Our story starts in 1994 when our Principal Consultant and Founder, Tracie Grant, worked at Covey Leadership Center (now FranklinCovey). The team lead over federal agencies wanted to get a GSA Schedule, but he knew it was a practically insurmountable task -- particularly back then as it was not an open solicitation at the time and if you didn't get a schedule on your initial proposal, you had to wait a year or more before you could repropose. Because there were no books, guides, no Amazon.com, no YouTube, or any other available information about how to really complete a GSA proposal, our leader hired a well-known Washington DC consulting firm to head our proposal efforts. They had not written a GSA proposal yet either, but they had DC connections with people who had.

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Tracie was brought on to the proposal team to coordinate proposal requirements and activities on Covey's end and to serve as the Federal Programs Administrator after award, as GSA required all contract holders to have such a position at the time - or so we believed. At the time, there was no company internet (but we had email!). There was nothing in the way of publicly available guidance or resources. No YouTube or Amazon or even any good classes to take. We relied completely on the consultant to whom we paid tens of thousands of dollars - even way back then. 

 

Throughout the effort, the consultant would call Tracie and tell her what she or the team needed to write or create or gather and put together. Tracie would either work with the team to accomplish the task, or she would gather the information and put things together on her own. Every time the consultant would call and give Tracie a task, Tracie wondered why the consulting firm got all the money and it seemed that she did all the work. 

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Tracie was dying for a proposal guide that gave her background information, templates, and examples, but there was none to be had. After Covey won their contract, Tracie searched high and low for an administration guide, but there was no such thing at the time, so, Tracie learned from the teachers at the GSA school of hard knocks and learned to interpret what the contracting officers wanted by guessing and resubmitting. It wasn't fun, but over the last 27 or so years, she has built a vast array of knowledge. Because she had GSA experience, every job from 1995 forward, she got because the employer either had a GSA Schedule that needed managing, or they needed to get a schedule. Like FranklinCovey, her employers found success with the GSA Schedule program. And that's why she wants to help you.

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With the knowledge she has gained, and her belief that tools, templates, and samples would have saved the Covey team thousands of dollars when writing their GSA proposal, Tracie has created DIY GSA and all their tools with the goal in mind of being the resource she needed back then and that you need now. And, frankly, this is great knowledge to have. If you want to be in the federal space, you're going to need to understand solicitations and responses, so why not start with a GSA MAS proposal!

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Tracie does say that the consulting firm Covey used was spectacular, and if you have tens of thousands of dollars, spending that budget on a Washington DC firm to build your full federal program may suit some companies. She truly wants to make sure that companies who don't have the budget can have the resources they need at a price they can afford to help them win.

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