Bonus points for landing government contracts if you can fit into one of the underrepresented/minority/disadvantaged group or small business categories.
There's basically a quota that some percentage of contracts must be awarded to those groups.
-Make sure you qualify as a “small business” under SBA regulations
-Make sure you have the necessary accounts (DUNS number & CAGE code) to accept Purchase Orders and be awarded a government contract.
https://www.sam.gov/portal/SAM/#1#1
-For instances in which the agency may pay you via credit card, make sure that you have some way of accepting credit card payments that does NOT use a third-party intermediary like PayPal.
This is one of the reasons why you will see Alaska native corporations winning US DoD/fedbizopps contracts. They essentially act as a GC and then implement the project using eight different specialized subcontractors for all of the unique tasks.
There's basically a quota that some percentage of contracts must be awarded to those groups.