Is Your Business Small Enough To Obtain 8a Certification?

You may own a business, which you consider it to be small. But what is most important is that whether the Small Business Administration considers your business to be small. The SBA will only consider your company to be small if it finds out that you adhere to the size standards set by them. This means only if your company meets the SBA size standards, it will be considered to be a small business by the Small Business Administration. Unless your firm is small, it won’t be able to get the 8a certification.

Now, the question is what is a small business according to the SBA. The SBA defines it either on the number of employees the firm has or on the basis of the annual receipts over the last three years. A manufacturing and mining company should not be having more than 500 employees if the firm wants it to be considered small by the SBA. A non manufacturing firm on the other hand are judged on the basis of their annual revenue, which is set by the SBA as 7 million dollars. This means a non-manufacturing firm shouldn’t have earned more than the specified amount in a year if it wants its business to get approval from the agency for SBA 8a certification.

The Small Business Administration even defines a small sized business as an enterprise, which:

• Has a business location in United States
• Is established for making profits
• Operates mainly within the United States or contributes largely to the economy of U.S. through paying taxes or using American materials, products or labor
• Is operated and owned independently

8a Small Business Certification

The company can be a partnership, sole proprietorship or corporation. Since all the federal agencies should use the size standards set by the SBA for the contracts, you must choose NAICS codes, which best describe the firm and then see if it meets the size standards for the chosen NAICS codes. If you want, you can even make use of the Size Standards Tool for finding out the size of your business.

After you find out that your business is small, there are few more things which you need to make sure your company meets. Your firm apart from being small need to prove to the SBA that it is economically and socially disadvantaged, majority of the company is owned by a disadvantaged individual, the firm has been in business for a minimum of two years and so on. To find out all these requirements of the SBA 8a certification, get in touch with an 8a certification consultant who can explain you in detail about the requirements.

Our Partner: GSA Schedule Contract

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How To Get In Touch With The Right Person After 8A Certification

If you think that getting the 8A certification is all that you need to do, to get access to the hugely funded federal projects, you are absolutely wrong. An 8A contract is all about pitching the right person the right time.

Often applicants after getting the 8 A Certification get confused where to look for feasible contracting options. If you are keen to initiate your business growths and sales efforts then it is imperative for you to get in touch with the right contracting persons. If you fail to communicate with the right person, it is quite likely that even after being awarded by the federal certification; you will not be able to reap of 8A contracts.

8 A Certification

After being awarded with the SBA 8A certification, your sole objective is to look for federal contractors and try to get access to government contracting. The section managers, program managers or functional area managers often administer such authority. Such qualified professionals take the executive decision where the dollars should be spent to earn maximum income. It is considered one of the most difficult parts of federal contracting. After being awarded, often applicants lack the opportunity to gain access to the government projects. Hence, it is imperative to implement a strategy to overcome this hurdle.

In this regard, one of the most basic things that you can do is you can consult with the contracting officers. By talking with the contracting officers you can locate the feasible project opportunities available. The primary function of the contracting officers is to monitor and control the contracts. It is the duty of the contracting officers to take care of all the legal formalities and paperwork involved to make sure that no complications arise due to lack of proper documentation. The budget of the contract plays a significant role in the federal programs; however, the contracting officers do not have any authority in regard to control of the budget.

It depends on you who will control the budget. For instance, if you are a seller of information technology services, you might want to get in touch with the OCIO- Chief Information Officer’s bureau. It is quite likely that you may have to interact with a number of people at the OCIO and find it difficult to locate the right individual. It depends on you how will you determine the right individual who monitors the appropriate budget for the particular type of service offered by you.

According to SBA professionals and business analysts, one of the best and extremely useful ways to look for the 8A contracts is by focusing on individual sales. By concentrating on individual sales along with business development efforts on particular people, you can ferry the contracts the way you wish to. This is considered one of the less-expensive and most-efficient options to look for the 8A projects.

Preparing for the federal programs and acquiring the certifications successfully is just a small part of the federal projects. The most important part is acquiring the project after being awarded with the 8a certification. Hence, it is recommended to devise effecti8ve business strategy and look for feasible options to reap the advantages off 8A programs.

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Tips To GSA Pricing Negotiation

Negotiation is basically a skill, which may be honed over time until it is perfect. However, developing this skill needs a lot of persistence and practice. The General Service Administration in the United States allows for negotiation. It conducts a price negotiation with the company that wants to apply for the federal contract. The price negotiation is generally conducted after the submission of the GSA application. The main objective of the negotiation is to get the best price for the federal government.

By obtaining a GSA contract, the vendor comes to an agreement to offer the best price to the government for any quantity. But, it’s also true that the General Services Administration will look for more concession. So, before starting the negotiation, it’s important that you do a thorough research.

GSA Schedule Contract

You are in fact highly recommended to seek products that are same as yours and are listed on the General Services Administration. However, there are some complications with regard to this.

• A GSA applicant may always try not to give the extra cost of the products that arise due to quality difference between their products and the one that is listed on the Schedule. Quality differences between the products are determined on the basis of weight, strength, warranty, product lifetime and durability.
• If the company is located in an area where the number of competitors you have is few, modifying the pricing strategy becomes a difficult affair. This is mainly because of the presence of the few regional competitors. Such a situation generally demands higher price to General Services Administration for your firm and less concessions.
• The General Services Administration ensures the Schedule holder to provide the most favored customer pricing. At whatever price you are selling your products to the commercial clients, it’s important to remember that it’s the price that General Services Administration presumes.
• As a GSA applicant, you should monitor the quantity discounts or payment that are proposed by your competitor to the General Services Administration. Proper monitoring will give you an insight on the successful discounts that were made by your competitors previously. By doing this, you can be enlightened about the negotiated agreements, which GSA acknowledged previously.

At Advance GSA, we say to our clients that every kind of price concession will have something in store for the Schedule holder. Therefore, we suggest our clients to try their luck for GSA bulk order discounts rather than the blanket price concessions. Getting faster payment terms need to be requested as an important part of price concession.

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