The Naked Truth: The Subcontracting Channel

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

Installment 12 - The Subcontracting Channel

Prime contractors' hold large multiple award contracts worth billions and in many cases use subcontractors for major portions of the contract work.

Multiple award contract orders have unpredictable staffing requirements. Task orders can be costly to staff in-house and are more profitable and easier to perform with subcontractors.

The prime contractor acts as a contract manger and administrator and takes an administrative fee and profit on their subcontracts. For large multi-purpose contracts, prime contractors could be viewed as service aggregators.

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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