Becoming a GSA contractor can propel your sales and change your business for the better. Let’s try to summarize the most obvious GSA advantages and see how they benefit your company.
Get more profits thanks to GSA small business contracts
United States Government is the largest buyer on the planet. Apparently, this means sales. A lot of sales. The amount of GSA contract sales exceeds $30 billion per year and growing. And federal agencies buy almost everything.
If you think this monetary stream is out of reach for your small business, you are wrong. In fact, federal agencies are obliged to reward approximately 20% of Schedules to small businesses. Can large businesses have a GSA account? Of course, they can. But the market is still worth more than one billion of dollars for small businesses.
Long-term (and mostly effortless) cooperation with the government
Each GSA contract is signed for 5 years with three consequential renewals for another 5 years. This totals to 20 years of streamlined sales with minimum administrative burden to manage such contracts! And you are not forced to leave the commercial market after signing a GSA 5 year contract.
High ROI
Your investments to get a GSA Schedule will return quickly and many times over. Indeed, there are some fees and expenses to prepare you GSA contract properly, including investments of time and effort. But as soon as you get on a Schedule, you spend virtually nothing, while gaining access to the most fruitful deals from the government agencies.
Thousands of federal buyers ready to purchase
At any given time, the overall amount of GSA Schedules contracts is about 12,000 now. This means there is likely a buyer for your goods and services too. Moreover, many federal agencies are obliged to purchase from GSA. Surely, GSA Schedules are not the only procurement vehicle the government has, but it is preferred by many government agencies.
Serious contribution to your reputation
Telling your customers that your business is “GSA Certified” means a lot. The approval process at GSA is very strict, detailed and resource and time consuming. And if a business holds a schedule, this means it successfully passed the government evaluation process. This includes past performance evaluation and scrutinous analysis of dozens of other factors. Basically, GSA cettification is a sign that your company is trustworthy. In fact, as trustworthy as a business can ever be.
And taking into account that nearly 90% of applicants never succeed to win a Schedule (while you did!), your GSA Schedule contract works as a gold seal of quality for your Open Market partners.
GSA Schedule attracts new customers
Getting a “GSA Approved” badge helps you attract new clients. Indeed, these two words literally tell a prospect that you took time to compete for a schedule, prepare your proposal, and finally managed to get on GSA Schedule. Just telling your beyond-GSA prospects that you’ve been -working with several federal clients can work as a magic trigger instantly closing the deal. IN the eyes of your potential clients, if you were able to deliver quality products and services in due time to government agencies under their strict rules and regulations, you can do this again on the commercial market.
Simplified contracting saves time and money
One of key benefits of a GSA Schedule is: it is a slow starter, but fast mover. Getting a GSA approval is a long and complex process filled with many pitfalls along the way. However, once finished it becomes a straight paved highway. Prices are negotiated and proved reasonable, the requirements are met, and past performance is verified. From now on, each sale requires very little checking and negotiations, and the contracting is simplified. This results in a streamlined overall selling process compared to that of the public commercial market.
Extra-benefit for certain business categories
Government sets aside a number of contracts for certain disadvantaged business categories. GSA runs the following program to help your disadvantaged business grow. The program include:
- HUBZone. Certifying your business as Historically Underutilized Business Zone may yield some additional benefits for your company as a GSA Schedule holder.
- WOSB. Women-Owned Small Business Contracting program targets businesses that are owned and controlled by women.
- 8(a) SBA certification offers a number of benefits for small businesses owned by disadvantaged individuals.
- VOB. Certifying your company as a Veteran-Owned Business can also help reduce challenges of working with the government thanks to set-aside GSA contracts, and get special benefits too.
A lot of space to grow your business
Thanks to large demand and wide diversity of goods federal agencies need, the maximum order size per contract can be really high. E.g. on average, a holder of the GSA Schedule 51V Hardware earns $2 million per year. A holder of the Schedule 70 IT earns $2.8 million per year, and holders of Professional Engineering Services Schedule (871) earn $7 million annually on average. Surely, best GSA Schedule holders often do even more.
This means the ceiling is high enough to provide space to grow your business further using GSA Schedule as a starting ramp.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is a number of benefits your business can take advantage of with a GSA Schedule. The question is: how to get on the GSA vendor list? You can use materials on this website as a knowledge base to get yourself familiar with GSA. Here are some articles you can start learning from:
- How to become a GSA Contractor
- Types of GSA Schedules
- Tips and Tricks for Getting on a Schedule
- How long does it take to get a GSA contract
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to write to us and ask for a consultation.
It seems that the result you get when you sign a GSA contract is really worth any effort. But could you clarify why the GSA contract might be canceled?