How GSA Schedule Contract Work for Small Businesses

Selling your products or services to the federal government is often a dream for most small businesses. The task is no less intimidating, and it is hard to get your product approved by government standards.

But, if you become a GSA Schedule contractor, you can leverage several tools and opportunities to offer your products or several to the federal government. 

The Small Business Administration (SBA) runs several programs to support small businesses and help them gain government contracts by getting a GSA Schedule Contract. Before we run into the details, let’s understand what GSA Schedule Contract exactly is! 

What is a GSA Schedule Contract? 

The General Services Administration, or simply GSA, is the U.S. Federal government’s central buying authority. The Public Building Service (PBS) and the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) are run under GSA. 

The job of the General Services Administration is to make Federal buying more efficient and cost-effective. GSA has identified approx 12 million products and services that it regularly buys. Further, GSA divides all these commercial products into logically divided groups, also called GSA schedules. GSA Schedules are groupings of items alike that the federal agencies routinely buy. 

Government creates GSA contract solicitations for the commercial firms to submit an offer and negotiate to get the GSA contract approved. To obtain a GSA Contract, a company must complete the GSA negotiation, and this process is referred to as a GSA Application. 

How to Get a GSA Contract? 

A GSA contract is none less than a license that enables you to sell directly to the government.

After obtaining a warrant, your business will be ready for all federal purchasing. It allows your company to trade on all government online portals, thus getting more business and more sales for your company.

Having a GSA contract on your company’s name will open the opportunity to a vast, multi-billion market of U.S. federal government procurement. It enables you to make more sales, despite making less spending in the process.

You must follow these steps to get a GSA contract. 

1. Your Company’s Evaluation

To begin with, your company must meet the GSA contractor requirements. To qualify to have a GSA Contract, businesses must:

• be on operation for at least two years or more,

• have a solid track record, 

• meet specific financial criteria and other qualifications laid down by the federal government. 

With the help of GSA marketing intelligence tools, you can quickly evaluate the Federal Government’s demand for your products and services.

2. Proposal Preparation

Next comes the proposal preparation. You should register yourself with Dun & Bradstreet and SAM.GOV. It will open doors for you to do business transactions with government agencies.

This way, you will get Past Performance Assessments which will prove your credibility as a reputable vendor in the eye of GSA. All you need to do is, compile all of the required documentation, such as product catalog, company financials, and marketing materials, and submit the completed documents for Government review.

3. Negotiation with the GSA

Before the GSA awards a Schedule, it negotiates with its vendors to obtain the best prices, great discounts, and terms. Once your GSA contract is approved, you would be required to comply with all of the times, conditions, rates, and prices decided by the government in the document.

You should lead the negotiation process so that you can attain the best possible terms and conditions that are favorable for your GSA contract.

4. GSA Contract Award

Once your GSA Contract Schedule is awarded, you can publish your entire catalog on an electronic government procurement portal called GSA Advantage. It will make your products and services visible and available to Government buyers for purchase.

When you submit your catalog, you must provide clear and relevant information about your products, such as descriptions of the items, usage, specifications, pricing, shipping details, and high-quality images. 

5. Post Award Support

After the contract award, you can work to maximize your GSA sales. Through GSA Marketing Intelligence tools, you can research and identify the top vendors that can give you tough competition.

Post that, you have to devise an effective marketing strategy, optimize your prices to be more competitive, and widen the spectrum of your catalog by introducing products that the GSA buys the most. 

Qualifying for a GSA Schedule Contract

How do you qualify for a GSA Schedule Contract? First, you have to ensure that you are a credible and responsible buyer with whom the government would want to indulge in business.

Listed are some of the basic requirements your company needs to comply with to sell on the GSA Schedule:

• Potential contractors must have at least 2 years of business experience before they acquire a GSA Schedule contract.

• You either have to provide at least 3 Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) reports to GSA or provide 3-5 customer references that have good reviews about you and your company. You cannot present your family members as a reference. Of course, GSA won’t accept that. 

• Businesses who wish to offer services on the GSA Schedule need to present fully executed Statements of Work and documents of past projects similar in scope. 

• The product your company offers must be TAA-compliant and have a “fair and reasonable” pricing policy. 

Benefits of GSA Schedule

The GSA Schedules Program provides innumerable opportunities and tools to help commercial firms successfully sell their product to the government.

Holding a GSA Schedule Contract on your name opens new avenues for your company, making contracting and networking easy that could help expand your business in the long run. The advantages of the GSA schedule are many and magnificent.

Let’s look at some of them below:

1. Long term association with the government

You can have a long-term connection with the government through the GSA schedule. The tenure of a GSA contract is 5 years, followed by three consecutive renewals(5 years each). This makes it 20 years of continual sales with hassle-free administration. Having government assistance, a company can have secure and continual sales. 

2. High ROI

Of course, you need to make some investments to get a GSA Schedule. There are nominal charges applicable to get your GSA contract done. But, no worries, your investment will revert much fold over and that too real-quick.

Once you get a GSA Schedule, you spend nothing literally; instead, you gain access to some of the best deals from the government agencies.

3. Thousands of federal buyers ready to use

The overall amount of GSA Schedules contracts at any given point of time is about 12,000. This indicates that there are undoubtedly many interested buyers for your goods and services somewhere in the market.

It is primarily because most federal agencies are obliged to buy from GSA. Although GSA Schedules are not the only mode the government use for procurement, it is most preferred by many government agencies.

4. Contributes to your reputation

The “GSA Certified” tag has much value when attached to your brand name, and it builds the customer’s trust in you. The approval process of GSA is quite stern, comprehensive, and takes some resources and time.

Holding a schedule as a commercial firm states that you have successfully cleared the government evaluation process, which includes evaluating past performance and analyzing many other factors to scrutinize its scope in the future. GSA certification indicates that your company has credibility, and that’s the essential factor for any business. 

5. GSA schedule attracts more customers

Getting a “GSA certified” badge helps you lure new clients to your company. Your GSA contract tells a prospect that you took efforts to attain this schedule by submitting your proposal, and then after loads of hard work, you finally gained the GSA Schedule.

Your GSA prospects get to know you have been working with several federal clients and can leave them spell-bound by your body of work and experience, thus closing the deal conveniently.

It gives an impression to your potential clients that if you can successfully deliver quality products and services to government agencies timely, that too under their strict rules and regulations, you can easily manage to do this for them as well. 

6. GSA Contract saves time and money

Last but not least, the primary benefit of a GSA Schedule is that it starts like a bicycle but later progresses with the speed of a Ferrari.

It is because getting a GSA approval is a complicated and time-taking process that tests your patience along the way. But, once you get the GSA approval, the journey becomes smooth and profitable.

After the negotiation and support, the contracting is simplified. This streamlines the overall selling process, especially when compared to the commercial market selling process. 

Wrapping up: How GSA Schedule Contract works for Small Businesses!

The GSA Schedule has some clear benefits. It requires small commercial firms to take on some outstanding compliance and maintenance concerns, but it is worth the effort.

Small businesses can benefit by getting GSA approval from the government and reap the benefits for many years to come.