Each year, the United States federal government and its various agencies procure hundreds of billions of dollars of pretty much everything in goods and services — from airplanes to real estate to zippers.

And federal revenues are growing, according to the Congressional Budget Office in its latest budget forecast through 2017. Moreover, research firm Global Insight estimates that federal purchases of goods and services should reach $1.04 trillion this year and rise to $1.06 trillion in 2009. (Sources: GovPro.com, here and here).

"Congress was even more deliberate this year in passing federal appropriations legislation, so federal agencies will be even more time-pressed to spend their budget dollars," wrote Michael Keating, author of the annual Keating Report on procurement, at GovPro.com last month.

Last year, half of the $138 billion spent by the U.S. government in the final quarter of the fiscal year occurred in the final month, after Sept. 1, according to the Federal Procurement Data System (via FederalTimes.com).

The federal government's fiscal year 2008 ends Sept. 30, and all 1,300 federal agencies will be working overtime to relinquish their budgets through spending. For the next month, federal government procurement orders are expected to come in fast as the clock ticks down to the end of the fiscal year and the expiration of billions of dollars in appropriated government funds.

As such, now is prime time for vendors who are well positioned to win business.

GovPro.com recently spoke with Gloria Berthold Larkin, president of TargetGov at Marketing Outsource Associates Inc., which stages teleconferences on federal fiscal year-end strategies for businesses that want to sell to government. For businesses that want to land federal business at the fiscal year-end, Berthold Larkin offered the following advice:

1. Don't try to sell to everybody — target your top three agencies.
2. Make sure that your firm offers a year-end special. "Target that whole concept of fiscal year-end and make it an attractive offer," Berthold Larkin said.
3. Make it easy to buy from your company. "By that I mean use the agency's preferred contract vehicle," Berthold Larkin explained. "A GSA schedule isn't what everybody uses anymore."
4. Stay in touch frequently with the buying agency, because buyers in federal agencies are changing jobs at an unprecedented rate.
5. Make sure that your Web site is "government-buyer-friendly," so buyers don't have to comb through layers of Web pages to find out what you have to offer them.

It's been said (by us) that the government is the most powerful customer on earth, as it enacts the laws that govern the process and drafts the implementing regulations. Now's a great time for your business to get in on that.

Resources

Federal Revenue: Headed Upward in the Future (2008 Forecast)
Congressional Budget Office, August 2007

Total Government Purchases of Goods & Services, 2002-2014
Global Insight, November 2007

Vendors, Don't Forget: The Federal Fiscal Year Ends Sept. 30!
by Michael Keating
GovPro.com, Aug. 13, 2008

Bracing for Year-End Buying Spree
by Elise Castelli
FederalTimes.com, Sept. 3, 2008

2008 Keating Report: The Votes Are In!
by Michael Keating
GovPro.com, Jan. 24, 2008

Agencies Competed 64 Percent of their Contract Dollars in 2007
by Elise Castelli
FederalTimes.com, July 15, 2008

Additional/Earlier

2008 Growth Opportunities in Government Procurement

So You Want to Be a Government Contractor...

Trumpeting Bidding Contracts Online

The State of the Federal Contracting Workforce

Does Federal Red Tape Deter Small Business?