Selling to Uncle Sam - When They Buy Goods

Uncle Sam buys everything. This statement has been true for decades, but what does it really mean? Let's explore this with a goal of increasing your clarity for finding customers, partners and opportunities of relevance for you.

Do you make, modify or sell Goods? Products? Materials? Items? If so, by definition in the Federal Acquistion Regulations (FAR), these are considered Supplies.

To the U.S. Government (those that follow the FAR), the word Supplies means:

All property except land or interest in land. It includes (but is not limited to) public works, buildings, and facilities; ships, floating equipment, and vessels of every character, type, and description, together with parts and accessories; aircraft and aircraft parts, accessories, and equipment; machine tools; and the alteration or installation of any of the foregoing.

Do we have you covered? Good. Here's an important question for you. What information and data do you look for to validate that a federal agency?buys your goods? An educated guess based on the use-case is a start, but not the most efficient use of your time. Keywords are a staple for many, but are you and your customer on the same page when it comes to describing what they need, or what you sell? Classification codes can be helpful too, but are the one's you use in your SAM profile and your marketing the same ones a buyer uses in their solicitations, or a customer uses in their market research?

Every fiscal year, for longer than I have been in Federal Contracting, the U.S. Government references more than one-thousand NAICS Codes, and more than two-thousand Product Service?Codes in their contracting data. Each of the contract actions represents an initial order, a subsequent order, or a change to the contract terms and conditions. Each action may include descriptive information about the order placed, but they will have classification codes, especially the one used to describe what they buy. Let's dig into that just a bit.

Product Service Codes, or PSC's are four position codes that can be numeric and alphanumeric, and based on the PSC Manual (available on Acquisition.gov), these codes represent WHAT agencies are buying in three primary categories. They are:

1. Goods
2. Services
3. Research and Development

In the scheme of things, goods are represented by PSC's that begin with a number, while services begin with a letter. Here's where it gets wonky. Goods that don't meet the burden of "Commercial Items" and are being developed, or being used to develop another good, likely fall under Research & Development PSC 's that begin with the letter 'A.'?The first thing you want to do, is identify which of the more than one hundred product and service code groups best suits your offering(s). The next thing you will want to do is validate the use of the code for your offering against the buyer and/or customer organizations you intend to do business with.

In the accompanying video, I'll walk through a few online tools you can use to:

• Identify and Select Relevant PSC's
• Validate Customer Use of PSC's
• View PSC's in Upcoming and Historical Opportunities

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There are multiple keys to finding and winning contracts and subcontracts in the federal sector, but the key of context will save you time and money in Business Development, from start to finish.

To increase your clarity and context for finding and winning federal contracting opportunities, attend our Bootcamp to establish a solid foundation of knowledge, skills and confidence, and participate in our REFUEL & REFOCUS (R&R) cohort for guidance and support with building and refining an effective federal sector strategy based on evidence.

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Go-To-Guy Timberlake