Who Is Buying What You Are Selling? By Tom Basile GovBusDev.com We speak with many companies interested in breaking into the lucrative federal market, since the federal government is the largest customer in the world. In 2009, the government contracted for over $538 billion in goods and services from more than 6 million contractors. The Department of Defense accounted for approximately 70% with the remaining being spent by civilian agencies. The top agencies include Energy, General Services Administration, Health and Human Servic-es, NASA, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.   In order to answer “Who is buying what you are selling?” it is important to determine what niche your services or products fall into. For simplicity, let’s assume three niches: small, medium and large.   A small niche indicates you have a narrow set of target customers and for the most part a direct match to just one or two agencies. For example, if your service or product involves new battery technology you will quickly find that the Department of Energy is the primary government agency promoting the research and development of battery technology.   A medium niche means there is a family of cooperating agencies as potential targets for your solution. For example, if you are selling a criminal justice technology solution your target agencies would include departments of Justice, Treasury, Homeland Security and Defense.   A large niche offering means your solution is broad and used by most all agencies in the government. An example would be a solution like Web design and development. If you’re in the large niche-category we recommend that you narrow your target agencies based on other criteria. For example, if you are a small, women-owned business perhaps focusing on agencies that have a track record of meeting their women-owned business contracting goal would be a good choice.   Whatever niche your company fits into, take the time to answer the basic question of this article. Planning on the front-end will yield significant results on the back end.  For more information contact Tom at tbasile@govbusdev.com.