If you are a woman-owned business that is 51% owned, controlled, and operated by a woman, then I have great news for you. The federal government is REQUIRED to award 5% of its projects to woman business enterprises (WBEs). In order to comply with these mandates, the federal government sets-aside special contracts that are only awarded to a WBE. And of course, there is nothing stopping you from also bidding on contracts that are open-bidding for everyone. But you should definitely take advantage of the special advantages that you can get as a WBE.
How can you take advantage of these special advantages available to you? There is actually not a specific application to obtain a federal WBE certification as a WBE. You simply self-certify that you are a WBE.
If you are a WBE, you can jump right in and start looking for federal government projects to bid on, after you get registered with a federal government vendor (with CCR, etc.). The federal government uses 3 different methods for hiring businesses to do its work. Two of them are online portals, and another one is by communicating directly with contracting officers on opportunities that will never show up in the online portals.
Projects Over $25,000 - FedBizOpps
Any projects that are expected to exceed $25,000 are posted on FedBizOpps (fbo.gov). All 26 federal agencies feed their projects over $25,000 into this portal so that people who want to bid on those projects can find them.
FedBizOpps has various search capabilities. For example, you can search by key word, set-aside code, agency, and various other criteria so you can find the types of opportunities of interest to you. On FedBizOpps, you also find special set-aside fields so you can see those opportunities that are set-aside just for women. As noted previously, you can also submit bids for other projects, even those that are not set aside specifically for WBEs. You will definitely want to take a look at the special opportunities just for WBEs.
The good news about the FedBizOpps portal is that you can do these searches for free without even having to register on the site. You can also sign up for a free account if you want to set up email alerts to notify you of projects that may interest you. I definitely would encourage anyone who is serious about doing business with the federal government to sign up for email alerts. They allow you to set up the specific criteria for the types of projects you are interested in, and you can then receive email alerts of new opportunities that were posted that meet your criteria. This is a lot more efficient than logging into the portal each day or each week to look for possible projects to bid on!
Projects Less Than $25,000 " Through Fed, or Directly With Contract Officers
We described above that those opportunities that exceed $25,000 must be posted on FedBizOpps. Well, what about those projects that are under $25,000? Well, the contracting officers in the various federal government agencies can make buying decisions under $25,000 without having to go through the more detailed bidding process. So you can actually look at the upcoming forecast that is published by each federal government agency, and any time you see one coming up that is under $25,000 that you are interested in, you should contact that government buyer to express your interest.
You may also see projects under $25,000 show up on the FedBid reverse auction that the federal government has started using more heavily these past few years. FedBid allows the government to post a description of what they are looking for, and for interested companies to submit bids and see if they are the winner. FedBid is a lot like eBay, but in a reverse auction format. In the event that a project shows up on FedBid that is over $25,000, you would also see a notice on the FedBizOpps portal cross-referencing the FedBid auction posting. Most people don't even know about these last two methods of doing business with the federal government. Watching the upcoming forecast to find opportunities you can negotiate directly with government buyers, and using the FedBid reverse auction are both excellent strategies for obtaining business from the federal government.
And since most of your competitors probably only know about FedBizOpps, you can probably get more business through these latter two opportunities since they have a lot less competition. So get out there and get some federal government business. You can do it!
More Information:
Denise Gosnell is an entrepreneur, as well as a world-recognized author on business, technology, and legal topics. For more details about growing your business through
WBE certifications, make sure you check out Denise's FREE CD and other training on obtaining a
WBE certification
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