Module 9: Reading a Solicitation

All federal contract opportunities above $25,000 are posted on SAM.gov under Contract Opportunities (formerly FedBizOpps/FBO). This is where you find the work.

How to search for opportunities:

Step 1: Go to sam.gov and click "Contract Opportunities" in the top navigation.

Step 2: Use the search filters. The most important filters for a small IT contractor:

NAICS code: enter your primary NAICS code(s) from Module 5. This filters to opportunities in your industry.

Set-aside type: filter by "Total Small Business Set-Aside," "WOSB," "SDVOSB," "HUBZone," or "8(a)" depending on your certifications. Set-aside contracts have less competition because only qualifying small businesses can bid.

Place of performance: filter by state or region. For remote IT work, this matters less. For on-site work, filter to your geographic area.

Posted date: filter to recent postings. Most solicitations have a 30-day response window. Anything older than 30 days is likely closed.

Notice type: filter by "Solicitation" to see active opportunities you can bid on. "Pre-solicitation" and "Sources Sought" are market research notices where the government is gauging interest before releasing a formal solicitation.

Step 3: Save your search. SAM.gov lets you save search criteria and receive email notifications when new matching opportunities are posted. Set up 2-3 saved searches based on your NAICS codes and set-aside types. This is your pipeline feed.

Understanding notice types:

Sources Sought / Request for Information (RFI): the government is doing market research. They want to know if companies like yours exist and are interested. Responding is optional but recommended. It gets your company on the contracting officer's radar and can influence how the solicitation is structured (including whether it is set aside for small business).

Pre-solicitation: the government plans to release a solicitation soon. This is your signal to start preparing.

Solicitation (RFP, RFQ, IFB): the formal request. This is what you respond to with a proposal or quote. Read the entire solicitation before deciding whether to bid.

Award notice: the government has awarded a contract. You can see who won, the contract value, and the number of offers received. This is competitive intelligence.

How many opportunities should you track?

For a new contractor, start with 5-10 opportunities in your pipeline at any time. Not all will result in a bid. Some will be outside your capability. Some will have requirements you cannot meet. A healthy pipeline has enough volume that losing any single opportunity does not derail your business.

A government solicitation contains dozens of FAR and DFARS clauses incorporated by reference. Each clause creates an obligation. Missing a clause obligation in your proposal can get you eliminated from consideration. The ClariFAR Clause Helper at /clause-helper extracts and explains these clauses automatically.

How to use the Clause Helper:

Step 1: Download the solicitation from SAM.gov. Solicitations are typically PDF or Word documents attached to the opportunity posting.

Step 2: Open the solicitation and find Section I (Contract Clauses). This section lists every FAR and DFARS clause that will be part of the contract. It looks like a long list of clause numbers: "52.212-1, 52.212-4, 52.219-6, 252.204-7012..." Some clauses are incorporated by reference (just the number), others are included in full text.

Step 3: Copy the clause list and paste it into the ClariFAR Clause Helper.

Step 4: Review the results. The Clause Helper identifies each clause, provides a plain-language summary, and flags which clauses require action from you (reporting, certification, compliance, flow-down to subcontractors).

Building your compliance matrix:

A compliance matrix is a spreadsheet that maps every solicitation requirement to your proposal response. For clauses, the matrix should include:

Column 1: Clause number (FAR 52.219-14) Column 2: Clause title (Limitations on Subcontracting) Column 3: What it requires (perform at least 50% of work with own employees for services) Column 4: Your compliance approach (solo contractor, 100% self-performed, compliant) Column 5: Where addressed in proposal (Section 3.2, Management Approach)

This matrix serves two purposes: it ensures your proposal addresses every requirement, and it gives evaluators confidence that you read and understood the solicitation.

Common clauses that require specific proposal responses:

FAR 52.219-14 (Limitations on Subcontracting): you must describe how you meet the percentage requirements for self-performance. State your plan explicitly.

DFARS 252.204-7012 (Safeguarding CUI): you must describe your cybersecurity posture, reference your SPRS score, and confirm you can protect CUI.

FAR 52.222-50 (Combating Trafficking): you must certify compliance and may need to describe your compliance plan for contracts over $550,000.

FAR 52.204-8 (SAM.gov representations): your proposal must be consistent with your SAM.gov reps and certs.

Section L (Instructions to Offerors) tells you how to write your proposal. Section M (Evaluation Criteria) tells you how the government will score it. These two sections determine whether you win or lose. Read them before you write a single word of your proposal.

Section L: what they want to see.

