Infrastructure Supply Chain Sales: How The Government Sales Pipeline Got Shorter And Faster

Editor’s Note: Jack Siney is Co-Founder of GovSpend which maintains the only database of purchase order records for federal, state and local agencies.

U.S. governmental agencies represent the largest prospect in the world with 90,000 agencies at the federal, state, and local levels spending $7 trillion a year—$20 billion a day. With infrastructure taking center stage in 2020, from bridges to roads to facilities and more, the opportunities have never been more abundant for manufacturers and supply chain companies.

Only 20% of government buying is conducted through the long and cumbersome bid/RFP process, so companies can move swiftly through the pipeline to try and capture the 80% of government business secured through a variety of other procurement vehicles. Moving swiftly with less paperwork, here are six ways to win contracts with government agencies in a very short period of time:

Sole Source

How unique are you? If your company offers a specific product or has a feature in a product that’s not offered by anyone else, your company can apply for a sole source designation from an agency where they would not have to go out to bid an RFP because there would be no other companies qualified to do the work. Patented items, new technologies, and innovative products typically fall into this classification—like when Apple first released the iPhone, for example.

Discretionary Spend

Most agencies have an established discretionary spend limit (that can range from $1,000 to tens of thousands for large agencies) which means they can spend up to that amount of money over-and-over without going out to bid or RFP. If your product or service fits under the agency discretionary spend limit, procurement has the ability to make the purchase right away—like when an agency needs printer paper or toner cartridges, for example. Depending on the timing of your sales pitch and their decision-making—you could conceivably win this contract over just a couple of days!

P-Card

Purchase Card (P-Card) transactions are credit card purchases made by agency personnel. Similar to discretionary spending, it means if they need to buy your solution, they can move immediately to award the procurement to you versus needing additional bids. At most agencies, there is an array of staff who have authorized the use of a P-Card so if your cost is below the approved threshold, that government employee could purchase it immediately without going out to bid.

Simplified Acquisition

There are a variety of commodity items that agencies are allowed to procure by simply obtaining three, or several, quotes. Once they receive the requisite number of quotes, they can buy that item immediately, so an agency will release a “Request for Quote”, and then award within just a week or two.

GSA & State Schedules

GSA and State Schedules are one of the fastest and easiest ways for agencies to award business to your company. The process to get on a GSA (General Services Administration) and/or State Schedule can be time-consuming because the applications for GSA and the 50 individual states are totally different. Once you are approved for a GSA or State Schedule, agencies will be able to immediately purchase the products/services your company has on the Schedule—similar to how consumers make an e-commerce transaction online. Again, no requirement for a bid or RFP.

Co-ops

These are a series of contracts, very much like the GSA or a State schedule, in which groups of agencies or private organizations aggregate purchasing power. If the products or service you offer is on a co-op contract, an agency can purchase immediately from that co-op. The agency can purchase immediately, literally the same day or the next day or two without going out to bid RFP.

Selling to the government is an important sales strategy to include in your planning. Get a head start on the competition by monitoring new legislation, stated budgets, and federal spending initiatives.

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