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Archive for December, 2009
Proximity Filtering
Posted in: Blog, Product, What's New on December 18, 2009
Our most frequent support call by far has to do with finding local opportunities. So, because we’ve had a bunch of requests, we’ve just released an update to the site that adds proximity filtering for opportunities.
To use it – just type a number in the “Distance from <zip code>” and click the Apply Filter button (
) or press Enter. The zip code is the zip code for your account. If you haven’t entered it you can by clicking on “Manage your account” on the Welcome page. (If you don’t see the field in the list, click Customize, Additional Fields, then “Distance From <my zip code> “, then OK.)
The data posted by Federal agencies to FedBizOpps generally has a “Place of Performance” associated with it. In some cases, this data isn’t available, so Bidspeed uses the contracting office address. We mention this because we would suggest that you still browse new opportunities on a regular basis by your main classification code or by using the global search.
The global search (top right corner of the page) searches through the description of every solicitation and returns a list ranked by relevancy.
In case you’re wondering, the data for latitude and longitude comes from geonames.org
To toggle the filter so that you see only Active opportunities (Not Archived), simply click on the Filters button (at the top of the page), and check ‘Active.’ (Active opportunities have not been archived.) If you want to view only Current opportunities (Response Date is in the future), click ‘Current’ on the filters menu.
As always, we’re doing everything we can to provide our users with an application that helps them find, manage, and win government deals. Let us know what you think – we’re always grateful to hear from our customers.
Doing Work
Posted in: Blog, Using Bidspeed on December 2, 2009
In the last 6 months there were over 100,000 solicitations posted to FedBizOpps. Really. It can be a little overwhelming.
Here’s the problem – none of the opportunities have a contract attached with your name on it. Sorry.
So what do you do?
Bad news first – you have to do the work. All the software in the world, even elegantly designed, shockingly useful software (like ours) can’t help you if you aren’t doing the work.
Think of it this way – if you spend 10 minutes of every day looking at new opportunities and found only TWO appropriate solicitations a week, that would be 100 real opportunities a year. Be honest, do you have another place to find 100 qualified leads a year in less than an hour a week?
We suggest starting with 10 minutes a day. When you find an appropriate opportunity, add it to your watchlist. Set a priority. Read the bid documents. Write a good response. Send it in. Win the deal. Do the work. We’re happy to help.
If you want an way to get started then you should try Bidspeed. It won’t cost you anything for the first 30 days and after that it’s less than $0.63 a day. And, Bidspeed will do some of the work for you.