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• Business and self-employed
• Business finance and support

Write a business plan

Download free business plan templates and find help and advice on how to write your business plan.

Business plan templates

Download a free business plan template on The Prince’s Trust website.

You can also download a free cash flow forecast template or a business plan template on the Start Up Loans website to help you manage your finances.

Business plan examples

Read example business plans on the Bplans website.

How to write a business plan

Get detailed information about how to write a business plan on the Start Up Donut website.

Why you need a business plan

A business plan is a written document that describes your business. It covers objectives, strategies, sales, marketing and financial forecasts.

A business plan helps you to:

• clarify your business idea
• spot potential problems
• set out your goals
• measure your progress

You’ll need a business plan if you want to secure investment or a loan from a bank. Read about the finance options available for businesses on the Business Finance Guide website.

It can also help to convince customers, suppliers and potential employees to support you.

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How to Optimize Your Federal Business Development Workflow

IN THIS ARTICLE

How to Define Your Federal Business Development Strategy

Difficulties in federal business development, tools and intelligence to streamline your workflow.

[Use Bloomberg Government’s focused data sets, proprietary tools, and expert analysis to fill your pipeline and grow your business now.]

Managing federal business development workflows can quickly become an unwieldy process, especially when it involves large government contracts that need input and coordination across multiple parties. Building and monitoring the entire opportunity pipeline, from the initial draft request for proposal to winning the final contract, often requires extensive research on information that’s fragmented across multiple platforms, spreadsheets, emails, and messages.

For business developers, this means a lot of time spent finding and gathering both quantitative and qualitative data on individual opportunities, market trends, government spending, networks and partnerships. Optimizing this workflow is essential to building robust pipelines, closing contracts, and growing your federal business.

Winning Federal Contracts on the Top 20 Contract Vehicles

With the right strategy in place, contractors can find and win new contracts for a predictable pipeline.

Before you’re able to optimize your workflow, you must first define your business development strategy. This is the plan of action your company will use to identify new opportunities, build out their pipeline, write the proposals, and ultimately win contracts. Accomplishing this goal requires a detailed plan and an immense amount of research into market conditions, government spending trends, and competitor analysis.

To define your company’s business development strategy and optimize your workflow, consider conducting both a Black Hat and White Hat review. These assessments provide valuable insights into the current market size, your company’s current position in it, and your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

The Data You Need

Gain the certainty you need for your business through key information on all federal budget, solicitation, and spending activities.

Black Hat Review

A Black Hat review is all about the competition. You’ll want to write a proposal from their point of view to gain a better understanding of how they would secure the deal. Make a note of any advantages your competitors might have, either in the products or services themselves or their opportunity funnels, and keep track of their weak points.

This exercise can help you determine how your company stacks up to the competition, the right competitive price point at which to market your solution, and whether or not you can win the contract. You’ll also gain key insights on how to position your company against your competitors while building customer relationships with program managers and contracting officers.

White Hat Review

Whereas a Black Hat review focuses on your competitors, a White Hat review targets your company’s capabilities and solutions. This is when you utilize the actionable information from research and assessments to improve your win probability.

Assess and minimize your own weak spots, and explore how your market solutions compare to the competition. It might reveal that you need a partner for a contract or that a niche is oversaturated. In any case, you can use this time to tackle any internal issues, adjust pipeline goals, and target competitor pitfalls with your solutions.

[Explore the tenth annual  BGOV200 Federal Industry Leader rankings  and download the full report.]

While it might be easy to say “define your business development strategy,” taking the necessary actions to create and implement a detailed pipeline plan is no simple feat. Business developers face many challenges throughout their workflows, from time-consuming research on opportunities to qualifying partnerships and contract leads.

Some common frustrations among business development teams include:

• Identifying areas of opportunity in a niche market.
• A shortage of pipeline opportunities and inaccurate information.
• Aggregating and analyzing accurate, reliable data and contracts to win work.
• Staying up-to-date on government spending trends and market conditions.
• Finding the right agency and vendor contacts.
• Facilitating calls or meetings to gain information and expand their networks.
• Clearly communicating with contracting officers.
• Ensuring accurate release dates for RFPs.

