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Contracting With Uncle Sam: The Essential Guide for Federal Buyers and Sellers

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Bill Giallourakis shares his personal experiences establishing contracts with the Department of Defense in this essential reference book for government acquisition professionals. Attempting the impossible, Giallourakis breaks down the indecipherable government jargon into terms the average businessman or woman can understand. It's a daunting task, but he succeeds for the most part. The book's subtitle lives up to its name, this book truly is "The Essential Guide for Federal Buyers and Sellers."

The author's intent is to teach the business community how to enter into the competitive world of federal contracting. The book has a heavy slant towards the Department of Defense, because Giallourakis' retired from the Army as a Colonel. Despite this bias, his approaches to establishing contracts apply across the entire federal government.

The book begins with the author's first federal contract. Interestingly enough, he chose to discuss what is known as a SBIRS (pronounced "sibbers") contract. The Small Business Innovation Research is used not to procure current technology, but to develop technology that can be applied or manufactured in 3-5 years. This is a niche contract for businesses, but the important message from this chapter is "my small 1-person business did it - so can yours."

The book covers topics such as the contracting process; tips for conducting your market analysis; tips for writing a winning proposal; how to leverage socioeconomic advantages for minority/veteran-owned businesses; tips for protecting your intellectual property; and how to keep your company's image clean.

With the author's credibility established in landing government contracts, he then launches into explaining the contracting process. For any established business, there should not be any surprises. The book's value is the translation of the government language into language understood by laypeople. For those people who have not worked with government documentation, this is a rare gift!

To summarize each chapter, Giallourakis provides helpful tips & links to applicable government websites. He also does an excellent job explaining the applicable government laws for each one of his subject areas.

This book is intended for the small business owner compared to "Gunn Sights: Taking Aim on Selling in the High-Stakes Industry of International Aerospace (Blue Jacket Bks)" written by a former Vice President of a major defense contractor. In that book, Gunn shares his similar personal experiences in winning the multi-billion contracts.

This book is a great reference book for defense acquisition professionals. This book has found a permanent home on my office bookshelf.