I am very big on market research especially when dealing with government contracts. A great tool to determine what’s going on with your competitors is through the GSA sales query. The sales query is a report of sales for current GSA contract holders this is available to the public and it can give you an idea of two things; 1. What sales are in the agency for your commodity, 2. What your competitors sales look like.
One of the good things about a GSA contract is the contract holders are required to reported their sales by the end of each quarter, you are also required to report even if you have had no sales for that quarter. So if you have accumulated zero dollars you need to report zero dollars for that quarter. The dates to report are four times a year; January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1 of every year during the tenure of your contract. Take a look at how you can perform research on GSA’s Sales Queries:
■ You can find the sales query website at http://ssq.gsa.gov.
■ Once you register you will be prompted to another screen that list at least 12 report formats, you may search
by SIN, schedule, contractor and so on, make a selection and proceed.
■ As you have made a decision on what type of report that your interested in and selected the required fields
you will be prompted to create a report.
Compiling a sales query is a three step process that involves no difficulty, but you need to create reports regularly to keep up with the progress of sales in your commodity within your business and your competitor’s businesses as well.
The GSA schedule process is very intimidating to anyone who doesn’t understand federal government protocol. If you are properly guided this task can become a part of your road map to business growth. If you are struggling with your GSA proposal or any of it’s processes contact Ilene, your GSA Proposal Maven so we can discuss how I can assist you with your contract and growing your business in the federal market.