Beyond FedBizOpps: Where to Find Federal Contract Opportunities

Posted by Administrator on January 15th, 2007

When searching for federal business opportunities, you’ve probably run across FedBizOpps, a resource for federal government contracts over $25,000. Accessing their website allows you to search for federal government contracts from government agencies. Federal government agencies can even post their opportunities directly to the website.

As a small business, or as an inexperienced business, you may steer away from federal government contracts and opt for local contracts at a smaller dollar amount because it seems like a “safer route”. However, have you wondered where the federal government contracts under $25,000 are published? Federal government agencies are not required to publish solicitations under $100,000 if the purchasing organization issued the solicitation via Electronic Data Interchange. So if you’re interested in working on smaller federal government contracts, many of them would go unnoticed if you’re only monitoring FedBizOpps.

Because many of the smaller federal government contracts are harder to track down on your own or find online, the easiest way to tap into these opportunities is to get direct notifications from a government business intelligence company. Every business day, you will receive an email notification of new federal government bids and RFPs that are specific to your business. Instead of having to go to the FedBizOpps website and track down opportunities, you can receive an email about FedBizOpps opportunities as well as information on smaller federal government contracts – so you aren’t passing up any federal government revenue.

This chart from Wikipedia will give you a sharp idea of how federal government money will be spent this year, and how much of that money is available to dole out to businesses like yours in exchange for goods and services - yes, those dollars are in the billions!

The President’s budget for 2007 totals $2.8 trillion. This budget request is broken down by the following expenditures:

$586.1 billion (+7.0%) – Social Security
$466.0 billion (+4.0%) - Defense
$394.5 billion (+12.4%) - Medicare
$367.0 billion (+2.0%) - Unemployment and welfare
$276.4 billion (+2.9%) – Medicaid and other health related
$243.7 billion (+13.4%) - Interest on debt
$89.9 billion (+1.3%) - Education and training
$76.9 billion (+8.1%) - Transportation
$72.6 billion (+5.8%) - Veterans’ benefits
$43.5 billion (+9.2%) – Administration of Justice
$33.1 billion (+5.7%) - Natural resources and environment
$32.5 billion (-15.4%) - Foreign affairs
$27.0 billion (+3.7%) - Agriculture
$26.8 billion (+28.7%) - Community and regional development
$25.0 billion (+4.0%) - Science and technology
$20.1 billion (+11.4%) - General government
$1.1 billion (-47.6%) - Energy

Looking at the federal government expenditures for 2007 listed above, how does your business fit in? Even if you sell a niche item or service, there’s a way you can fit into one of the categories and profit from federal government spending. For example, if your company sells security devices for guns, you could find out which federal government agencies are putting out bids for guns or safety equipment and market to them. You could even network with other companies selling those products to the federal government.

Again, in order to tap into the monetary possibilities of federal government work, you need to know about federal government bids, quotes and other sales opportunities as soon as possible– and then take advantage of the federal government budget available!

More Information from Government Contracting Best Practices
Get more tips on how to search for government contracts the smart way.