With information buried across a multitude of channels, business developers spend most of their time tracking it down or contacting people. These difficulties often hinder strategic growth planning, resulting in companies falling short of their pipeline goals. However, there are strategies and solutions that can help you overcome these hurdles with numerous added benefits.

Bloomberg Government offers a powerful suite of features designed to optimize your entire federal contracting workflow. With BGOV, business developers can easily create viable pipelines that win task orders on contracts and close deals.

Opportunity Search is the market’s most comprehensive search tool. With fast, accurate, and reliable information and access to a vast database of 31+ million contracts, BGOV provides business developers with the resources they need to save time while pursuing government contract opportunities.

BGOV Alerts offers proactive email updates on opportunities and markets of interest. Based on recompete data, machine learning algorithms can forecast which competitors might bid on the same project. BGOV Workspaces can also help you build your pipeline, qualify potential opportunities, and collaborate with team tools.

Backed by the power of Bloomberg News and proprietary expert analytics combined with powerful market intelligence tools provide business developers with a centralized platform for reliable information on current market conditions, government spending trends, and new contract opportunities. Not only does this present valuable context for current strategies and business decisions, it also saves time researching information by organizing disparate data stored on separate systems platforms.

With enhanced pipeline visibility and access to key market insights and information, BGOV enables business developers to produce accurate forecasting and strong opportunity pipelines. This translates into more contracts won and deals closed, growing your federal contracting business and network.

Market Intelligence to Inform Business Development

Bloomberg Government is your source for news, analysis, and data that covers mission-critical developments. From purchasing trends to supply chain, with BGOV, you’re always a step ahead.

Bloomberg Government helps you streamline the process of taking an opportunity search result from potential to pipeline – and proposal ready. Unparalleled document search capabilities allow you to seek out undiscovered opportunities, gaining a competitive advantage. Track these solicitations and perform competitive analysis to better understand your current market position. Competitive and contract intelligence provides you with accurate, up-to-date information so you can save time on research and focus on business development.

With Bloomberg Government, you receive reliable, actionable data that can propel your opportunities through your pipeline and deliver results. To learn more about how BGOV can help optimize your business development workflows, request a demo .

Find the right opportunities with BGOV’s unmatched data sets.Enhance your view of the market. Opportunity Search enables you to find and exclude keywords in documents attached to solicitation notices to surface relevant opportunities in no time at all.

Request a demo

Reference Shelf

• Report: BGOV200 Federal Industry Leader rankings
• Webinar: Contracts to Watch: GWACs & MACs
• Article: Partnering with 8(a) companies as a large contracting firm
• Article: The Top 10 IT Contractors
• Article: Federal Contract Spending Trends in Five Charts
• Article: How to Build Your Pipeline With the Right Federal Contracts
• Article: How to Size Your Market to Strategically Grow Your Federal Business

How Lobbying Firms are Changing their Structures and Advocacy Strategy

Contractor impacts: fy24 defense appropriations, artificial intelligence market profile.

• Executive Mosaic
• Executive Biz
• Executive Gov
• Submit your news
• Thursday, April 4, 2024

How To Start A Government Contracting Business In 2022

• July 1, 2022

The entire commercial business industry was dealt with difficult cards for the past few years—from the COVID-19 shutdowns to the global supply chain disruptions. Countless small businesses closed their shutters for good, negatively impacting several industries. However, the government contracting industry stood its ground .

The stability in the face of uncertainty and the opportunity to earn lucrative profits are just some of the reasons why starting a government contracting business benefits you.

Table of Contents

What should your prepare to become a government contractor?

Evaluate whether government contracting aligns with your business goals.

The federal contracting industry is not an overnight miracle. Given how complicated this industry is, it requires patience, dedication, and strategy to make your business thrive in this industry.

Entering the federal contracting field unprepared will cost you. So before you decide to take the risk, make sure that this endeavor will be beneficial to your business’s overall growth. Study the pros and cons of government contracting, then measure it against your company’s goals. Once you have done that, see if this business opportunity plays to your strengths.

Seek government assistance for small businesses

The government contracting field is dominated by established government contracting firms. This may create an uneven playing field for small businesses, which is why government assistance programs, loans, and grants are available for qualified businesses.

