The federal government offers a lot of support for small businesses looking to enter the public sector. This includes small businesses owned by women, economically disadvantaged businesses, and veteran-owned businesses. Here at Winvale, we have several clients who are Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (VOSBs), and that’s why we want to acknowledge resources available to these businesses as they navigate the federal marketplace. The General Services Administration (GSA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) are among several federal administrations that promote veteran entrepreneurship, and it’s important you take advantage of these resources if you are a veteran business and a GSA Schedule contractor.

Once you are awarded your GSA Schedule contract, it does not automatically mean you will have orders streaming in from government agencies. Knowing what government contracting opportunities are available is an essential part of being a successful contractor. To significantly increase your chances of contracting success, you should be proactive about finding opportunities that fit your solutions. The good thing is, there are several GSA resources you can use to discover business in the federal marketplace, like SAM.gov. We put together this blog to show you the step-by-step process on how you can use the site to easily search for procurement opportunities.

So you have been following a pending government solicitation for months (maybe years), you have met with the customer and completed a solution demo, you have attended all the industry days, formed your team, followed the capture processes and best practices, and your team is ready for the solicitation to come out (or potentially the draft solicitation). You get the notification that it has been posted, you download it, open it up and start reading. Three pages in you’ll see statement like the one below:

Since you clicked on this blog post, there is a good chance your business could qualify as a small business government contractor, or perhaps you are simply looking to learn more about the calculations that determine small business status. Regardless, it's important to determine your business size designation, because there are certain advantages associated with being a small business in the federal government. In this blog, we'll help you identify whether your business qualifies as a small business with the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Small Business Association (SBA).

The Biden-Harris Administration intends to heavily invest in our nation’s infrastructure. In March 2021, Biden unveiled the the American Jobs Plan, which will allocate $2 trillion to create more jobs and rebuild the U.S. infrastructure. A significant aspect of the American Jobs Plan is a $621 billion investment in transportation infrastructure, including public transit, modernizing roads, bridges, and highways, and electric vehicles (EVs). Electric vehicles are a large part of Biden’s plan—he wants to build a network of EV charging ports across the nation’s highway system and electrify the federal government’s transportation fleet.

Most GSA contractors are used to working with federal government agencies through the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Program. While federal government agencies do account for a large percentage of GSA revenue, some of the major buyers through the GSA MAS Program are state and local government entities. State and local government entities cannot purchase everything through GSA Schedules, but they can qualify through certain programs. One of the ways in which states and local units of government can purchase off GSA Schedules is through the 1122 Program.