Are you wondering if the government buys what you’re selling? Now I get asked this question all the time, and really at the end of the day, the question really is if government contracting will be profitable for you.
There are ways you can determine if government contracting will be profitable for your business. I’m sharing a couple of quick ways you can determine if government contracting is profitable for your business and you’re also going to get another piece to the government contracting puzzle that you’ll need. Let’s check the data and keep the guesswork out of your decision.
The first way that will help you determine if the government contracting marketplace can be profitable for your business is to look at your NAICS codes.
NAICS Codes
The North American Industry Classification System is abbreviated as NAICS. Here’s what you can find out just by doing a keyword search using this system. Using the keyword search, keywords being the terms that you would use to say what you do in your business.
For janitorial, you can search for:
- Janitorial
- Cleaning
- Construction cleanup
Say you do yoga, I had someone asking about that. So you’re a yoga instructor, you teach people how to do yoga. You could definitely use that, you could search:
- Fitness
- Exercise
Professional training and development:
You could do training on yoga or how it relaxes the mind. You could perform at a retreat. Every morning during the retreat, you take the registrants through a yoga exercise, which could fall under professional training and development. Maybe events even. Be creative in your keyword search.
That’s one way that can help you determine if the government buys what you sell. If you happen to see that code comes up for what you’re doing your keyword search for, that’s your first clue that the government buys what you sell.
Contracting teams use NAICS codes when they put out contracting opportunities. Let’s say the code was 236260. The code is used to identify the type of project for classification purposes.
You can do your NAICS Code search at http://naics.com\search.
If the answer is yes, some codes come up for what applies to your keywords and term searches, then that tells you that the government buys what you sell.
Are you going to go and do the NAICS code search and actually see if the government buys what you sell? I hope so.
Aren’t you curious? I’m curious. I try to help people when they ask me that question, this is one of the places that I send them to go do the NAICS code search. It only takes a few minutes. It doesn’t take long, but you’re able to tap into the trillion-dollar government marketplace if you can find NAICS Code for what you do. Why not check and see?
The second way you can see if the government actually buys what you sell is if they’re putting out contracting opportunities for what you do.
If they do, this would be another clue to say, yes, the government buys what I sell. There’s an opportunity for me in the federal government marketplace.
You can go to fbo.gov, FedBizOpps.gov. Either link that you use takes you to the same spot. What can you find out here?
Here you can do a lot of different searches, but we’re going to just stick to…three different searches that you can do here because right now, we’re just trying to see if the government is putting out contracting opportunities for what you do.
- You can search past awarded contracts using your NAICS code.
- You can also do a keyword search.
Just like you did over on the NAICS code website, you can do it here on FBO. Do a keyword search and see what comes up for what you do.
Remember you have to be creative in your keyword search. Let’s use janitorial. Say you search janitorial, but I put it as construction cleanup. Cleanup could fall under either.
It falls under the same category, but we’re using two different terms. That’s why when you’re searching keywords, try a variation.
- Keyword search
- NAICS code search
- Past awarded contracts
- Opportunities that are out for bid
Those are a couple of ways that you could use the FBO website.
There you have it. So the question is, at the end of the day…
… does the government have any contracting opportunities from the past or currently, that apply to what you do?
Now you know what you can do that’s really quick. These are quick action steps that you can take to determine if the government buys what you sell.
If the answer is yes, then you know there’s more to be learned. I want to encourage you to be on the lookout because it’s coming out today. I’m opening the doors to my four-week boot camp where I’m going to actually walk you through getting your business set up to do work with the government.
We’re actually work-shopping, getting some stuff done so that you can get your business set up and qualified to do work with the government. That’s step one.
Step two is making sure you’re certified to take advantage of those opportunities that are set aside for minority, veteran, woman-owned and small businesses.
We’ll talk about getting your applications in as well as teaching you three strategies that you can use to go and find contracting opportunities. We’re going to get your government contracting business set up so you’re qualified to do work with the government.
You’re going to apply for certifications for what you qualify in the government marketplace.
You’ll learn how to market your business as a government contractor and find opportunities.
Here’s the link. Grab your spot before they are all gone.
You’re just one contract away…
If you missed the previous training here’s the link to watch now: V-1: Is Government Contracting Right For You?
