Federal Contracting Made Easy

This is a review of the book Federal Contracting Made Easy. It would be easy to say that every business needs this book, but the reality is every business looking for federal contracts needs every business book on federal contracting they can get their hands on. Comparative to other business books there are not too many of them and the bureaucracy of the United States Federal Government is notorious. Thinking that you can find your way through federal contracts without help is just plain silly. You need to spend the time and money to get familiar with what your target audience wants. And if you think $30 bucks is too much to invest then you have to give up thinking government contracting is for you. Getting government business will take time, money, knowledge, and patience regardless who you are.

This is the 3rd Edition of Federal Contracting Made Easy and it comes in five parts. Part One is entitled What Is Federal Government Contracting and is a solid overview of government contracting. Part Two is entitled How Your Business Size Offers Opportunity. It covers categorization of businesses, preference programs, subcontracting, and the GSA. Part Three is entitled How To Find Government Contracting Opportunities and primarily deals with marketing to the government. Part Four is entitled How The Government Issues Procurement Opportunities and covers how bids, solicitation, proposals, etc. work. Part Five is entitled What Are The Contract Types and Administrative Requirements. It covers the contracts once awards are made and is heavy into the financial side, so should be of interest to every business owner.

Federal Contracting Made Easy is a solid book. Better than any For Dummies or Idiot's Guide book, but less than the Contracting With The Federal Government book (a $200 book!). It would be best to think of this as a solid, quality primer but less than a step-to-step guide. Part of the reason is that any one book probably could not cover everything thoroughly. Like the section on GSA schedules is a book unto itself; so would the sections on contract law, preference programs, and marketing.

There is a lot to learn about government contract awards and this book would be a great start. It would be best to use Federal Contracting Made Easy with the first contract you try to pursue. Just except you most likely will not get the contract but you need to get wet sometime. Consider it more like practice. But a lot of the language you will run into in a solicitation or contract is covered in this book. It will explain better than anything you would find on the Internet. Then on your subsequent solicitations and contracts you can see if you need a more specific help or a more thorough (but more expensive) book.