All business owners, especially women owners, know that getting to a million in revenues is a tough hurdle. But there is one way to lower the bar: government contracting. Almost half of the small businesses that are active federal contractors have business revenues in excess of $1 million, while only 5% of small businesses overall have broken the million-dollar barrier, according to soon-to-be-released American Express OPEN research for 2019. Better yet, in the federal-contracting ecosystem, female-owned businesses seem to be on remarkably even footing with the male-owned competition. “Once you get through the pearly gates of [federal] procurement], the success rates are very similar for all small businesses,” One note in a report that the estimated life-time value of federal contracts doesn’t differ by gender or race once businesses have experience with federal contracting.
But isn't federal contracting all about airplanes and highways? Not at all. It’s also about healthcare benefits management, technology, professional services, catering or, as one of the clients with GovClean Contracting Services, Inc. found out, cleaning business contracts She is the founder of Encore Services Group, a multi-million dollar business that grew 175% from 2010 to 2019, largely due to federal government contracts.
Like other women owners, she benefitted from a 5% set-aside for women-owned business set-aside “In that year, $18 billion was awarded to women-owned businesses,” Lourdes Martin-Rosa, American Express OPEN advisor on government contracting, points out. “There are fewer than 80,000 women registered [as women-owned contractors]. Do the math. That’s a large chunk of money to each one.” Landing one of those contracts takes some investment, however. On average, it takes four tries at a federal contract before you win one, according to Weeks’ research. Moreover, the competition will only tougher as government budgets contract.
In other words, the sooner you get started, the better. First step: Learn what products and services the federal government wants and the way through the procurement maze. Check-Out our next article on how to move through the procurement maze.
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