Your Guide to Finding The Right Government Contracts, Bids and Proposals

Because public sector procurement is governed by strict regulations and disclosure policies, governments are almost always legally required to post upcoming contracts, bids, and proposals online. As a result, companies selling to the public sector can be proactive about scouting potential opportunities.

Below, we have listed some of the essential tools to find both state and federal government contract opportunities. For situations where your company is looking to source more government contracts or secure a firm sense of the competitive landscape, utilize these tools to understand what government contracts are upcoming and how your competition has fared on past contracts.

The Purchasing Site of any Government or Agency

Almost every government or agency has a purchasing site where vendors can find government contracts. Using their search functionality, you can search the keywords of your product and see what opportunities arise.

Of course, this is a relatively tedious process. Aggregator tools help gather information across all government opportunities that can help you save time and effort.

Federal Opportunity Aggregators

Federal Opportunity Aggregators consolidate federal contracting opportunities into a single site for easy searchability. These sites allow you to find government contracts with specific attributes, like desired products or services, making it easier to identify relevant opportunities for your company.

These sites tend to also display information about contract awards, subcontracting opportunities, and additional information about federal agencies that can be useful in putting together bids.

Similar to Federal Opportunity Aggregators, SLED Aggregators gather information from every state, local, and education government agency and display it in a single place that is easy to search.

Companies like  GovWin, Periscope S2G, GovSpend, and GovTech Navigator all offer compelling products in this space.

What to Know Before You Respond

Now that you know how to find government contracts, you might feel ready to respond to an RFP to capture business. However, before you do, there are some things you should know.

First, RFPs are almost impossible to win without a prior relationship with the prospect and referenceable customers of similar scope and size. Second, RFP responses are time-consuming and costly. The average RFP process consumes over 24 hours of labor and involves over nine team members – and that’s just for companies with formal RFP response processes! Companies without formal processes or established response teams tend to spend even longer on RFP responses. In short, every RFP to which your company responds means that time can’t be spent on other key initiatives or deals.

For this reason, companies must remain disciplined when it comes to RFPs. In particular, companies should understand how to intelligently source bid and proposal opportunities, qualify the opportunities with data, and how to launch efficient and effective proposal responses if necessary.

In our new eBook, Proposals 101: How to Start With Proposals When You Don’t Know Where to Start, we present a high-level overview of how to find, quality, and respond to RFPs, RFIs, and RFQs. Intended for companies launching a proposal response function or seeking to understand why they aren’t winning more competitive solicitations, this eBook covers everything you need to know to establish a successful proposal function and win government contracts.

 Download Proposals 101: How to Start with Proposals When You Don’t Know Where to Start to learn more

• The proposal terms you need to know
• How proposals should fit in your company’s growth strategy
• How to find winning proposal opportunities
• Essential proposal management tools to satisfy compliance
• The top five proposal pitfalls to avoid