GBG members are never left in the dark: NACM's Government Business Group leads members through the bureaucratic maze of selling goods and services to the government.(selected topic)(Government Business Group, National Association of Credit Management's)

Selling goods and services to the government can be very profitable--and very perplexing. Each year the government buys more than the top 10 companies combined! There are a myriad of regulations that need to be followed, and the National Association of Credit Management's (NACM's) Government Business Group (GBG) makes the information more accessible to its members.

Doing business with the government can be the most difficult and confusing commerce to understand. To illustrate the complexities of selling goods and services to the government, GBG's Director, Debra Carroll says, "Have you ever tried to do your own taxes? Multiply that by hundreds of more pages of rules and regulations."

A Lucrative and Complicated Client

There's no doubt that there are enormous benefits to selling goods and services to the government. There is an abundance of opportunities for a company to sell to the government--the Department of Defense alone spent nearly $371 billion last year. A vendor does not have to worry about the government going bankrupt and can count on being paid in a timely manner.

But all of the rules and regulations must he followed first.

When selling to the government, "All i's and t's must be dotted and crossed, or the company will not get paid," warns Debra Carroll, who coordinates all of the information that comes from the government and gets it out to GBG members. "If you want to sell to the government, you must do it the government's ways."

A company that wishes to sell to the government must adhere to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), a set of guidelines that contribute to the confusing nature of having a government agency as a client. To complicate matters, each government agency has its own set of rules and regulations in addition to the general governmental rules.