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DLA DIBBS | How Do I Sell a Specific Product to the Government? Approved Sources | NSNs and Part #s

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welcome back to fedbiz exchange i'm

michelle brown your coach and your

mentor

today's video is a dla

dibs ask michelle b question

eric wants to know how can he sell a

specific product that he's been working

with

the federal government

well eric's been doing some research

he's been doing a lot of the right

things we're going to walk through that

but let's listen to his question

and then i'll give you my answer

hello michelle i

came across a product

that i would love to sell to the

government and i notice that in the

approved

sources data

the company name is not listed but the

cage codes are listed

so i took that information put that into

salmon i noticed that no businesses

came up under either of the cage codes

i then took the part numbers and also

googled those and i still didn't get

an item

that matched the description

what would i do in this case

thank you

hi eric thank you for your question this

is a very good question

a lot of people want to sell specific

products to the government but remember

the first rule is

to sell the government what they want to

buy i'm not saying that you can't sell

them a specific product if you find it

you're taking the proper steps to make

sure that the product that you'd like to

work with and sell to the government is

something they're already buying so that

makes sense you've already tried to do

that but

there's a couple of things i think you

may be missing so let's just walk

through

some of the things that you did and a

couple of things i did not hear you say

that you did

one important step that i did not hear

you say you took is that

you searched for the item in dibs under

the rfq tab you should have taken that

part number and put it in the rfq tab

which would be the easiest way to find

out

now

even if you did that and you just

happened to forget

to mention that to me

you did a lot of the right things but

my question to you is where did you get

the part number and were you able to

match that part number to an nsn every

part number has an nsn when you're

dealing with the government so you have

to find out what that nsn is because you

could have

different part numbers for that one nsn

which makes it crucial for you to find

the information on this specific product

i would tell you to go back and take

that part number

put it into dibs you don't have to be in

the course to do this you don't have to

be signed up with dibs to do this it's

public

until you sign up now if you wanted to

bid on it of course you'd have to

you're getting ready to actually bid on

that specific product but right now

you're just doing your research so go

back

dibs go under rfq search i have a free

video on how to do that

and

if that part number does not come up

remember to choose under rfq choose

part number slash nsn put in the part

number hit search if it doesn't come up

then you need to do a little bit more

digging

because you need to make sure that this

is something the government is already

buying

you need to find that nsn because

sometimes the part number can be

different

for one nsn

okay

now you did check approve sources which

is correct and you could have found more

information but some sources government

contractors whether they're approved or

not

do not want you to know their names so

you can be

officially a government contractor win

contracts and you can keep your details

out of sam the only people that would be

able to see them

would be contracting officers and or any

other authority that has the right to

see that information so just because you

didn't see the information under the

cage code does not mean that these

companies are not

selling or producing the product that

you want to sell to the government so

they could be keeping it private their

information

now you could also go to usa spending

and put in that part number to see

if it comes up

usually you can't find anything under

usaspending.gov for the nsn they don't

really put the nsns in there but you

could describe the part

and you could run a report okay i have

videos on that as well

how to run a usa spending report so you

took a lot of correct steps it just

sounds like you're missing a piece of

information but the one thing i would do

is go back

take that

part number put it in the rfq section

where you're looking in dibs

and make sure that it says part number

slash nsn and hit search and it may come

up but again you were looking on the

internet which is good because i use the

internet to find a lot of missing pieces

to information there may be more than

one part number

you're just missing some information

just go back and do a little bit more

checking and see what you can find but

remember you need to either

find the part number attach the nsn or

you need to

look for a similar product if if nothing

else works look for a similar product

you can bid on it that similar product

and make an alternate offer

using your product

or the product you prefer to sell them

because maybe it's cheaper it's better

and they'll take a look at it they'll

have one of their engineers examine it

they'll take a look at it and they will

let you know okay that's what they're

doing now but your nsn is very important

you have to figure out

which part number matches to that nsn

because there could be

more than one and you may find out that

the government is not buying this

product that's why i said you need to

find a similar product because if you

find the similar product you can find

the other details that you need to find

using all of the information that i've

given you then you can bid on that

similar product if you can get a hold of

it because you need to be able to get a

hold of the product

to bid on it you could bid on that

How to sell products to the us government

DLA DIBBS | How Do I Sell a Specific Product to the Government? Approved Sources | NSNs and Part #s

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