How to Make the Most of Your GSA Schedules

General Services Administration (GSA) schedules are the largest and most widely used acquisition vehicles in Government. Experience shows many companies do not make the most of their schedules for many reasons. Therefore, this article offers five practical tips a schedule-holder can take to optimize their investment in 10 minutes per day or less.

1. Review Requests for Quotes (RFQs) Daily to Identify Potential Bids – Quickly scan the headlines on the front page of eBUY (GSA’s web portal) to determine if an opportunity meets your bid/no bid criteria. Schedule holders will see an average of 15 new bids weekly on Schedule 70 alone and a greater number in the fourth quarter of the Government’s fiscal year.
2. Use Requests for Information (RFI) and Sources Sought Notices (SSN) to Grow Your Pipeline – While approximately 50% of RFIs become Request for Quotes (RFQs), the odds are favorable an RFI or SSN will become an RFQ. Therefore, add RFIs and SSNs of interest your pipeline. Many RFIs can take a year to transform into RFQs, so there is still time to implement your win strategy.
3. Identify What Products an Agency is Buying – Approximately 25% of bids on GSA Schedule 70 are for new products or license renewals; providing service-based schedule holders with insight into what hardware and software products an agency is using or plans to use.
4. Use eBUY as an Analysis Tool. By tracking RFI, SSNs, and RFQ bids from a certain agency or market segment, you can detect trends in a customer’s method of acquisition, set -aside patterns, and requirements.
5. Share Your Knowledge with the Business Development (BD) Team – Inform your BD team about what trends you see and how they can use GSA schedules to help drive business to your

By Brenda Crist, Vice President at Lohfeld Consulting Group, MPA, CPP APMP Fellow

Lohfeld Consulting Group has proven results specializing in helping companies create winning captures and proposals.

As the premier capture and proposal services consulting firm focused exclusively on government markets, we provide expert assistance to government contractors in Proposal Management and Writing, Capture Planning and Strategy, Capture and Proposal Process and Infrastructure, Go-to-Market Strategy, and Training. We’ve successfully supported the top federal contractors – large, mid-sized and small – garnering over $140B of contract awards in the last three years for our clients. Lohfeld Consulting Group is your “go-to” capture and proposal source! Start winning by contacting us at  www.lohfeldconsulting.com and join us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

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