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Businesses often have the idea that getting its products or services into the public sector is going to require them to sacrifice weeks of their lives filling in form after form only to be told nine months later it went to someone else.

For small- to medium-sized businesses, this is a particular worry. An owner tying him- or herself up filling in forms takes away time from doing all the other things needed to run a business. If someone else in the company has got to carry it out, that could be even worse because they'll be being paid to do this and not have any time to do their normal role.

As with every horror story, there is some truth to it, but only a touch. For the vast majority of businesses, it is relatively painless and not hugely different from going into a competition to supply another company. Here's the basic lowdown on what you need to know before you decide to try this massive market and how it works.

It comes down to the difference between buying and purchasing. You might well say there is no difference between them, but in the public sector, there is.

For example, we've sold a number of UK Education Discs to local and central government. We never went looking for the business but we got it nonetheless. A person within these organisations called us up, asked us what they needed to know about the product and whether it was right for them and a couple of hours later, we got an order.

For products or services that are not part of a contract, or where a public body has a pressing need for something as fast as possible, they will just buy it.

The fact that you are not on an approved suppliers' list does not mean you can't get business from authorities. However, it does mean they are more likely to be the smaller, one-off purchases than anything else.

For many companies, becoming an approved supplier is important for two reasons - it gives you more credibility as a company and the council/public sector body who has approved you knows who you are, what you do and how to get in touch.

The process of becoming an approved supplier is pretty straightforward although there's no guarantee that if you apply, you'll become one. For councils, you can normally apply to become approved by filling out a form on their website which will then lead onto a consultation process.

Although some councils will allow you to compete for business after two year's trading, most public bodies want to see evidence of three years' trading. They'll also look for any work you've done in the past with other publically-funded bodies.

That sounds like a vicious circle. You can't supply them until you've got three years' books and have supplied the public sector already. There are other public sector bodies with far more autonomous spending regimes - particularly schools. If you haven't got three years' books yet and have not supplied any public sector body, why not try marketing to schools? There's a full range of marketing services to schools that we offer - please click here.

These two popular products, together with our support and back-up, should help you on your way to public sector experience.

On some contracts, particularly the larger ones, they may check to see that your company can actually financially afford to do the work. You might bid for a £250,000 contract which requires your spending £75,000 upfront - they'll want to know you can afford it.

Many public bodies will want to satisfy themselves that you are technically able to do the work so they'll look for relevant experience. On some contracts, they may ask you to provide references and further guarantees about quality assurance.

Also worth preparing are your Health and Safety policies and, particularly in areas where there is a rich ethnic mix, you may be asked about your company's policies towards race.

Public sector bodies are becoming more and more aware of small- to medium-sized enterprises when they need to purchase.

Public sector bodies have to comply with the requirements of EU regulations, Standing Orders (they're lists of requirements for companies to become approved suppliers - and you must be an approved supplier on the Standing Order before any work comes your way) and best practice guidance.

More are working on making contracts more widely known (for example advertising them in the local press) and contractor-friendly (using jargon-free language and setting realistic timetables to submit tenders and to carry out the work if successful).