BY MARY CANTANDO

Landing federal government contracts can be a big win for a woman business owner, no matter what your industry. The federal government is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world, and the average federal procurement contract for women-owned firms is $700,000. So a victory here can really make your business boom.

But, the challenging part of this lucrative client is that the U.S. government is not one entity, but multiple agencies that operate independently of one another. It is easy to get discouraged by the complexity of the puzzle and the work it takes to break into individual agencies.

Two women business owners, Nancy Goshow of Goshow Architects and Nell Cote of Hudson Williams, have spent years learning the intricacies of federal government contracting, and even they will admit that they have just broken the surface.

Each of these two companies landed its first government contract through a different approach. Nancy worked through the standard government sales cycle; this took some time, but resulted in an initial project of significant size. Nell was able to start out quickly by doing smaller projects and then expanding.

The stories that follow explain to you how each of these women won her first government contract and the steps each of them took to capitalize on those contracts.

Nancy Goshow: U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Energy

Even though Nancy Goshow’s New York-based company, Goshow Architects, had been in business for more than 10 years, things did not look promising in 1988.

Although Goshow Architects had been able to move from client to client on a referral basis, this type of commerce was barely enough to sustain the business in the sluggish economy of the late 1980s. Even though she had never done any government work, Nancy knew that a single government contract could make all the difference, so she began exploring this opportunity. Her research quickly unveiled the potential of the government market; Goshow Architects made the commitment and hired a sales executive to focus specifically on the public sector.

In the pre-Internet days of 1988, Nancy ’s sales staff worked hard to identify the contact information for all the government clients and opportunities.

One of the sources they used was Commerce Business Daily, a publication that posted requests for proposals (RFPs) from multiple government agencies. (Today, all government contracts over $25,000 are funneled through the FedBizOpps portal at www.fedbizopps.gov, and Nancy ’s staff checks that Web site daily.) The Commerce Business Daily listed all available government projects, and it was here that Nancy discovered there was an advantage in becoming certified as a women’s business enterprise.

After gaining her women’s business enterprise (WBE) certification, Nancy decided to pursue indefinite delivery contracts. Such contracts require a firm to be “on call” for a certain period of time, in Nancy ’s case, three years. During that time, the firm performs jobs that vary in complexity and cost. In the private sector, such contracts are referred to as “blanket POs.”

As a result of focusing on indefinite delivery contracts, Goshow Architects won its first government work, a contract with the United States Postal Service. This USPS contract, in turn, led to work with the Port Authority, and that job gave Goshow the experience to win an indefinite delivery contract with the United States Department of Energy.

Looking back on it, Nancy wishes she had taken the time to evaluate how she won these first few contracts.

Goshow Architects’ initial successes encouraged Nancy and others at the firm to spread themselves too thin, going after anything and everything in the government market. The result was a lot of wasted resources with minimal results. Nancy has since learned to focus on her firm’s specific expertise, and she has saved a lot of time and money by only approaching the two or three agencies that are buying those specific offerings.

Nancy will tell you that her WBE certification was the key element in breaking into this market 15 years ago and that it still helps her today. Nancy ’s certification enabled her to stand out among the vast field of potential government contractors.

Although Goshow Architects’ first few government jobs were for repair and maintenance projects, these eventually led to the design of new buildings, including a Children’s Interactive Science museum. Since designing new and exciting buildings is what architects live for, Nancy knows that gaining her WBE certification and then focusing her resources on government contracts was the right strategy for her business.

Nell Cote: U.S. Patent Office and the Federal Reserve System

Founded in 1994, Nell Cote’s company — Hudson Williams, a consulting firm specializing in computer performance — started work for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) during the firm’s first year of operation.

Nell learned that a USPTO manager was looking for support for a product in which her firm had significant expertise. In effect, Hudson Williams came in through the side door on this project. For the first three years of their collaboration, because the dollar amount was under $100,000, Nell’s client simply cut a purchase order for the work. Eventually, though, the amount of the purchase orders increased; once they exceeded $100,000, Nell was required to establish a five-year commercial contract with USPTO.

Hudson Williams’ commercial contract with USPTO was considered a “sole source” contract, because USPTO considered Hudson Williams’ performance services and expertise unique enough that officials believed that they did not need to put the contract through a competitive bid.

However, the company was asked to respond to an RFP, and during that response time, the Commerce Business Daily announced requirements for the proposal, as well as USPTO’s intent to sole source the contract to Hudson Williams. This meant that other businesses could respond if they felt they were qualified.

Nell’s company recently entered its second five-year contract with USPTO. This contract establishes fixed rates with annual escalations for each level of consultant. The current contract allows the USPTO to purchase services through a task order on a time and material basis, usually for three-month periods. Each task order specifies the projects that Hudson Williams must complete during that quarter.

As a result of her success with USPTO, Nell’s firm has had other opportunities to work with the federal government. In 2001, Hudson Williams competed against several large firms, including Unisys and Gartner, and won a project with the Federal Reserve System. Nell’s ability to win such contracts has been based upon her firm’s specialization; Hudson Williams wins when a commodity-based consulting service is unable to provide the level of performance expertise required by the client.

Understanding her company’s strength, Nell shies away from responding to government bids unless she has a specific knowledge of the organization and project.

For example, Nell recently attended a bidders’ conference for the State of Wisconsin , at which she was one of at least 30 companies in the room. Partially due to the much larger and well-known competition, and partially because of the amount of work required to complete the proposal, Nell decided not to pursue the bid. Later, she was asked to participate as a subcontractor on another company’s bid. After dedicating several days to working with that firm to build its proposal, Hudson Williams never heard from the company again.

Nell only had to be burned this one time to understand that such efforts are too costly for a business the size of Hudson Williams.

Over the years, many large companies have pursued Hudson Williams as a subcontractor. But, although these partnerships may be financially rewarding in the short-term, Nell believes that building a direct relationship by serving as a prime contractor enables her firm to be more responsive to the needs of their clients, provide a higher level of specialized service, and ultimately stand out in the crowd of generic IT vendors.

Mary Cantando is president of Cantando & Associates, LLC ( www.WomanBusinessOwner.com) of Raleigh , NC, a speaking, publishing and consulting firm that focuses exclusively on women business owners. She can be contacted at 919-841-0401 (e-mail: mary@womanbusinessowner.com).

(This article is reprinted from the 2004 Enterprising Women of the Year edition of Enterprising Women magazine. Copyright 2004 Enterprising Women Inc.  Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited, except by express permission of the publisher.)