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What’s New – August 2010
Posted in: Blog, What's New on August 24, 2010 | No Comments
There have been a lot of changes to the application recently. Some of the more significant are listed below.
Search Agents
This is one of our most requested features. It is currently live and available for use today. It’s super easy to setup and use. Here’s how:
- Click on Search FedBizOpps
- Filter the list (Watch a Webinar on Mastering Bidspeed Filters)
- Click Filters, Save Filter, Name the Filter, and Click OK.
- Click Home
- On the “Search Agents” pane, click New
- Type a name for the agent, a frequency (Daily or Weekly), and choose the filter you’ve just created.
Note that there is a Webinar (https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/910396120) that will cover this topic. We promise it will be short, entertaining, and useful. Please try and attend. (Space is limited.)
Shared Filters
You can now share filters with other users in your account. To do this, click on the Manage Filters link on the Filters menu on any list. You can change the name, description, and share the filter with other users in your account.
Agency / Office Intelligence
We’ve added some extensive intelligence and research capabilities to Bidspeed. If you are looking at a particular agency or office, then this can be some valuable information for you in your marketing efforts. The data is all directly from FedBizOpps – buyers, awards, solicitation counts, and top purchasing graphs.
Affiliate Program
We’ve started an official affiliate program. If you are interested, there is a referral link on you My Account page with a link that has the referral code already assigned. The affiliate program is simple. When a user signs up using your affiliate code you’ll earn 25% of their payment for the first year. (Payments start 30 days after
Partners
We’ve started working with several partners, some that are offering a Managed Account service. If you are interested, please give us a call and we’ll point you in the right direction. Working with a professional account manager can be a very cost effective way to jump start your government contracting business without investing in a full time business development resource.
Just Getting Started?
Slides from the IEEE seminar by Mike Wray (Bidspeed’s Director of Business Development) are on the site. If you are just getting started with federal contracting this presentation has a wealth of information that you will absolutely love and need. Download the slides here: http://www.fedbidspeed.com/ieee-presentation.
IEEE Presentation
Posted in: Blog, Business of Government, News on August 23, 2010 | No Comments
Mike Wray (Director of Business Development) and Ryan Reid (President) spoke at a completely full room for the IEEE Orange County Entrepreneurs’ Network. We talked about how to get started selling to the Federal Government, starting at the very beginning.
Slides for the presentation are available here: http://video.fedbidspeed.com/HowToSellToTheFederalGovernment.pdf
Great Response
Posted in: Blog, News on August 13, 2010 | No Comments
We had an amazing response from the GSA Opening Doors 2010 show this week. We saw hundreds of people, did nearly that many demos of the application – mostly on the iPad (which is really nice), and have had over 100 people sign up for new accounts.
It was particularly great to have our current customers stop by and tell us how much they love Bidspeed (in one case, during a demo, which was wonderful).
If you didn’t get a chance to attend, you might put it on your calendar for next year – overall it was an educational 3 days for all of the attendees that we spoke to.
Next week a few of us will be at the Navy Gold Coast show in San Diego. If you’re going to be there please stop by (Booth 706) and see what’s new in the application, tell us how you’re using Bidspeed, see the super cool iPad, or just eat some of our free candy.
IEEE’s Orange County Entrepreneurs’ Network Event
Posted in: Blog on August 2, 2010 | No Comments
Mike Wray, Bidspeed’s Director of Business Development will be presenting at the IEEE’s Orange County Entrepreneurs’ Network event Saturday, August 21. The event is Free for all IEEE, OCEN, SCVN, and ECSC members as well as those who are exploring joining IEEE, OCEN, SCVN & ECSC.
In addition to heading up Bidspeed’s Business Development efforts, Mike is a former US Naval Aviator and has been a consultant to businesses interested in expanding their product or service to the government. He has served as President of an 8(a), woman and minority owned business as well as a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB). He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1985 and received his MBA from UC Irvine in 1997. Mike is also a past president of the USNA Alumni Association, and is currently member of AFCEA and a Director at SCVN.
