Government contracting, from the ground up

The government buys almost everything from private companies, through a public, competitive process.

WhyFederal, state, and local agencies are a huge, stable customer that pays its bills, and the rules of how they buy are published in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) — free at acquisition.gov — not secret. Learning them is the whole game.

Know who you are selling to: the Contracting Officer (CO) has the authority to bind the government, the COR (Contracting Officer's Representative) manages the work day to day, and program staff define the need.

WhyYour proposal is written for the CO and the evaluators, not the end user — knowing who decides tells you what to emphasize and who you may (and may not) talk to.

You can win as a prime (you hold the contract) or work as a subcontractor under a prime.

WhySubcontracting is often the fastest way for a new firm to earn the past performance that primes are expected to have — you become qualified by doing the work before you bid as a prime.

Learn the acquisition lifecycle: the government researches the market, publishes a solicitation, evaluates offers, awards, you perform, and then it recompetes.

WhyKnowing where an opportunity sits tells you what to do next — and the best time to influence a requirement is before the solicitation is written, not after.

Plan for a realistic runway — often 12 to 24 months from setup to first award.

WhyRegistration, certifications, and building past performance all take time; treating GovCon as a long-term channel rather than a quick win is what separates the firms that stick around from the ones that quit after one lost bid.

Form a legal business entity (for example an LLC or a corporation) with your state.

WhyThe government contracts with legal entities, and your entity's exact legal name and address are later matched against official records during SAM registration — getting them right at formation avoids weeks of delay.

Get a free Employer Identification Number (EIN) directly from the IRS at irs.gov.

WhyYour EIN is a business tax ID required for SAM registration, and it must match IRS records exactly. It is free — never pay a third party for one.

Use a real physical street address, not a P.O. box.

WhySAM's entity validation rejects a P.O. box for your physical address, so a mailbox-only setup will stall your registration.

Open a business bank account.

WhyA full “All Awards” SAM registration collects your banking details so the government can pay you electronically — a personal account does not belong in a federal registration.

Forget DUNS — the government now assigns a free Unique Entity ID (UEI) inside SAM.gov.

WhyThe old Dun & Bradstreet DUNS number was retired in April 2022; any guide telling you to “get a DUNS number” is out of date.

SAM.gov registration, renewal, and the Unique Entity ID (UEI) are always free — the government never charges you to register.

WhyA paid “registration help” industry sends official-looking invoices and fake-urgency emails; any fee to register, renew, or “fix errors” is a scam. Free, government-funded help is available from APEX Accelerators and the SBA. (SAM.gov Hunter is not affiliated with SAM.gov or the government.)

Sign in through Login.gov with multi-factor authentication, and keep those credentials yourself.

WhyYour SAM login is a Login.gov account you create — never hand your Login.gov password to anyone, and you, not a consultant, should be your entity's Entity Administrator. A notarized letter is not required for a normal new registration.

Request your UEI: SAM validates your legal name, physical address, incorporation date, and state against authoritative records.

WhyThis entity-validation step is the number-one cause of delay — if your details do not match your official records exactly you will open a Federal Service Desk ticket and wait. Getting a UEI is not the same as being registered.

Complete the full registration: enter your EIN/TIN with IRS tax-match consent, let SAM request your CAGE code (assigned by DLA), add core data and banking, and finish the Representations & Certifications.

WhyEach automated check — IRS name match, entity validation, CAGE — must pass, so your EIN and legal name must match IRS records exactly or the registration stalls.

Submit and plan ahead — activation itself can take up to about 10 business days, and a first-time registration (including entity validation and the IRS match) often runs 2 to 3 weeks end to end; it then expires after 365 days.

WhyAn expired registration makes you instantly ineligible for new awards with no grace period, so register early and renew 30 to 60 days before it lapses. Only an active registration lets you bid — but anyone can search opportunities for free without one.

Pick your NAICS codes — they classify your industry (what you primarily sell). The current version is NAICS 2022.

WhyEvery solicitation is tagged with a NAICS code, and your size (small or not) is judged against the code the buyer assigns — so choosing codes that truly fit your work is foundational.

Each NAICS code carries an SBA size standard — the largest you can be and still count as “small” — set either by number of employees or by average annual receipts.

WhySet-asides are reserved for small businesses, so knowing whether you are “small” for a given code decides which opportunities you can even pursue. Look up your exact standard at sba.gov/size-standards.

For receipts-based standards, size is your average annual receipts over your last five fiscal years.

