When you apply for jobs, you want to ensure that everything about you is presentable. From the way you’re dressed, to the way your resume looks. The better you present yourself (both in person and on paper), the chances of getting the job you want increased ten fold. The same principle applies to federal contracting. Government contracting is like a job hunt, you want to ensure that your business looks its best and is as presentable as possible. How do you do this? Marketing. Your. Business. This can be done a number of different ways from your capability statement, to your online presence. Let’s dive into great marketing strategies for your business to be presentable to federal agencies, getting you those contracts that you want.
Federal Contracting: Optimizing Your Registrations
Federal contracting is a lot like job hunting. You want to make sure you and your business are dressed to impressed. The first step to making sure everything is in tip-top shape is optimizing your federal registrations. This includes SAM, DSBS/SBA Profiles, and FEMA Vendor Profile. You want to exclude fluff that isn’t needed like unnecessary NAICS and PSC Codes. Having a minimum of five is key, highlighting your main service as that is how contracting officers and prime contractors will find you. Every time you update your SAM Registration, it is automatically updated in the DSBS. This mostly refers to items like NAICS codes and businesses information, so. you will also want to enhance your DSBS profile with a capabilities narrative and keywords.
A capabilities narrative is a 2-3 sentence statement on what goods and services your business provides. When an agency, contracting officer, or prime contracts searches in the DSBS (whether that be with a NAICS code, zip code, or any other search item), businesses will populate based on the search.
IMAGE OF DSBS?
Those searching the DSBS for businesses to hire for contract work will only reach out to those with a completed DSBS profile, which includes filled in keywords and capability narrative.
Keeping your FEMA Registration updated is also key for marketing your business. Any changes that need to be made must be made separately than SAM and the DSBS profile.
Capability Statement
Your company’s capability statement is like a resume. It highlights the most important parts of your company like; past performance, achievements, certifications, differentiators, and more. Keeping your capability statement up-to-date and look its best is going to be key for winning contracts.
Past Performance
Having a Capability Statement without a “Past Performance” section is like a resume without work experience. The past performance section is going to highlight your top past jobs/contracts you’ve fulfilled. You want to have at least three listed, in order from longest to shortest in terms of completion. You want to ensure that the contracts/projects where you were the prime contractor are first, to show that you are a company that can take charge on projects.
Differentiators
The “Differentiators” section of the document is going to be the section where you highlight what makes your company different and stand out from competitors. Why should an agency or prime contractor chose you over a competitor? Highlight things that makes your company different like skills, awards, projects, and other related items.
Core Competencies
What can your company do? What are your strengths? Those are questions you want to answer the in the “core competencies” section of the Capability Statement. A paragraph or bulleted list on what your company does/can do for a project or contract.
Online Presence
Your online presence is another important aspect for marketing your business to federal agencies. Not only are these agencies looking at your DSBS profile, small business profiles, and capability statements, they are looking at your website. Having a clean and comprehensive site about what you do as a business witch pictures and other stuff from your company is a great way to market your business in the online sector.
How Can FECON Help?
Here at FEDCON we are determined to helping you obtain those contracts that you deserve. We do this through a few of our programs, but today let’s talk about our VEX Marketing Program.
The FEDCON VEX Marketing Program focuses on three core business details: Visibility, Exposure, and X-Factor. With these in place, your business will be shaped by our team to boost its marketability and online presence to become more appealing to federal agencies and prime contractors.
Some of the core aspects of VEX will include:
- Optimizing your SAM & Small Business Profiles
- Personalized and Curated Capability Statement
- Personalized and Curated Lifetime Hosted Webpage (hosted by federalgovernment.info)
- IEO Campaigns
- and more!
If you have additional questions about how to market your business for federal contracts, reach out to our help desk at 1-855-233-3266 and get in touch with an Advisor today for a FREE market assessment.
