Take Advantage of Virtual Procurement Conferences and Industry Days

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One of the unexpected benefits of COVID for government contractors is the easy and affordable access to government buyers, small business specialists, and, sometimes, end-users through virtual procurement conferences and industry days.   

Pre-COVID, procurement conferences provided an invaluable opportunity for face-to-face connection with key agency stakeholders. Nonetheless, many business owners could not attend these conferences due to high time and financial costs associated with lost productivity and travel. 

Not anymore. COVID has forced all conferences to go virtual, thus creating an opportunity for business owners like you to connect, interact, and develop relationships with agency stakeholders without leaving their office (or home). If all goes well, we’ll likely see a return to face-to-face conferences toward the end of 2021; but in the meantime, here are a few tips on finding virtual conferences happening around the country. 

  1. Keep an eye out for communication from your PTAC (like this newsletter and other emails) to inform you about upcoming opportunities and events.
  2. Ask your PTAC counselor about what industry days, conferences, and vendor events they are aware of (both locally and nationally) and which may be the best ones for your firm to attend. 
  3. Click here for a list of virtual conferences published within the last three months on beta.sam.gov. You can also save this search in your own beta.sam.gov profile and follow it to get notified when new events matching your criteria are posted on the site (you must be logged in to save and follow searches).
  4. Search for “government procurement fair” in your favorite browser. You might also try searching “reverse vendor trade show” and “industry day.” Unfortunately, these types of conferences and networking events can go by many names.
  5. Govology has just launched a new initiative to pull together a list of procurement conferences with matchmaking opportunities. Take a look at what’s available now and check back frequently as they will be adding more events. Click here.