Most guides to this either sell you something or skip the part where you decide whether it is worth doing. Here is the whole path in order, what each step costs, and how long it actually takes.

The short version

1. Decide whether federal work fits your business at all
2. Get a UEI and register in SAM.gov, free
3. Work out what you sell in the government's vocabulary
4. Check whether you qualify for a certification
5. Find the notices that match what you do
6. Choose carefully, then bid

Steps 2 through 4 are paperwork and take a few weeks of waiting. Step 5 never ends. Step 6 is where the actual work is.

Step 1: Decide whether this fits

Worth doing before the paperwork, because the paperwork is the easy part and plenty of businesses quit at step 6 having never asked this question.

Federal work suits you if you can wait to get paid, can absorb the cost of writing proposals you will lose, and sell something the government buys in quantity. It suits you badly if your margins are thin enough that 30 to 60 day payment terms would break you, or if you need every hour billable and cannot spare the time to write.

The government buys far more roofing, janitorial work, food service, freight, and lawn care than most people expect. If you are wondering whether your trade qualifies, it probably does.

Step 2: Get registered

Two things, both free, in this order.

Get a UEI. The Unique Entity ID is your business's identifier in the federal system. You get it through SAM.gov as part of registration.

Register in SAM.gov. This is the central system. Without an active registration you cannot be awarded a contract, and most agencies will not talk to you seriously either.

Budget 7 to 14 days of waiting, and expect to be rejected at least once for something small: a name that does not match your IRS records exactly, a bank detail transposed, an address formatted differently than the Postal Service has it. Rejection here is routine and is not a judgement about your business.

Nobody should charge you for this. Registration is free, the UEI is free, and renewal is free. Businesses that charge several hundred dollars to do it for you are selling a service you can do yourself in an afternoon plus waiting time.

Step 3: Work out what you sell, in their words

The government does not search for "landscaping company". It uses codes.

NAICS codes describe your industry, and they matter more than they look: your NAICS code determines the size standard that decides whether you count as a small business for a given contract. Pick codes that genuinely describe your work. Picking a code because it has a generous size standard is a well-travelled route to a size protest you will lose.

PSC codes describe the product or service being bought. Buyers search by them, so knowing yours tells you which notices to watch.

You can list several NAICS codes. List the ones you can actually deliver against.

Step 4: Check whether you qualify for a certification

Certifications do not lower the bar for the work. They shrink the field of who is allowed to bid, which is worth a great deal.

Congress sets a government-wide goal that at least 23 percent of prime contract dollars go to small businesses, with sub-goals for particular groups. Agencies are graded on hitting those goals annually, and that grading pressure is why set-asides exist.

Worth checking whether you qualify for:

• Small business. Self-certified, based on the size standard for your NAICS code
• SDVOSB, for service-disabled veteran-owned firms
• WOSB, for women-owned firms
• HUBZone, based on where your office sits and where your employees live
• 8(a), a nine-year development programme with a narrow door

All are free to apply for. Some take months to award. Do not pay a consultant before you have read the qualification rules yourself, because the common answer is that you either obviously qualify or obviously do not.

Step 5: Find the work

Nearly every federal opportunity above a small threshold must be posted publicly, and most of it lands on SAM.gov. Roughly 16,000 opportunities sit open at any given time.

That volume is the actual problem. The notices are written for people who already know how to read them, and working out what a single one is really asking for can cost most of an afternoon. Most of those afternoons are wasted, because most notices are not for you.

A few things make the pile smaller:

• Watch sources sought notices, not just solicitations. They are the agency checking who exists before it decides whether to set the work aside, and responding puts your capability statement in front of the buyer before the competition formally exists
• Watch recompetes, work already under contract that will come up again. The award history is public, so you can see what it went for last time
• Watch a handful of agencies rather than all of them

This is the step Quarry exists for. We read the notices overnight and rewrite them in plain English, with the deadline and the set-aside up front and a fit verdict in words. The reading is ours. The choosing stays yours.

Step 6: Choose carefully, then bid

The instinct when you start is to bid everything. It is the wrong instinct. A proposal costs real hours, and bidding work you cannot win teaches you nothing except that you are tired.

Before committing, get honest answers to five questions: can you actually perform this work, can you meet the deadline, do you meet every stated requirement, is the price something you can deliver at without losing money, and is there a reason the incumbent would not simply win again.

If you cannot answer those in about twenty minutes, that is information too.

Then read the solicitation properly, in order, and answer their questions in their order. A compliant average proposal beats a brilliant non-compliant one, because non-compliant proposals are not evaluated at all. They are set aside before anyone reads the good part.

How long this actually takes

Registration and codes: a few weeks, mostly waiting.

Certifications: weeks to months depending on which.

First bid: whenever you find something worth bidding, which might be week three or month four.

First win: most businesses do not win their first bid. Or their third. Expect months, and expect to lose several before one lands. The businesses that quit usually quit from fatigue rather than rejection.

What it costs

Nothing, in fees. Registration, the UEI, and SBA certification applications are all free.

The honest cost is time: the registration paperwork, learning the vocabulary, reading notices to find the few worth your effort, and writing proposals. The last one never stops being work, and no software removes it.

Anyone who tells you there is an entry fee, a shortcut, or a list of contracts you can buy access to is selling you something. The opportunities are public. The work of choosing well among them is the whole game.

Where to go next

• Register on SAM.gov for the step by step
• Picking your NAICS codes before you register
• Which certification is worth your time
• Bid or no bid in 20 minutes when you find something

Questions we have not answered here: support@quarrybids.com.