Section L specifies the proposal format, page limits, font requirements, volume structure, and what content each volume must contain. Follow these instructions exactly. Evaluators use Section L as a checklist. If Section L says "provide three examples of relevant past performance," provide exactly three. Not two, not four.

Common Section L requirements:

Technical approach: describe how you will perform the work. Be specific about your methodology, tools, and processes. Generic statements like "we will use best practices" score poorly.

Management approach: describe your team structure, key personnel qualifications, and project management methodology. For a solo contractor, describe your workflow, quality control process, and how you handle surge work.

Past performance: provide references for similar work. Include contract numbers, client names, point of contact information, contract values, and a description of work performed. New contractors with no federal past performance should provide commercial references for similar work.

Cost/price proposal: your pricing for the work. Format varies by contract type (firm-fixed-price, T&M, cost-reimbursement). Follow Section L instructions precisely.

Section M: how they score you.

Section M lists the evaluation factors and their relative importance. Common structures:

"Technical approach is significantly more important than past performance, which is significantly more important than cost." This means technical quality matters most. Do not win on price alone.

"Past performance and technical approach are approximately equal in importance, and both are more important than cost." Similar message: quality over price.

"Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA)." This means the government will set a technical threshold, and the lowest-priced offeror who meets that threshold wins. In LPTA evaluations, your proposal needs to be good enough, not the best. Price wins.

Evaluation ratings:

Evaluators typically assign adjectival ratings: Outstanding, Good, Acceptable, Marginal, Unacceptable. Each rating has a definition in Section M. Read these definitions. "Good" usually means "exceeds some requirements." "Outstanding" usually means "exceeds requirements and offers significant benefits with minimal risk." Target "Good" at minimum for every factor.

The single most important evaluation tip:

Write your proposal to Section M, not to the Statement of Work. The SOW describes the work. Section M describes what the evaluators are looking for. If Section M says "demonstrate understanding of cybersecurity challenges in DoD IT environments," your technical volume must explicitly address cybersecurity challenges, even if the SOW mentions cybersecurity only in passing.

Not every opportunity is worth pursuing. Bidding on the wrong contract wastes 40-200 hours of proposal effort. Here are the red flags that should make you walk away.

Red flag 1: the incumbent is named in the solicitation. If the Statement of Work references the incumbent contractor by name, or the requirements are written so specifically that only the incumbent could meet them (specific proprietary tools, exact same team, intimate knowledge of existing systems), the solicitation may be wired. You can still bid, but your probability of winning is very low.

Red flag 2: you cannot meet a mandatory requirement. Mandatory requirements (marked "shall" in the SOW, or listed as "minimum requirements" in Section L) are pass/fail. If you do not meet one, your proposal is eliminated regardless of how strong the rest is. Common deal-breakers: security clearance requirements you cannot obtain in time, specific certifications you do not hold, geographical presence you do not have.

Red flag 3: the period of performance has already started. If a solicitation is posted with a start date that has already passed or is days away, the government likely has a preferred contractor and is posting the solicitation to meet competition requirements. The odds are stacked against new entrants.

Red flag 4: the contract value does not justify the bid cost. A formal proposal costs you 40-200 hours of effort depending on complexity. For a solo contractor billing at $100/hour, that is $4,000-20,000 in opportunity cost. If the contract value is $50,000, you are spending 10-40% of the contract value just to bid. The math does not work. Target contracts worth at least 10x your estimated bid cost.

Red flag 5: the NAICS code does not match your capability. If the solicitation's NAICS code is outside your core competency, you are competing against specialists. A cybersecurity firm bidding on a NAICS 236220 (commercial construction) contract is going to lose.

Red flag 6: too many evaluation factors favor large companies. If Section M heavily weights past performance (three or more similar federal contracts), corporate experience (10+ years of federal work), and key personnel (specific certifications you do not hold), the evaluation is structured to favor established contractors. Look for solicitations that weight technical approach and innovation more heavily.

The go/no-go framework:

Before investing time in a proposal, answer these five questions:

1. Can we meet every mandatory requirement? If no, stop. 2. Do we have relevant past performance (federal or commercial)? If none at all, the probability drops significantly. 3. Is the contract value at least 10x our estimated bid cost? If no, the ROI is negative. 4. Can we staff the work with our current team or realistic hires? If no, we are promising what we cannot deliver. 5. Do we have a credible win theme (why us over competitors)? If we cannot articulate this in one sentence, we are bidding on hope.

If you answer "no" to two or more of these, do not bid. Put the hours into finding a better opportunity.