If you are interested in attending, the complete flyer (PDF) can be viewed here: http://www.fedbidspeed.com/documents/IEEE-OC OCEN – BASIC STEPS OF GETTING INTO GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS-August 21 2010.pdf
Gold Coast
Posted in: Blog on July 15, 2010 | No Comments
Bidspeed will be in Booth 203 at the Navy Gold Coast show August 17th and 18th. If you plan to attend please stop by and meet us.
If you are interested in spending a couple of days in sunny San Diego, here the show link: http://www.navygoldcoast.org
GSA Opening Doors
Posted in: Blog on July 14, 2010 | No Comments
Several of us from Bidspeed will be an exhibitor at the upcoming GSA Opening Doors trade show in Los Angeles, August 9-11. If you are planning to attend please stop by and see us. The conference should be very useful to you if you are considering a GSA Schedule or already have one and are looking for a way to start marketing it to the government.
Bidspeed is in Booth 212.
The conference costs $180 / person and takes place at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Century City.
Read More on the event website: http://www.gsaopeningdoors.com
Hope to see you there.
How To Get Federal Solicitations Set Aside For Your Business
Posted in: Blog, Business of Government, Government Contracting, Using Bidspeed on June 24, 2010 | No Comments
The Federal Government is looking for you. They like small business. They need small business. In fact, the Federal Government is required to “set-aside” certain procurements for a particular size or classification of business.
So why care? When a procurement is set-aside for a small or disadvantaged business, the government is effectively eliminating your toughest competition. While we believe strongly in the ability of small business, your chance of winning a set-aside procurement is almost 80% greater than an open procurement.
By law, the Federal Government is required to actively seek small business sources for every solicitation greater than $100,000. The method for this is called “Sources Sought.” (The requirement has many, many exceptions, and there are many, many workarounds, but the general idea is sound.)
On average, there are 1,200 Sources Sought notifications posted to FedBizOpps every month. In many cases, there are multiple solicitations that apply directly to your business.
A Sources Sought notification actually means “Small Business Sources Sought.” Sometimes the solicitation will specify explicitly that they are looking only for small businesses (or 8(a), HUBZone, …) to respond. (Even if it doesn’t say “only small businesses” it means only small businesses.)
If a Sources Sought opportunity is in your wheelhouse then you’ll want to add it to your watchlist and respond.
Every. Single. Time.
Sources Sought is your one chance to “get in early.”
In addition, responding to a Sources Sought notification is some of the best marketing and business development you can do for your business. It gives you a captive, interested audience with a real buyer who is required by law to read your response. Don’t waste this opportunity.
We know that you don’t have a full time capture and business development team. We know that you don’t have the time to respond. You’re too busy working on actual bids, right?
We’re introducing a new feature that’s available from an item on your watch list that makes it much faster, and much simpler to respond to Sources Sought notifications.
Responses from Bidspeed are fast, simple, and complete. Bidspeed can often reduce the response process from hours to minutes – making the decision to take the time to respond simple for the small business owner.
More importantly, the response process is simple, provides the contracting officer with a standard, complete, and readable response, and allows the small business owner to effectively manage their relationship with the government post-response, all with a minimum of time commitment from the small business.
Here’s how to use it:
- Add appropriate Sources Sought solicitations to your watchlist. We’ve added a built-in filter (Filters Menu, Sources Sought Only) that will show only Sources Sought in the main search page. To add the item to your watchlist, click the ‘Add’ link on the list or the ‘Add’ button from the item’s detail page.
- Click the ‘Respond’ button.
- From the Response detail page, add the contracting officers, appropriate set-asides that your company has, and any documents that support your case. Typically you’ll attach your capabilities statement and a document that fully responds to the solicitation. Pay attention to the page limit, it’s often 10 pages or less.
- Complete the form letter using the editor. Bidspeed provides a standard response that works well as an outline for the email response you are going to send.
- Make SURE you answer all of the questions as stated in the solicitation. Failure to do so is almost guaranteed to make your response non-responsive.
- Click ‘Send to Me Only.’ Check your email. Read the email. Make sure this is what you want to send.
