Contracts to work on government construction projects can be lucrative for businesses of all sizes. However, many small businesses do not understand the complexity of the bid process. An October 16 workshop will help small businesses navigate the process.
A bid and contract readiness workshop will be held at the Diamond Lakes Library in Hephzibah. It is a collaboration between the City of Augusta Compliance Office and Spellman Consulting Group, LLC.
“What we’re trying to do is to educate small businesses on the bid process, how to identify bids, and how to actually submit the bids. Determine which bids they should go after,” Crystal Spellman explained for ABD. “The outcome we are looking for is that we’ll get more small businesses that are positioned to bid competitively, and also that they are able to sustain those contracts and grow their businesses.”
Metro Augusta can be particularly advantageous for small businesses looking to tap into the government contract work. Larger companies often look for smaller businesses to bring on as subcontractors.
“But they’re not properly registered or established. They may not have all of their compliance documentation in place that makes them ready to subcontract with the larger prime,” said Spellman. “One of the goals is to help these small businesses become compliant, get all of their documentation in place, and help them understand what documentation they need to have in place in order to be attractive to a large prime contractor.”
Spellman added that working with smaller businesses can be financially beneficial for the large companies.
“Smaller businesses are more nimble. They can do things quicker at a lower rate because they don’t have, typically, all of the overhead that a larger company would have. So, it is definitely cost-effective for the large primes to contract with those smaller businesses,” she said.
This workshop can be especially beneficial for small businesses that are women-, veteran-, and minority-owned. That is because government contracts generally have set-asides, requiring a certain percentage of the work to be done by those companies.
“There’s a lot of work that they would like to subcontract to the smaller businesses, but a lot of times they have a hard time finding these businesses,” she said. “And then even when they find them, a lot of them are not positioned to do business because they don’t have their office and their paperwork and compliance in place, not because they cannot do the work.”
The workshop will also help businesses know how not to overprice or underprice their bid proposals. It will also explain how to secure bonding and insurance.
“It’ll be interactive, we’ll do exercises, we’ll have some case studies, we’ll look at some real-world situations to help the participants understand how to do what it is that they need to do in order to become business and contract ready,” said Spellman. “It’s not just going to be talk. We’re going to be doing some exercises, and they’re going to walk away with some small action plan, steps that they need to take in order to position their businesses for growth and contracts.”
The workshop runs from 1-4 p.m. at the library at 101 Diamond Lakes Way. It can be attended in person or virtually. There is no charge, but registration is required at: https://form.jotform.com/252306327730148
