A retired gunny ran motor pools for twenty years. He registered under management consulting because it sounded professional. Then he wondered why no trucking notice ever matched him.
A motor transport chief is not a NAICS code. 484110 is.
For veterans starting a shop
Your job in uniform is not a business code.
The government buys by a six-digit industry code called NAICS. Rank is not a product. The work you actually ran, fixed, moved, guarded, or taught is.
Start from the work, not the rank
Write three things you did that a civilian company would pay for. Find the civilian trade name. Then find its code on the Census NAICS search. Pick the code buyers use, not the one that flatters you. Two codes is enough to start.
Do this today
- List three things you did in service that a civilian company would pay for.
- If you still need a civilian job title first, open My Next Move for Veterans. Then search that title at census.gov/naics and write down the six-digit code.
- Open Charts and check whether the government spent money under that code last year.
- Keep the two codes with real spend. Drop the rest for now.
- Put those two codes on your SAM registration when the company exists.
Common mistakes
- Choosing a broad consulting code because it sounds senior. Buyers search by the work, not the title.
- Listing eight codes on day one. Every screen gets noisier and none of them fit.
Write down two NAICS codes that match what you can sell today, with one sentence each on why.
FedM8 is a private company. This page is not a .gov. Census.gov is the official NAICS list.