This guide is written by VarnadoeClark, LLC, a Georgia small business that bids and writes proposals for public-sector work. GovRoute is the same daily search-and-requirements process we run for our own bidding, made available to other small Georgia contractors and service firms. What follows is how we approach it, in plain words.
This is general guidance, not legal or procurement advice. The solicitation document itself always governs.
The steps
- Decide where you'll bid. Pick the counties you can actually serve and write them down the way they appear on bids -- for example "Gwinnett, Fulton". A wider list means more to read; a narrower one means less.
- Decide what you'll bid. NAICS code prefixes are the shorthand for the kind of work: 541 for professional, scientific, and technical services, 238 for specialty trade contractors. A value band keeps the jobs that are too big or too small out of your way.
- Watch the places the work is posted. Federal opportunities post to SAM.gov, state solicitations to the Georgia Procurement Registry, and county work to the county bid pages themselves. Checking all three by hand, every day, is the part that usually doesn't get done.
- Read the requirements before you read the whole document. Before writing anything, find the deadline, the submission method, the bonding, insurance and licensing terms, whether e-Verify applies, and whether there is a pre-bid meeting. Those items decide whether you can bid at all.
- Put the dates on a calendar. A pre-bid meeting you miss can end your chance at the job before you write a word, and the due date is not the day to discover the submission method.
- Prepare the response. A cover letter and a forms checklist, then the substance. Anything you don't actually know should be marked as missing rather than guessed at -- guessed detail is the kind that gets a response thrown out.
- Review it and submit it yourself. The bid goes in under your business's name. Whoever helps you prepare it, the final review and the final button are yours.
- Watch who won. Award notices tell you what closed and to whom, which is how you learn what the buyers in your counties actually buy.
Where GovRoute fits
- Steps three and four, every day. We monitor SAM.gov, the Georgia Procurement Registry, and county bid pages, filtered to your counties and your NAICS codes, and email you the matches by 7:05 AM Eastern when there are any. No news, no email that day.
- The requirements, in plain language. For every match you get a page-cited requirements sheet -- deadline, submission method, bonding/insurance/licensing, e-Verify, pre-bid meetings -- not just a link to the raw solicitation document.
- The dates, on your calendar. A live calendar feed of the deadlines for your matched bids.
- The response, ready to sign. On Pro, a response package with a cover letter and a forms checklist, and a draft you edit -- anything your fact sheet doesn't cover shows up clearly marked as missing, never guessed at.
- The record. Every solicitation we found and everything we prepared is recorded for your own files.
What we do not do
Everything GovRoute finds and prepares stays in your business's name. We never act on your behalf, we never contact an agency for you, and we are not a party to your submission. You review it, and you submit it.
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