The Small Business Administration ( SBA ), the official federal agency that promotes and protects small businesses, administers a number of contracting assistance programs, such as these:

8(a) Business Development Program

This program helps small businesses gear up to win local, state, and federal government contracts. Under the 8(a) program, small businesses can compete for set-aside contracts and participate in SBA’s Mentor-Protégé Program.

Participating small businesses will also receive one-on-one training with Business Opportunity Specialists and procurement and compliance experts. They can help budding government contractors assess their business readiness in competing for federal contracts.

Women-Owned Small Business Program

Women still face discrimination in various industries. So to ensure female business leaders will have equal access to contracting opportunities, this program gives them the opportunity for more contracting opportunities through set-asides .

Additionally, certified women-owned small businesses and economically-disadvantaged women-owned small businesses are given preferential consideration for open and full competition government contracts.

HUBZone Program

If your business is located in a Historically Underutilized Business Zone ( HUBZone ) and at least 35% of your employees reside in a HUBZone, you can apply for this federal assistance program. Small businesses under this program can compete for set-asides .

Veteran Assistance Programs

Retired veterans, particularly the service-disabled veterans who own small businesses, can apply for various assistance programs to kickstart their careers. Like other federal programs, veteran-owned small businesses are eligible to compete for exclusive government contracts for small businesses or set-asides .

Study your federal contracting market

Most businesses who enter the government contracting field want to earn ludicrous profits. But, the government contracting industry is a massive field, and shooting blindly will get you nowhere. If you want to make it big, you have to make a game plan—market research.

With that in mind, you must set your target federal agencies as early as possible. And once you have nailed down your prospective government agencies, you should dive deeper: study their demands and spending trends—and above all, get to know who you’ll be competing with.

For starters, you can get an overview of the government contracting field by checking previously awarded contracts at SAM.gov and viewing competitor profiles at Dynamic Small Business Search ( DSBS ). You can also use the forecast tool for contracting opportunities by the General Services Administration (GSA).

Get familiar with FAR

The Federal Acquisition Regulation ( FAR ) is the playbook of every government contractor and contracting officer in the industry. FAR illustrates the rules and regulations governing the government’s acquisition of goods and services using public funds.

Understanding the intricate government contracting processes requires time, dedication, and effort. You can also consult a legal representative or federal contracting assistance centers to help you understand it better.

Study the government regulations on businesses

To qualify as a government contractor, your business must be compliant with federal, state, and local business regulations. There are around 90,000 business laws and regulations in effect right now. But you can learn the major business regulations that you should pay closer attention to.

Additionally, there are contracting assistance centers that can connect you with compliance experts. They will help you understand the legal implications of failing to follow the regulations and assess your business’s regulatory compliance.

What are the requirements to start a government contracting business?

Acquire the necessary business permits and licenses

As previously stated, the government is very particular about the companies it does business with. In addition to being a regulation-compliant business, it must possess the necessary licenses to prove its capabilities in performing the required services.

Register at SAM

SAM , or System for Award Management, is a one-stop platform for federal agencies and government contractors. On this website, government agencies can publish open contracts for bidding, and federal contractors can take a shot at bidding for the said contracts.

However, only SAM-registered entities can qualify for government contracts. You can view the complete list of requirements needed to register at SAM, but in general, here are the primary documents you have to prepare before your registration:

Unique Entity ID (UEI)

The federal government has finally moved away from requiring its contractors to request their DUNS Numbers. To streamline this process, government contractors can get their UEI at SAM.gov . Here is the guide on how you can request your UEI.

North American Industry Classification Code (NAICS Code)

NAICS Codes are a special set of codes representing your company’s industry. This code is used by contracting officers to identify the nature of your business and see if you fit the contract.

You can get your NAICS Codes by visiting this self-service website . Select which among the codes best describes your business. If your business belongs to two or more categories, you can select more than one NAICS Code.

Core Business Information

The Core Business Information refers to your business details, such as your business structure, physical and mailing address, organization start date, and more .

Financial Information

The government will ask for your financial information to know your preferred payment method. Additionally, the government will also use this to set up your Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).

CAGE / NCAGE Code

The CAGE and NCAGE codes are identifiers assigned by the government, particularly by defense agencies. CAGE Codes are assigned to U.S. entities, while NCAGE Codes are awarded to businesses outside the U.S. and its territories.

The Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code is automatically assigned to a U.S. entity after registering at SAM.gov . Meanwhile, non-U.S. entities should request their NATO Commercial and Government Entity (NCAGE) Code before registering at SAM.gov .

Keep tabs on federal contracting opportunities

Once you have successfully registered your business at SAM.gov , you should now learn how to scout for contract opportunities. Fortunately, you don’t have to search high and low to explore the latest contract opportunities—you can do it at SAM.gov !

Back then, the federal government used the Federal Business Opportunities Website (FedBizOpps) to publish contract opportunities. But the government has integrated the functionalities of this website into the SAM.gov website for a more streamlined experience.

Explore subcontracting

The road to becoming a federal contractor can be challenging, especially for a green small business owner. But, businesses can try their hand first in subcontracting for prime contractors.

Subcontractors do not work directly with government agencies. Instead, they lend their specialized expertise to prime contractors to fulfill one area of a federal contract. The requirements to become a subcontractor are less demanding than a prime contractor , making contracting more accessible to small businesses.

Get your business known

Building a solid reputation and portfolio is crucial in this line of work. However, getting your business known by your target government agencies can be pretty daunting, especially if you don’t know where to begin. But we got your back!

Attend Networking Events

Being in the same room with other federal contracting giants can be overwhelming. But if you look at it from another angle, you will realize that you are surrounded by opportunities.

Networking , when done right, can give you access to a myriad of opportunities that grow your business and expand your vision as a leader. Contrary to popular belief, networking is not merely “politicking.” It means fostering meaningful relationships with your peers.

Build Social Media Presence

On top of attending networking events, you should not forget the power of the internet. Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are excellent places to build your online presence and network with other contracting professionals.

Learn how to write bids for government contracts

Once you have laid out your foundations, the next thing you need to do is learn how to write bids for federal contracts. Winning a contract bid is your ticket to becoming a full-fledged federal government contractor. So, here are some bid writing tips that can help you finally board the plane of government contracting:

Choose federal contracts that align with your business’s strengths and goals

Sending out contract bids en masse in hopes of landing a single win is a wasteful endeavor.

Writing a contract bid proposal will consume time, money, and effort. Therefore, to write a winning contract bid, you must select which federal opportunities are most suited for your businesses.

Analyze the RFP document

The Request for Proposal (RFP) is among the ways the federal government solicits contract proposals.

The RFP document is usually a hundred-page document that states everything you need to know about a contract opportunity—timeframe, task, budget, and other related details. At a glance, reading through a hundred-page material might be too cumbersome. But, this will ultimately help you craft your proposal.

There are several factors to consider when reviewing this document, but you must pay closer attention to sections B, C, L, and M.

Strictly adhere to the instructions stated in the RFP

It pays to be detail-oriented in this phase of writing. In Section L of the RFP document, the requesting federal agency will lay out its detailed requirements for the proposal—from the document’s font style and size to the proper email address to which the proposal should be submitted.

Neglecting to follow their instructions can eliminate your contract proposal from the pool.

Create a bid outline

The next step of the writing process is to draft an outline. This will prevent your proposal from being derailed and, ultimately, speed up your writing.

When creating an outline for your proposal, consider several factors that the federal agency will look for, such as your business identity, capability statement, portfolio, and plan on how you will execute the contract.

Price your contract competitively

When pricing your goods and services, you should be in the know of its market prices. You can neither price it too low nor too high.

Price it cheap and you may endanger the financial stability of your company, and even cast doubt on your ability to deliver quality products and services. On the other hand, if you price it ludicrously, the federal government will simply look for other cost-efficient government contractors.

Going to the extreme ends of the spectrum will not do you any good. Keep in mind that the federal government is looking for contractors who can deliver quality work that falls within justifiable costs.

Review your proposal before submitting

The last thing you want is your contract bid to be discarded due to technicalities. To avoid this from happening, bring in a trusted set of eyes to review your federal contract bid to catch any errors and point out questionable details that you have missed out on before.

Learn the terms, the contract bid writing process, and how contracting officers will evaluate your proposal in this contract bid writing guide .

The federal government offers some of the best opportunities, especially for small companies. But to become eligible for these contract opportunities, you must first make the necessary preparations to become a government contractor. Once you have laid out your foundations, you should sharpen your writing skills to win a contract bid.

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