Help with selling to the government blog.

[Amark Engineering/Manufac]

I know a lot of you are either doing government work or have played with the idea and some would like to learn a little about it so I would like to share my blog with you. Please comment and bring knowledge if you can or ask questions to keep me on the right track.

http://sellingtothefeds.blogspot.com/

Thanks.
Ed

 

[Dualkit]

All I know is a guy doing government contract work farmed out some work to me. This was mill work. Everything he did needed either plating or painting, and everything needed identification stamped with part number and manufacturer's number. So there is quite a bid of initial cash outlay for stamps and paint. A lot of the stamp and paint requirements are different from job to job, some jobs want 1/16 size stamps, then 3/32, 1/8 etc,etc. The paints the same thing and they don't keep forever.The stamp sets are $350 each. Everything needs to be
individually packaged and labeled. I found the guy to be very honest and he said that the market was getting saturated, driving the prices down by the week.
(Just like here). Even with lowering his rates, he was bidding 100 jobs for every one that he got. He would send me prints and actually show me the government
price, and ask if I could do the work for that price less 10% for him, usually my answer was NO. The jobs he did win I think he was bidding well south of $30 an
hour machine time. Also there weren't enough profit in them to send anything
out other than plating. So you would need to invest in all the money it would take to paint, stamp and package yourself, and be lucky to get $20 an hour.
Did one job for him and said "I would only have made $22 an hour, if everything went right", his comment " That is good these days". I believed him when he said he was only marking up my work 10%. Don't worry I am not posting this to discourage you, I am being honest. Also all material needs to be certified domestic, in a lot of cases you have to hunt around to find the material made in the USA.

 

[Amark Engineering/Manufac]

Thanks for the good information Dualkit. I think for some of us it will become important to learn to work for the US government because they are the fastest growing company in the world right now. I look for the new GM to adopt their buying policies along with a lot of other groups that the US is passing money to.

 

[j.p.jacobs]

Gov. Work

How do we find work for the government. What sites will help us?

 

[Dualkit]

How do we find work for the government. What sites will help us?

http://www.business.gov/expand/government-contracting/

I would start here. A word of caution there are plenty of sites that will claim to help you win government contracts for a fee, they are all scammers!.Only use sites with a .Gov in their name.

 

[Amark Engineering/Manufac]

There are lots of companies that would love to help you get set up for government work for a fee. Most of them are no different than mfg.com where it is almost impossible to recoup your out lay let a lone make money. I hope to get back where I can successfully bid, win, and make money directly with the government again.
In my blog sellingtothefeds.blogspot.com/ I hope to share this with all of you. Please take a look and add comments and questions to get us there.
Thanks.

 

[Amark Engineering/Manufac]

Thank you for the help.
Take a look.
sellingtothefeds.blogspot.com/

 

[Med-Pac]

Thanks for the idea guys. We've been struggling lately, this looks very promising. I tried to add you as a friend Amark, but I'm not sure if I did it correctly. First time I've ever added.

By the way, it took me about a day to get registered with CCR and I am now checking out all the possibilities on fedbizopp

Thanks, Mike

 

[Med-Pac]

I forgot to thank dualkit.....it was his link that got the ball rolling for me.

Thanks
Mike

 

[mcgowan]

We do Government work but we are a tier 2 provider and it is extremely hard to become a direct provider. Our company has been making parts for the Government since 1975. You might manufacture parts for the Government one time and do an excellent job but the Government always rebids the jobs so there is nothing guaranteed in doing Government work.