Usually, federal bids will be awarded to larger firms and businesses, because the scope of work within these types of bids requires a large work-force and a lot of money to get the job done. However, our government does set aside bids specifically for small businesses. 23 percent of all federal bids are held for small businesses, which, in our example, 23 percent would amount to $115 billion. There can be a large amount of small businesses winning bids and performing projects around the nation with that amount of money.

With that said, small businesses do have the opportunity to win bids from the federal government, but one should not expect to do so just because money is set aside for small businesses. If you have a small business you want to start small and work your way up. The federal government is not going to award a small business that has little experience competitively bidding. The process of being awarded a government bid is already long, and can be overwhelming, especially for a small business that has not yet been through the process of bidding. It takes years for businesses to win their first federal bid, so do not become discouraged. Hard work, dedication and persistency are all too familiar, but will be the key to opening doors to big federal bids.

Government agencies base whether or not they will award the bid to your business mainly off of past performances and successes with previous awarded bids and projects your business has previously completed. Federal bids should motivate your business to work its way up the ladder to being awarded a federal bid. The purpose of bidding for a small business is to eventually get its foot in the door within federal bidding in order to be awarded large bids, and large amounts of money. Even if your business has to start off bidding for projects $5,000 and below, this is ok. This will only allow your business to gain more experience and knowledge on how to bid, and will build your businesses’ reputation if projects are completed in a timely manner and done properly.

Many small businesses also get their start by being sub-contracted through larger contractors that are awarded bids that fit within their scope of work. So, even if the RFP your business bids on is not awarded to you you are still able to contact the general contractor who it was awarded to and find out if they will sub-contract part of the project to your business. This allows the agency who awarded the bid to see that your business was a part of the project even though you did not win the bid, which will allows the agency to familiarize themselves with your business and possibly award your business into the future.

There are many tricks to the trade of bidding, so always network as much as possible and find ways to get your foot in the door. Another trick that businesses and people alike are utilizing is finder services. FindRFP will find the RFPs that your business would like to bid on and send them to you daily through email. Start with FindRFP’s free one week trial today and find out what RFPs are out there for your business!