You are preparing your next bid but want to make sure your prices are within the realm of selection.  What do you do?  Where can you go to find pertinent information about previous purchases?  For the successful contractors, these are obvious questions, but for newbies, it may not be so obvious.

[bctt tweet=”#ProposalWritingTips: Don’t spend another proposal dollar until you have invested either time or money in doing some research.”]

In this video tutorial, I show you how to do some basic searches on how to find pricing information from agency buyers.

Pricing Research on USASpending.gov from Intuitive Group on Vimeo.

USASpending.gov is a free tool you can use to find out about previously purchased products and services from agency buyers.  You can also gather further intelligence about the providers currently doing business with agencies.  This tool should be a part of your competitive information to support your pricing intelligence.

Another way you can research pricing information is to go straight to the agency website.  Many government agencies, also have procurement forecasts they publish on their website specifically for small businesses.  As a matter of fact, I am sharing with you another video tutorial where General Services Administration GSA shows you how to use their agency forecast spreadsheet to prepare for this bidding season.

Check it out here:

So whether you use USASpending.gov or go directly to an agency website, there should be no reason why you are submitting your government bids blindly. Take some time to learn how to use these tools and you will see significant improvement with your bidding success.