How a GSA Contract Will Help Your Business- By: Brent Tan

Description : In order to really promote to the public, especially the Federal government, you should to find out about the GSA Contract Program and its advantages. Winning a schedule, and being put on the GSA Contract allows business' to get public opportunities without the need to answer to RFP's and RFQ's and all of the involved schedule requirements. Getting your items on a GSA Contract gives you the chance to sell to a marketplace that you would normally be shut out of. When you are on a GSA schedule, you will be able to sell to any Federal agency knowing that all terms and conditions have already been agreed apon. Once you are on schedule, you will not have to worry about technicalities and regulations. There is no assurance that you will get more opportunities, it does provide people with many considerable benefits when trying to get Federal jobs.

A lot of firms that don't presently sell to the Federal government may not be acquainted with GSA. GSA or the General Services Administration. The Federal government has a system to negotiate supply contracts with suppliers. The schedules are very complicated to get; but once you have one, your business is pre-qualified, and info on your business and your products is easily obtainable to government purchasing agents. Once you have a contract, you can get all of your items that are on that contract on GSA Advantage. This is a routine for promoting your commodities online to the Federal government. Your item, along with your competition who are on contract will be available for public buyers to buy online, like a private shopping cart style web store. There are thousands and thousands of schedules that cover almost type of commodity.

There are many motivations why it makes sense to get on GSA contract. When you are on schedule, you face less competition because not every competitor is participating in GSA. You can market your products directly to literally thousands and thousands of municipality customers. They offer advertising support so that you can find the customers that would choose to purchase your commoditys. Once on contract, all of the fine print are already established, so you don't have to set new fine print each time you make a deal. The bidding procedure goes from weeks and months to online sales which are practically instant. GSA is the publics most desirable means of sourcing, and it is the only method for selling to certain people. When you are on schedule, you will also have exposure to other state level agencies that make use of these schedules.

GSA Schedule in Fiscal Year 2010 sales exceeded $38.8 billion. Having a GSA contract (or VA contract for medical products and services) is an essential tool for success in distributing to the U.S. government. This is primarily true if you are a small business with few or no other government contracts. It is a very time consuming process to get a GSA schedule, it can take six months to a year; but when you do, you will be in a position to rapidly expand upon the amount of bidding that you do with public.

Article Source : http://www.look4articles.com/

Author Resource : Brent Tan