Registration and Setup Mistakes
These mistakes happen before you ever submit a proposal, but they can prevent you from competing at all:
- Letting your SAM.gov registration expire — Set a 60-day renewal reminder. An expired registration means you can’t receive awards.
- Using wrong NAICS codes — Review your NAICS selections annually. Using codes that don’t match your work limits your visibility and may affect your size status.
- Not pursuing applicable certifications — 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, and WOSB certifications dramatically reduce competition. If you qualify, apply.
- Registering after finding an opportunity — SAM.gov registration takes 2-4 weeks. Register now, not when you find an opportunity you want to pursue.
Proposal Development Mistakes
Proposal mistakes are the most directly costly because they waste the time and money you invest in bid preparation:
- Not reading the solicitation thoroughly — Section L and Section M tell you exactly what to submit and how you’ll be evaluated. Ignoring them guarantees a weak proposal.
- Missing the submission deadline — There are virtually no exceptions to the late submission rule. Submit at least 24 hours early.
- Ignoring the compliance matrix — Every proposal should be checked against a compliance matrix mapping each requirement to your response.
- Generic proposals — Reusing boilerplate text without customizing for the specific solicitation signals laziness to evaluators.
- Weak past performance narratives — Vague descriptions like "provided IT services" don’t help evaluators. Use specific metrics, outcomes, and client testimonials.
Business Strategy Mistakes
Strategic mistakes affect your long-term success in the federal market:
- Bidding on everything — A disciplined bid/no-bid process saves resources for opportunities you can actually win. Bidding on everything spreads you too thin.
- Underbidding to win — Winning an unprofitable contract doesn’t help your business. Price to cover all costs plus a reasonable profit margin.
- No capture strategy — Waiting for solicitations to appear on SAM.gov means you’re always reacting. Proactive engagement with agencies before the solicitation drops significantly increases your win probability.
- Not requesting debriefings — Every loss without a debriefing is a missed learning opportunity. Always request debriefings and apply the feedback.
- Ignoring compliance — Compliance failures can result in contract termination, debarment, and False Claims Act liability. Invest in compliance infrastructure before problems occur.
- Growing too fast — Winning more work than you can staff and perform leads to poor performance evaluations that haunt you for years.
Learning from Mistakes — Yours and Others’
Every one of these mistakes is preventable with awareness and discipline. The most successful government contractors build systems and processes that make these errors difficult to commit: automated SAM.gov renewal reminders, proposal compliance checklists, formal bid/no-bid criteria, and debrief-driven improvement processes.
Don’t wait to learn these lessons through personal experience. Study what goes wrong for other contractors, build preventive systems, and focus your energy on the activities that win contracts rather than recovering from avoidable mistakes.