Prime Contractors, Registrations, and Relationships
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Prime Contractors, Registrations, and Relationships
What Is a Prime?
You may often hear the terms “Prime Vendor”, “Top Prime” or “Prime Contractor” in relation to government contracts, but what does that mean? Simply put, a “Prime” is the main company chosen to perform the work or provide the product/service required in a government contract. A Subcontractor is a helper who works under the Prime to finish the job. Subcontractors are normally smaller companies that are awarded portions of the contract by the Prime.
Generally, a prime contractor is a larger business that has a relationship with the government. Common names like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI, IBM, and Leidos are examples of large prime contractors. These are companies that have a long-standing relationship with the government and are occasionally given preferential treatment for contracts.
What is a Prime, and Why They Are Important
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Why Should You Focus on Primes?
Prime Contractors are important because many of their contracts are required to set aside portions of their work for small businesses, like Women, Veteran, and Minority Owned businesses. Either because the large company can’t provide the service themselves or because the contract requires a certain percentage of work to go to subcontractors.
Additionally, if your business is new to working with the government, and you don’t have an expansive history or resume to pull from, it can be difficult to land that first big contract. Partnering with a larger Prime as a subcontractor is an excellent way to build revenue and experience while you prepare for the day when you can win a contract all by yourself.
Working with Primes
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How Do You Find Prime Contractors?
We recommend searching for Primes by using either Select GCR Pro or USA Spending. Select GCR Pro, as we discussed earlier, is a powerful proprietary database that pulls available contract and contact information from thousands of local, state and national Government websites and databases into one unique and easy to use platform. Couple that with USAspending, the official open data source of federal spending information, and you’ll be able to find anyone working in your industry that has won even a single dollar from a federal award or contract.
Finding Prime Contractors in Select Pro
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Finding Prime Contractors in USAspending
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How to Search for Primes in Select Pro
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How Do You Get in Contact with Prime Contractors
Whether you are introducing yourself to a Prime, submitting a general request to become a subcontractor, trying to partner on a specific contract, or simply trying to sell your services to a larger business, we have all the templates you could ever need. All you need to do is use our pre-made templates, fill in your information, then start contacting interested parties.
Useful Email Templates:
Introducing Yourself to a Prime
General Subcontracting Request
Partnering on a Specific Contract
Selling Your Services to Larger Businesses
Email Sequence to Send to Prime Contractors
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How Do You Become an Approved Vendor/Supplier for Primes
Now that you have determined one or more Primes that you want to subcontract with, it’s time to get on their Approved Vendor List. Most Primes will have a page or website where small businesses can register to become one of their Vendors/Suppliers. This will make your business eligible to work with that Prime on both commercial and government projects. Most registration sites can be found by searching for terms like [Prime Business Name] Vendor Registration, [Prime Business Name] Supplier Registration, [Prime Business Name] Supplier Portal.
Here are some examples of the largest Primes and the links to their registration sites.
Raytheon
Lockheed Martin
Booz Allen Hamilton
CACI
IBM
What’s the Homework?
Before we begin the next module, work with your team to complete the following items.