Connections - Federal Contracting PT 2

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services. Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. Hello, and thank you for tuning in to a Sharp Outlook on k for HD radio and Talk or TV. I am Angela Sharp, your host. Our arm chair discussions with industry experts will give you the steps, tools and information to be successful in business and to prepare you to be your best self.

0:55 Hello, I'm Angela Sharp, and welcome to a Sharp Outlook at Today we are going to be continuing our conversation we started in December December fifteenth, Federal contracting connections. That's what you want to know about, and this is what we're going to do is have part two and we are going to begin this conversation so that we can get all of this powerful information in your hands that you can be successful when you're attempting to be a federal contractor. So I want to invite Eileen. Now, all of the information about the show description and Eileen's background, it's on part one, which was aired December fifteenth, So go back and check our previous podcast, and we're going to just jump in and get some more of those golden nuggets that are going to help you equip you, give you the knowledge, give you the information so you can be very successful in your attempt to get contracts with the federal government. Come and join us, Eileen.

2:06 Hello, Hello here. Yeah, it's great to have you back. Oh my gosh. We had such a powerful conversation before, and now we're going to there's a lot of information here, but going to keep moving forward so we can get this into the hands of people so that they can start, you know, going after some of those dollars, but understanding the process right absolutely, So give us like a quick quick summary of just some of the key points we covered last time. Like well, last time we talked a little bit about relationships, we talked about a little bit about contract vehicles, et cetera.

2:52 We're going to dive in a little bit deeper on how to find some of that information and just why it's important that the that you need to have a business that actually has capabilities to it. So we're going to cover a lot of that because things have changed a lot in the federal marketplace, and the emphasis nowadays is going to be about your actual capabilities, what you're able to do, what you're able to prove, what you're able to do, as well as proving outcomes even before you enter this marketplace. So there is a bit of change, and we'll talk a little bit about what it used to be like and what it's like now for some of these topics.

3:33 Great, well, I know one of the things we were last talking about was writing a winning proposal and all of the various steps to be able to do that. And I know that you have something called the three step program, and I would like you to share that with them because you will be able to assist them and getting that winning proposal instead of just writing proposals and writing proposals and right and then declined, decline, decline, decline to cline. That becomes frustrating and it even takes you to a point where you want to give up. If you start the right way by utilizing tools that these experts have, you won't be frustrated. You will be functioning. Okay, so tell us about your three step.

4:23 Sure, just to give a little background on the street three step on why it was developed, and then I'll go a little bit into what the offering is. My background is I actually was set on the Lewis and Clark expedition for the company I worked for. I had no idea what I was doing, and I was walking halls in different parts of the country and just cold calling. The Federal agency is where I best guessed where I thought that business was. And then I started to take classes from people, and then I started teaching classes, and I ended up training over ten thousand people in in a course of about nine years between twenty oh three and twenty twelve. And at that point, companies started to come to me and saying, you know, I lean, I can't hire you full time, but can you tell me what to do? Tell me what to do? And I thought, you know, that's a one month engagement with me. I think that anybody that would hire me full time, I would go through the rigors of the things I'm about to talk about. If somebody hired me as a senior VP growth officer for their federal sales, these would be the things that I would incorporate. So what I'm about to share with you, Angela is whether you hire me, whether you hire one of my teaming partners who have incorporated my three step program into their programs, or if you do it yourself. These are the things you absolutely

5:55 must do in order to start to be put in the right direction. The problem is out in the marketplace is a lot of businesses think that once they're registered in the System for Reward Management or sam ECHO, which we talked about last time, once they're registered in there, the government is encouraging you to write proposals right away. Why because they need a number of proposals in their files to show everybody that they that everybody and anybody have been invited. But the challenge is is there's a whole myriad of items you need to be doing before you even ever consider writing a proposal for an agency.

6:38 So here's basically the outline of my three set program. But if you kind of follow these steps, you can kind of do it yourself or find the help to get it done. So the first thing you need to do is get your team trained on really how the federal the federal game is played. It's kind of a game, there's a lot of rule to it. The rules recently change, and these rules, there's a lot of workarounds for these rules and ways that you can within the rules, develop what we call relationships. But you need to start by first of all, knowing who the people are within the agencies, knowing what contract vehicles they like to use in order to do business with you, and set asides, and who they prefer. So I usually start my three step program with a two and a half hour class on the Federal sales game how to play to Win, And it used to be a class that was eight hours Angela, and it's very very tight to do an a half and you would gather your whole team around the webinar like this and we would cover all the topics in two and a half hours, and your team will clearly understand who are the people, what do they care about, what are they afraid of? And you're going to understand the different methodologies that the federal government uses to buy what you sell, because they have different methodologys for construction than they do for medical supplies than they do for it.

8:04 So if you can imagine, there's different ways. So I lay all that out and I would say, if you don't come to me, get that kind of training. Okay. The next step is a very heavy lift. When I first started selling to the FEDS, I had to walk the halls and talk to people who he gets, you know, and ask them when it's it coming to an end. It would take multiple conversations even to get those answers. The government publishes every contract, almost every contract, and it's available. But the challenge, Angela is it's hard to interpret the data, and you need someone like me or an expert, to be able to read that information, make sense of it, and bring it to you in what I call a competitive analysis. So I spend a week putting that information together.

8:52 I do not use AI tools. I use the original websites where this information comes from. I don't pays description for that. I bring in the original data. I was one of the testers of that system, so I know the anomalies, the mistakes, the problems, so I can kind of read out that stuff and I build an analysis. And in that analysis are a couple of things. I first look at all your marketing materials, which one of the things Angela and I will be talking about today is what kind of marketing materials you need, so we'll cover that in a couple of minutes. But I will go over your marketing materials, your websites, making sure everything is up the snuff the way the government wants it.

