How to Respond to a Sources Sought Notice
Short answer: A sources sought notice is market research. The contracting officer is asking who can do the work, and the answers help decide whether the contract is set aside for SDVOSBs, 8(a) firms or small businesses, or opened to everyone. If the work is in your lane, respond: answer the agency's questions in order, show you can perform, and stay inside the page limit. A response is not a bid and does not commit you.
What is a sources sought notice?
It is a notice an agency posts on SAM.gov before it has decided how to buy something. Contacting industry is one of the market research techniques listed in FAR 10.002. Some agencies label the same thing a Request for Information. Either way, responses are not offers and cannot become a contract (FAR 15.201).
Why does your response decide the set-aside?
A contracting officer may limit competition to SDVOSBs only with a reasonable expectation, based on market research, that two or more eligible SDVOSBs will submit offers and that the award will be at a fair market price (FAR 19.1405). Competitive 8(a) and total small business set-asides turn on the same two-offeror test.
Your response is that market research. If only one qualified SDVOSB answers, the contracting officer may lack grounds for an SDVOSB set-aside, and the work can go to a wider pool. Staying silent can cost you a set-aside you are certified for.
What should a response include?
- Company basics: legal name, UEI, CAGE code, and one point of contact.
- Your status: SDVOSB (certified through SBA's VetCert program), 8(a), and your size under the NAICS code in the notice.
- An answer to every question the notice asks, in its order and with its numbering.
- Two or three similar contracts: customer, contract number, value, dates, square footage or acreage, and what you did. Comparable commercial work counts.
- How you would staff the place of performance: people already in the area, a site supervisor, and how you would hire the rest.
- A capability statement, only if the notice asks for one or allows attachments.
Use the format and page limit the notice sets. A contracting officer reading 15 responses favors the one that answers the questions on page one.
What should you leave out?
- Pricing, unless the notice asks for it.
- Brochure language such as "full-service solutions provider." Square footage, crew size and contract numbers say more.
- A late response. The due date is real, and late responses are often not read.
One thing worth adding: if the NAICS code or size standard looks wrong for the work, say so in a sentence. This is the stage where it can still change.
What happens after you respond?
Usually nothing you can see for weeks. Watch for a presolicitation or solicitation with the same title or reference number; its set-aside field tells you how the agency decided. How to read a SAM.gov presolicitation covers what to look for when it posts. Keep the contracting officer's name; the same office tends to buy the same services again.
Lanes this applies to: SDVOSB janitorial, 8(a) janitorial.
Watch your lane automatically
Every weekday, a Will Bid, Consider, or Pass call on each set-aside in your lane, with the reason, and a Bid Brief when you say go. Early access, by invite.
General information only, not legal, accounting or contracting advice. Rules, thresholds, wage rates and dates change. Verify every figure and requirement against the official source (acquisition.gov, SAM.gov, SBA.gov, DOL.gov) or with the contracting officer before you rely on it. FedLane.us is not responsible for errors, omissions or decisions made on the basis of this article.