# I've been a small contractor, but want to move to government construction



## tbronson (Feb 22, 2010)

Have to echo what has been said to date. Its all who you know and how much they like you. That said you can look into making yourself a Minority/Woman owned business which puts you in better standing score wise on allot of the contracts and you can look at hooking up with a larger firm that subs allot of work out and riding on their RFP. The bigger firms are always looking for minority/disadvantaged/women owned businesses because they get credit for it.

In order of who pays fastest/best: Fed, State, County, Muni. We have stuff outstanding over 160+ days with a certain large muni here with no end in sight.

Oh and don't waste your time with the seminar/class crap. Find out what the requirements are for getting on the various lists in your area for the work you want to do and follow the instructions on the bid sheets to the letter. If they ask for a left handed glass blower from Alaska with glasses as a part of the process then put down that you will supply a left handed glass blower from Alaska who wears glasses. The first cut on allot of bids is done by some idiot in a cubicle who has NO idea what it is they are working on but has a checklist of things that have to be in the bid. As long as they see the words they want to see spit back at them the same way they wrote it then you get a check for that box. If not you get dropped.


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## TimNJ (Sep 7, 2005)

I came from a gov't job and started doing small business jobs for feds. You have to have a cushion for cash flow and after the first couple jobs the guy who ran the contracts clued me in that if I discount my invoice it automatically goes to the front of the line to get paid.
They weren't bad jobs but after a couple years I started losing all my bids and I gave up on the "G" jobs. Long story short, one day guy shows up at my door and shows ID...FBI. Starts asking all kinds of questions about why I wasn't doing jobs anymore etc. Told him I got tired of losing bids by $100 so I quit bidding. Turns out somebody was tipping off a contractor who was getting all the work. A few people did time and paid hefty fines, as they should have.:thumbsup: Kind of soured me on "G" jobs and by then I was into high end residential so I didn't really care anymore.


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## Mud Master (Feb 26, 2007)

TimNJ said:


> I came from a gov't job and started doing small business jobs for feds. You have to have a cushion for cash flow and after the first couple jobs the guy who ran the contracts clued me in that if I discount my invoice it automatically goes to the front of the line to get paid.
> They weren't bad jobs but after a couple years I started losing all my bids and I gave up on the "G" jobs. Long story short, one day guy shows up at my door and shows ID...FBI. Starts asking all kinds of questions about why I wasn't doing jobs anymore etc. Told him I got tired of losing bids by $100 so I quit bidding. Turns out somebody was tipping off a contractor who was getting all the work. A few people did time and paid hefty fines, as they should have.:thumbsup: Kind of soured me on "G" jobs and by then I was into high end residential so I didn't really care anymore.


That would scare me if I didn't have it happen to me as well.

I won a contract for an NSA job, and they walked around my neighborhood asking my neighbors about me, even went through my garbage like they do on TV, just didn't try to hide that they were doing it. 

All the NSA jobs after that I was fine, but that first one made me sheepish for sure. Oh, the things I've seen....

It's a process for sure.


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## rallen (Sep 19, 2010)

Gov't work can be a real pain but also financially rewarding. It's not for everybody.


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## jdw4748 (Mar 2, 2011)

The most important thing to realize about public work is that when things go wrong (and they will go wrong) its you against "THEM". "THEM" being the owner (which ever public agency your dealing with) the architect the engineer and whoever else wishes to stick their nose in. And when your fighting against "THEM' you are on your own. "THEM" gets to do anything they want and its on you to fight against "THEM". I had my first public job ever go bad last year. As of today its still not resolved. We went through arbitration and are awaiting the arbitrators decision, in the meantime there is in excess of $80,000 I have been forced to wait on for 4 months. Public work is not for the faint of heart. The learning curve is so extreme that if you haven't learned anything from prior employment I would highly recommend trying to find some type of consultant. I have about 16 years in public work and unfortuately with this bad project have come to realize that as good a system I had thought I had for jobsite communications and contractor-to owner documentation I still didn't have all my bases covered. This is very dangerous area to make a business of. When you make mistakes you make friends with people you really don't want to meet ie. labor boards or attorney generals for prevailing wage issues, OSHA (actually had an OSHA inspection because a neighbor to a town hall we were working on didn't like the noise and complained to OSHA.). There is no such thing as being over prepared.


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## SCW (Jul 11, 2010)

Good advice and I will add a few tidbits from my personal experience with million plus projects over the years as a PM. 

At any second, your contact can change and it can basically be like starting from zero. New guy wants things done differently, likes another contractor/buddy/family/etc and suddenly your life is hell with little recourse. Paperwork can be overwhelming, my last project as a PM was on a EPA Superfund site and it was a nightmare. The QA/QC engineer was ok but the EPA visits were insane, I would dream about having my hands around the EPA inspector's neck and wake up happy! lol

With above, your connection can run dry and suddenly it is low bidder again. We were low bidder(lost quite a bit) to get our foot in the door and make the connections that allowed us to get bigger, better and profitable projects. 


I am guessing you know someone small that has won a few gov bids and seems to be doing quite well? There are some contracts out there but in my opinion those are highly sought after by people who know how to work the system. 

Do your homework and go after something small to get a taste of the process.


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## BrandConst (May 9, 2011)

The government is out of money. Don't work for them! They won't pay then they'll tax you on what they didnt pay you. 

On a serious note, just like said before, you need some infrastructure in place to take care of the management because it's micromanaged and a lil bit of cash.


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## Colossal (Jul 7, 2011)

*Experienced*

I'm a service disabled veteran owned small business and been working with the government for some time. It isn't for everybody. It is slippery slope you can lose big if you are not careful. Paperwork intensive and they can try to push you around in some instances.

Anybody have any direct questions need answering? 





www.colossalconstructioncompanyllc.com


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## Gnr (Mar 6, 2011)

Scarey


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