Government Contracts: Assessing the Learning Curve

After wading through information on the Small Business Administration's website, one thing is clear. Contracting with the Federal government requires the ability to navigate several processes. They do offer a mentor-protege opportunity for businesses that meet certain criteria. Doing business at the State level appears more manageable. Having a contact that can answer questions really helps a lot. We spent half a day combing through details. We have found that anything worth doing requires a learning curve. From a practical stand point we are interested in staying local and desire to focus on relationship-based services. Our desire is to learn about these processes so we can be a resource for other companies that want to move in that direction too. Helping others through the process is rewarding and reinforces our own learning processes.