The Naked Truth: Public Bids

A 13-part installment series.
Richard White explains how federal sales are really transacted. 

Installment 6 - Public Bids

Don't bid on public bids (a bit of a generalization) because almost all public bids have been pre-sold by someone (usually an insider).

Federal proposals are expensive to write ($3,000 to over a million for large projects).

Writing losing proposal before you learn the "don't bid on public bids unless you have sold them in advance" gets old very fast not to mention the demoralizing consequences to employees and the corporate ego.

About Richard White
Richard White has 45 years of experience in federal contracting and has published three books on federal contracting:

The three books are available for purchase through Amazon.com or complementary copies can be downloaded by clicking on the titles above.

The books attempted to inform readers about how the federal sales game is played in the trenches. They present "how-to" information, the information is still relevant, not much has changed in government contracting over the years.

Like the earlier books, this installment series is focused on selling services and complex hard goods, and software (selling commodities is a low priced crap-shoot).

Series Installments:

  1. The Government Has All of the Cards
  2. It's Not as Bad as it Appears
  3. Trying to Become an Insider by Cold Calling is Expensive
  4. Insiders Use Their Contracts to Sell to More Customers
  5. Becoming an Insider Costs Time and Money
  6. Public Bids
  7. Incumbent Contractors Win Repeating Contracts
  8. Multiple Award Contracts, the Tidal Wave of the Future
  9. How Big and Important are MACs?
  10. GSA Schedules: The Biggest and Most Sought After MAC
  11. GSA Schedules are Expensive to Get and Not for Everyone
  12. The Subcontracting Channel
  13. Conclusion 

Fedmarket

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