The example of a business plan for the federal government is the Federal Marketing Plan (FMP) prepared by the Federal Contract intelligence Service. The FMP describes where in federal contracting a company can find federal contract business opportunities (fedbizopps).
The FMP can be especially good for new companies wanted to do business with the federal government but not knowing where to go or what to do. Government contractors were awarded more than $500 billion in federal contracts by the government last fiscal year. The types of contracts used to award federal contracts including purchase orders, credit cards, delivery orders, blanket purchase agreements, the GSA schedule and other federal contract vehicles. The FMP should spell out how to target a market in the government and especially in the federal government.
The FMP helps companies target market their goods and services to the right agency contracting office location. The FMP should create a path that gets the company in front of contracting officers before a requirement becomes a solicitation for public bidding.
The FMP will answer the following questions:
• Does the federal government buy my company’s products/services?
• WHO is the marketing target in the agency contracting office?
• Is the company ready to do federal contracting?
The FMP includes the following elements:
1. Company Readiness Assessment: a questionnaire designed to help the company asses its own ability to perform successfully on a federal contract. Compliance with the federal contract terms and conditions is very important.
2. Company Capability Statement: a 30 second description about a company’s capabilities.
3. Federal Government Contract Histories for the company’s primary NAICS and PSC codes. The information is provided by the Federal Procurement Data System and other federal data sets from Data.gov. Reports include USG Contract History Total, USG & Totals by Contracting Method, and USG $ Totals by Vendor.
4. GSA Schedule Contract History including SIN totals and other information required by the GSA MAS assessment
5. Current Bid Opportunities by Agency and NAICS.
6. Target Agency Acquisition Team Contact Marketing List: The information includes Contact information on key procurement decision makers, program managers, contracting officers, small business liaison and other persons within all the contracting offices you wish to do business.
7. Call Report: a detail description of telephone marketing activities.
The Federal Marketing Plan is designed to position the company in front of key decision makers before the requirement becomes a federal contract bid opportunity.