How do you get a GSA contract?

The direct answer is you submit an acceptable GSA contract proposal in response to one of GSA's Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Solicitations. You can find the solicitations by going to gsaelibrary.gsa.gov and searching for the schedule that fits your business. There is also some good training provided by GSA at their Vendor Support Center. You can get to the Vendor Support Center by going to vsc.gsa.gov. Click on the Vendor Training tab and check out the Pathway to Success training.

Preparing an acceptable proposal can be a difficult undertaking for those companies which have not responded to many federal proposals in the past. There are many components to the proposal and sometimes the instructions provided in the solicitation are not concise nor located in one place.

There are some books which can help you at Amazon.com and lulu.com; however, many of those books provide more GSA contracting theory than proposal preparation assistance. We know of at least one which provides six direct steps to a gsa proposal, but suggest you review all the possibilities.

Additionally, there are a multitude of companies which help businesses prepare acceptable GSA proposals. The pricing for a completely written proposal ranges from a couple of thousand dollars to well over ten thousand dollars. You can also find consulting, webinars and training modules which are offered by some of these companies.

The proposal writing process can take up to 100-200 man hours, and GSA takes an average 120-150 days or more to process proposals.