Search FedBizOpps

One way to locate potential government customers is through FedBizOpps (Federal Business Opportunities), the official web site listing of all federal government contracting opportunities and awards over $25,000. Government buyers are able to post information about their business opportunities directly to FedBizOpps via the Internet at www.fbo.gov.

This web site is updated every business day, with approximately 500-1000 new notices being posted on a daily basis. In addition to identifying specific government buying offices (your potential customers), you can also use this web site to find the person within each buying office who is there to answer questions and provide information to small businesses looking to sell to that office.

Here's how to proceed. For demonstration purposes, let's assume that you want to identify the government buying offices for the Department of Energy:

1. Go to Federal Business Opportunities.
2. Go to the FedBizOpps website.
3. Click on the FedBizOpps Vendors/Citizens button and select "Register now."
4. Choose whether you want to find an agency by acronym (e.g., DOE) or alphabet listing. Note: To get to information about the Department of Energy (or any other "Department of ..." listing), look under "D" for Department, not "E" for Energy. Also note that you can get a listing for the Department of Defense (DoD) only in the "Alphabetic Order" area.
5. If you choose to find the agency by Acronym, the government buying offices for the agency you chose will be listed on the left-hand side of your screen. If you choose to find the agency by Alphabetic Order, click on the appropriate alphabet group, scroll down to the agency that interests you (e.g., Department of Energy), and click on "Offices" next to the agency to get to the list of buying offices.
6. To find the Small Business Office liaison or coordinator for the buying office you are interested in, click on either the "Posted Dates" or "Class Codes" heading that appears next to the particular office to get a list of current bid opportunities for that office. If you open any one of the synopses, it will list Point of Contact information for that particular opportunity. Just contact the person who is listed and ask for the Small Business Office associated with that government buying office. The Small Business Office can answer any questions and provide more information about that buying office's requirements.

Work Smart Now that you have identified your customers within the agency that interests you, it is useful for you to note, for future reference, that there is a variety of other meaningful information available to you here. Although you aren't quite ready to pursue live bids quite yet, when the time comes, you can also get synopses of current bid opportunities for that particular office grouped by posted date or classification code, as well as the location of the buying office.