WhyThe Small Business Runway Extension Act moved averaging from three years to five, so a recent revenue spike no longer pushes you out of “small” as quickly — older “3-year” guidance is now wrong.

You self-represent your size in SAM.gov, per NAICS code — no SBA application is needed just to be “small.”

WhyThis is the low-friction entry point, but the representation is legally binding: misrepresenting size invites a size protest and legal risk, so it must be accurate for each code.

Learn Product & Service Codes (PSC) too — they describe what the government buys, separate from NAICS (which describes who sells).

WhyPSCs give you a second axis for market research: you can find exactly which products and services agencies purchase, not just which industries they buy from.

“Small business” is self-certified in your SAM registration; the socioeconomic programs are not.

WhyThis is the distinction newcomers miss most: being “small” needs no application, but 8(a), WOSB/EDWOSB (woman-owned / economically disadvantaged woman-owned), HUBZone (a Historically Underutilized Business Zone), and SDVOSB (service-disabled veteran-owned) each require a formal, vetted SBA certification to win their set-aside or sole-source awards.

All SBA certifications are free through the SBA's official certification portal (MySBA Certifications).

WhyOnly optional third-party WOSB certifiers charge a fee; the direct SBA route never costs money, so start there rather than paying a consultant.

8(a) Business Development is a one-time, nine-year program for firms owned by socially and economically disadvantaged U.S. citizens.

WhyIt is a powerful on-ramp (it can include sole-source awards), but social disadvantage must now be established with a fact-based narrative — the old automatic presumption based on group membership was struck down in 2023 — so check SBA's current 8(a) guidance before applying.

WOSB/EDWOSB and SDVOSB/VOSB now require formal SBA certification — self-certifying is no longer enough to win those set-asides.

WhyWoman-owned certification has been required since 2020, and veteran-owned certification moved to SBA's VetCert program with self-certification for set-asides ending in 2024 — and some older .gov pages still show outdated instructions, so use SBA VetCert.

HUBZone certification is geographic: your principal office and at least 35% of your employees must be in a HUBZone.

WhyIt is checked against SBA's official HUBZone map and must be maintained, but it can make you very competitive for HUBZone-set-aside work in qualifying areas.

Use free, government-funded help — APEX Accelerators and the SBA — to figure out which programs fit.

WhyThey counsel you at no cost on eligibility and the application, which is exactly what paid “certification services” charge you for.

Write a one-page capability statement — who you are, what you do, your differentiators, your codes (NAICS/PSC), and your certifications.

WhyIt is the business card of GovCon: contracting officers and primes ask for it, and a tight one-pager is often what gets you a meeting or a subcontract. (SAM.gov Hunter can generate one for you.)

Do market research for free: USAspending.gov shows who won what, and SAM.gov Contract Opportunities shows what is open — no account is needed to search.

WhyYou can see which agencies actually spend on your NAICS/PSC, who the incumbents are, and typical award sizes before you ever register — data beats guessing.

Read agency procurement forecasts and watch for recompetes.

WhyForecasts list upcoming buys (often flagging small-business set-asides), and a contract that is ending soon is a known future opportunity you can prepare for months in advance.

Engage early: respond to Sources Sought notices and RFIs, and attend industry days.

WhyResponding before the RFP is written is how you help shape the requirement and the set-aside decision, and how you get on the government's radar — the eventual winner is often chosen, informally, long before the solicitation posts.

Consider a GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract as a common way in.

WhyThe MAS is a governmentwide vehicle where more than half of GSA's partners are small businesses; getting on it makes it easier for agencies to buy from you directly.

Identify the notice type: an RFI or Sources Sought is market research (not an offer you can win), an RFQ asks for a price on a known item, an RFP seeks a full evaluated proposal, and an IFB is sealed bidding awarded to the lowest responsive, responsible bidder.

WhyThe type tells you whether you are shaping a future buy, pricing a commodity, or competing on best value — and whether your response is even legally an offer.

Learn the Uniform Contract Format (Sections A through M) and go straight to Section L and Section M.

WhySection L tells you exactly how to write, format, and submit; Section M tells you how you will be scored and who wins. They decide the outcome, so read them together, first, before writing anything.

Know your requirement document: a SOW says how to do the work, a PWS states the outcomes and leaves the “how” to you, and a SOO gives objectives and asks you to propose your own approach.

WhyIt tells you how much of the solution must be yours — a PWS or SOO rewards a firm that proposes a smart approach, not just one that follows orders.

Check any wage determination attached to service or construction work (Service Contract Act or Davis-Bacon).

