Hidden Opportunities

The federal government sets aside hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts every year for businesses that qualify for specific designations. Women-owned, economically disadvantaged, service-disabled veteran-owned, HUBZone-located, minority-owned, 8(a)-certified — each of these is a separate program with its own application, its own benefits, and its own pool of contracts.

Most contractors who qualify for one or more of these designations never apply, because the application process is intimidating and the benefits are abstract until you're inside the system.

Here's the math: a contractor who certifies into the right set-aside program isn't competing with every contractor in America. They're competing only with other certified contractors — sometimes only a handful of them. The same contractor who couldn't win an open contract can win a set-aside contract worth ten times more.

Whenever the Department of Housing and Urban Development funds a project — public housing renovation, community development, infrastructure in lower-income neighborhoods — federal law requires the project to direct hiring and contracting toward people who live in those neighborhoods.

That program is called Section 3. It's been federal law since 1968. Most people who qualify have never heard of it.

If a person or business meets the income threshold or lives in the designated geography, they can self-certify as a Section 3 worker or Section 3 business. Once certified, they appear on lists that contractors and agencies are required to consider first when hiring.

The certification is free. The benefits compound over years.

Every city, county, school district, water authority, and transit agency in America buys construction services. Most do it through a procurement website most contractors have never visited.

The federal SAM.gov website gets the attention because the dollar amounts are big. But the federal contracts are also fiercely competitive — every contractor in the country can see them.

Local procurement portals have far less competition. The contracts are smaller. The competition is local. The wins are more frequent. Many small contractors build their entire business on local contracts and never bid a single federal job.

Most new contractors don't know their own city's procurement portal exists.

Bids are posted all the time, but not in one place. Federal opportunities are listed in one system, state agencies often use their own procurement site, and counties, cities and school systems may run separate vendor portals. Private owners and primes post or invite bids in other ways.

Most contractors only see the bids that reach them by word of mouth. The work is there, but it is posted somewhere they never look. Registration is often required before a portal will even show you the notices.

List the agencies and owners who buy the kind of work you do, then find where each one posts. Which portals exist and what they require varies by state, county and city, so start with the purchasing office of the buyers closest to you, and keep a running list of what you find.