- If you have changes you can always get back to the response by clicking the ‘Respond’ button again from the opportunity detail page.
- When you are ready to send the response click ‘Send.’ The response will be sent to the proper recipients and the opportunity will be marked as ‘Responded.’ (An alternative is to forward the email sent to you from your email client. If you do this, you’ll have to mark the opportunity as responded yourself.)
- Follow up (Bidspeed automatically creates a task for this, assigned to you) to make sure your response was received. (Another chance to talk to the buyer, use it.)
Remember, this is one of the best marketing and business development tools you will ever find. Period. Here’s the best news – sign up right now and you can start developing your business today.
On-demand Webinars
Posted in: Using Bidspeed on June 7, 2010 | 1 Comment
The recent Bidspeed Webinars are on the site and available for viewing. All of the videos are recorded in Windows Media Player Format.
Note that you will need the GoToMeeting Codec in order to see the movies. You can download and install the Codec here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/codec. The install is very small and fast.
If you have problems launching the video try this:
- Right click on the link and choose “Copy Shortcut” or “Copy Link Address”
- Launch Windows Media Player (From the Run menu, type wmplayer, then click OK)
- Press CTRL + V to paste the link into the URL window
- Click OK
July 19, 2010 – An Introduction To GSA Schedules – Presented by Jennifer Schaus
July 14, 2010 – How To Get Federal Solicitations Set Aside For Your Business (This Webinar is a repeat of the June 25th presentation.)
June 25, 2010 – How To Get Federal Solicitations Set Aside For Your Business
June 16, 2010 – Using Bidspeed to Find, Manage and Win Government Contracts
Keeping the Promise, Irvine
Posted in: News on May 24, 2010 | No Comments
A few of us will be attending Keeping the Promise in Irvine, CA Monday and Tuesday, May 24th and 25th.
The California Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Alliance (CADVBE) presents the Annual Keeping the Promise (KTP2010) Conference and Exposition – bringing together 200 corporate and government procurement professionals meeting face to face with 400 qualified, competitive, certified disabled veteran businesses.
KTP 2010 opens at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, May 24th, 2010 and concludes Tuesday, May 25th at 5 p.m. at the Irvine Marriott in Southern California.
Bidspeed will be in the Expo Hall – stop by and see us.
Keeping Track
Posted in: Blog, What's New on April 18, 2010 | No Comments
Selling your product or services to the government can be one of the best ways to transform your business from average to successful. The government is the largest buyer of products and services in the world with the added benefit of being mandated to pay you on time.
Of course, it’s not easy. There is a lot to keep track of. And while success ultimately depends on a great many things, there are two things that are absolutely essential – one: do everything on time, and two: do everything on time.
If you’re like us, there are simply too many individual tasks to do to keep it in your head. You need to write it all down some place. You need to keep track. While we know that there are as many ways to “keep track” as there are things to keep track of – all of them are essentially just a list of tasks.
We’ve just released an update to Bidspeed that promotes “keeping track” to a first class idea. Here’s the important changes:
- There are now 3 types of tasks –
- Opportunity tasks: related to items on your watchlist
- Contact tasks: related to contacts in your contact list.
- Stand-alone tasks: general purpose tasks
- The top-level tab “Tasks” shows you a list of all of them, grouped by the type of task. If you’ve related the task to a contact or an opportunity, you can click on the link and see a link directly related to the item the task applies to.
- You can now create tasks from 3 places:
- The main “Dashboard” (Click ‘Create a New Task’)
- An item on your watchlist (Click ‘New’ on the list of tasks)
- A contact in your contact list (Click ‘New’ on the list of tasks)
We’ve spent most of our time trying to keep it simple because we know that no matter how clever a list of tasks gets, if it isn’t used then it isn’t helpful.
The other major change is that you can see your tasks on a calendar and even move them around on the calendar. This makes for a very easy way to rearrange your day / week / month.
If you’d like to give it a try then you should try Bidspeed and start creating your tasks. It won’t cost you anything for the first 30 days and after that it’s less than $0.63 a day.
Hey, there is a lot to keep track of. Get out there and start keeping track.