WhyIt sets the minimum wages and fringe benefits you must pay covered workers; pricing labor below it is both non-compliant and a losing bid, so build it into your cost from the start.

Make a disciplined bid / no-bid decision.

WhyTime spent proposing on work you cannot win — wrong set-aside, wrong size, no past performance, impossible timeline — is time not spent on a winnable one. Walking away is a strategy, not a failure.

Team up to fill gaps: partner as a prime with subcontractors, or with another firm, when a solicitation asks for capabilities or past performance you do not yet have alone.

WhyAgencies want low risk; a team that collectively covers every requirement beats a single firm with an obvious gap — and teaming is how a newcomer becomes qualified before it can go it alone.

Put teaming agreements in writing before you bid.

WhyA teaming agreement defines each partner's scope, workshare, and exclusivity up front, so a win does not collapse into a dispute about who does what.

Consider a joint venture (JV) for larger pursuits, and know the SBA Mentor-Protégé Program.

WhyAn approved mentor-protégé joint venture lets a small business team with a larger mentor and still qualify for small-business set-asides — a rare and powerful exception to the affiliation rules.

Understand affiliation and small-business subcontracting rules.

WhyTeam the wrong way and SBA may count your partner's size as yours (affiliation), making you “other than small”; meanwhile large primes carry small-business subcontracting goals you can help them meet, which is leverage for you.

Build a compliance matrix first — map every “shall” and every Section L instruction to where your proposal answers it.

WhyMissing a single required element can make your offer non-responsive and eliminate you before evaluation; the matrix is how you guarantee nothing is dropped. (SAM.gov Hunter builds one for you.)

Structure your proposal to mirror Section L and answer Section M's evaluation factors, in order.

WhyEvaluators score against Section M with Section L's structure in front of them, so making it effortless to find each point is often worth more than clever prose.

Write real past performance and clear win themes.

WhyPast performance (backed by your CPARS ratings) is where the government judges risk, and clear discriminators — why you and not a competitor — are what turn a compliant proposal into a winning one.

Run a color-team review (a structured review by people who did not write the proposal) and check the common disqualifiers before you submit.

WhyFresh eyes catch compliance gaps, and the most frequent losses are avoidable: over the page limit, the wrong font, a missing attachment, or a late submission.

Know the main contract types: Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP), Time-and-Materials (T&M), cost-reimbursement, and IDIQ.

WhyEach shifts cost risk differently — FFP puts it on you (you keep the savings, you absorb the overruns), while cost-reimbursement puts it on the government but requires an approved accounting system — so the type shapes both your price and what you must have in place.

Build your price from the ground up: direct labor, plus a wrap rate (fringe, overhead, G&A), plus profit, plus materials.

WhyA wrap rate turns a bare hourly wage into a fully-burdened cost; underestimate it and you win work that loses money — the classic new-contractor mistake.

Price to be both realistic and reasonable.

WhyThe government checks that your price is not too high (reasonable) and that it reflects a real understanding of the work (realistic) — an unrealistically low price can actually lose you a best-value award.

Honor any wage determination (Service Contract Act or Davis-Bacon) in your labor pricing.

WhyThese set a legal wage-and-fringe floor for covered workers, so your price must cover it — read the attached determination before you build your labor rates.

For an IDIQ, remember the money is in the task orders.

WhyWinning the IDIQ vehicle only makes you eligible to compete for the individual orders, so plan to keep competing after the award — that is where the actual work is bought.

Your performance is scored in CPARS — the government's past-performance record.

WhyAgencies rate each contract at least yearly, and future source-selection teams read those ratings; today's delivery literally becomes tomorrow's competitiveness, so treat every contract as your next proposal's evidence.

Invoice correctly and electronically — DoD uses WAWF inside the PIEE system.

WhyYou do not get paid until a proper electronic invoice is submitted and the work is accepted; a defective invoice simply resets the clock.

Know the Prompt Payment Act: the government generally pays a proper invoice within about 30 days and owes interest automatically if it is late.

WhyBut the clock only starts once your invoice is complete and correct, so getting the invoice right protects your cash flow.

Manage modifications, options, and scope carefully.

WhyOnly the Contracting Officer can change the contract; doing extra work on a verbal “yes” without a written modification can leave you unpaid, and staying inside scope keeps you compliant.

Meet your cybersecurity obligations — DFARS 252.204-7012, NIST SP 800-171, and CMMC — if you handle government information.

WhyCMMC requirements are now phasing into DoD contracts (self-assessments first, third-party certification following), so a firm handling Controlled Unclassified Information needs its security in place to remain eligible — start early, because it is not a checkbox.