a marketing document. Consider including a capabilities statement, or having your marketing team spruce up the design. Many contractors never make any adjustments from the standard template provided by the GSA, so even a few design tweaks can help your pricelist stand out.
5. Optimize Your Administrative Details
One of the most important things you can do to maintain your contract is also one of the simplest: ensure your administrative and contact information is up to date. Because this is such a small detail, it’s often easily overlooked, but ensuring you have the correct points of contact (POCs) listed is vital to the success of your contract. There’s nothing more devastating than realizing you lost out on a great opportunity simply because an email was sent to the wrong person. If anyone listed as a POC on your contract leaves the company or changes roles, be sure to add a replacement POC as quickly as possible.
Want to Learn More About Optimizing Your GSA Schedule?
In this blog, we covered the basics of GSA Schedule optimization, but there’s plenty of additional ways to maximize GSA Schedule opportunities. If you’re interested in learning more, you can watch our recent webinar on the topic. If you have more questions about GSA Schedule contract maintenance, or are looking for help maintaining your contract, don’t hesitate to reach out.