9:33 And then I'm going to present you with five years of contracts in your area of expertise, showing you exactly who buys what you sell from whom, what contract vehicles they prefer, and when those contracts are coming to an end so you can keep an eye out for them. Then this is where a lot of consultants stop. They just dump all this information on you and you don't know what to do with it because it's just too much. What I do is step three that build you a federal sales action plan around the top five agencies or locations where they are buying or where the hotspots are where the most contracts in your area expertise are happening, so you can focus sales activities way before any bids come out, So you can start developing relationships with contracting officers and the project managers way before the bid comes out.

10:29 Even you might even capture something before they ever even knew they needed you. Right, So this is a program for you to actively do outreach, selling emails, phone calls, going to trade shows where the right people are going to be. So this action plan will be built for you so that you can actually you know exactly who you need to be talking to, you know exactly what you need to be saying to them, and then you have to execute it. So my three step program includes these three things that are delivered in three two and a half hour meetings, three weeks of part but you know a week apart each, but it's me preparing for ten twenty hours that data. I'm not just hitting a button and giving you a formula. It's custom for your business, right, So that's the three step program. I also have some bonus materials that I provide, especially if you mentioned Angela's show.

11:26 It includes a four hour training in building blacks of a winning proposal as well as how I pull the data. Those are each four hour trainings each worth about five thousand dollars bonus on top of my three step program. So you're going to have all the tools you need to step off before you ever write a single proposal, because you want to make sure you're only writing what I call winners. You're only writing proposals for the agencies who told you they wanted you to bid, or they're invite you, or you were part of the specs. Yes, vendors help with the specifications and you've been there early, so you know for sure the people involved, the decision makers, the actual pain behind the need. The idea here is there's a lot of work to be done way before a proposal even is considered. So that's where my area of expertise is. Angela is getting you to understand and know your market. Who are your competitors, who are the people that buy what you sell? How to approach them?

12:34 And then you execute the activities. What's the point of taking my three step if you planned to step off? So if you're ready to hit the ground running, that's what my program does. Oh wow, that is a lot of just fantastic information and believing. You know, just from my career and everything, just working with the federal government, you better understand their lane, you better understand their processes and all these other just really key things. So what kind of experts should you know they know before they're entering the market.

13:15 You know, that's that's a really good question. I think that it depends on the size of your team. If you're, you know, stepping into this as a family owned business, it might be you and a partner of yours, or you and a family member of yours just starting off. The APEX Accelerator in your backyard as a free resource that you can go to, and what they do is they kind of spoon feed you information throughout the year and they bring experts like myself in to do free events for you. So they are they're your first experts that you need to know is and you can go to I think it's apex dot com or ape x or just type in. The old term for that was Procurement Technical Assistance Center. Just type in any of those things and you're going to get to a database of the person that's in your own state. And they're usually tied to a local university and they'll help you get registered on SAM. I think we even talked about them last week. But they also offer some training. But the challenge with working with them they're free. They can only handle so many people at once, so they do things in large groups. Nothing's custom. If they work with you custom they can't do deep dives like what I do.

14:29 They know how to because I actually drain them. But it's a matter of their time. But also the types of experts that they bring in is throughout the years, So for you to capture all these expertise might take you a year or two to meet the right people. So what I would suggest is you get into LinkedIn. Connect with me first, because I'm connected with a lot of great experts, and I don't charge for referring you to someone good, whether you're a client of mine or not. I know a lot of good people, and those people don't pay me to refer them. I want to really emphasize that, because if I'm going to give you a good name, is because they're good. They're the best, right And I usually give you a couple so you can interview.

15:12 So the type of experts you need to have, I'm sorry to go on and on and on before I get to the answer of your question, but the type of experts you need to have on your team at least is ten ninety nine. Some sort of person that's training your team, helping guide you along so that you don't, you know, stray away, go down rabbit holes you shouldn't be going down that cost you a lot of money. You know, someone like myself or one of my competitors or competimates. It's good to have someone a phone call away. It's really great to have a pricing expert nearby. They're worth the lawyer level hourly rate you're going to pay them because they're going to help you position your pricing and be able to justify it. And they're going to be there for you when you write pro poe and you don't know how to price. They're going to be able to help you get the right rate so you don't go in there with such a low rate that you end up going out of business because it's too low.

16:09 That's the real thing we're afraid of. Many times people overcharge because they don't know where they land. But a pricing expert on your team from the beginning makes sense. Another type of expert to have is a back office accounting expert that knows everything about federal contracting that will help you manage the contracts legally appropriately. They'll help you handle the billing properly, they'll get your books right. You need to have someone like this on your staff helping you out getting the accounting side of things. Now, if you're an accounting expert. Great, you know, but it still might be good to have someone on the line that you can call and ask questions. So a back office person is really important if you plan to sell to the DoD, the Department of Defense, the Department of Ward dow right now, right, if you plan to sell to them, and this is going to seep into the other agencies, there's a certain type of certification that you're going to need that makes your company cyber secure. Now, I don't know what this acronym actually means if you ask me off the top of my head, but it's called CMMC and there's level one, level two. You can look this up on Google learn more about it. Find an expert to come into your office to make sure all of your all of your computers are safe, all your processes are safe, because a DoD and their primes will not work with you if you don't have these certifications. Now,

17:41 I know people that actually do the audits for the DoD, so I know people that know the other side, so they know what they're looking for. Again, I don't get paid for that stuff, but it's good to have a cm MC expert. Let's see them. So these are some basic basic ones to have a proposal writer expert, at least someone who can take a part a proposal or deconstruct a proposal for you and create an outline for you. It's always good to have a proposal expert nearby. They're like a lawyer price per hour, but then we'll fix your problems or challenge you on some of what you're writing to make sure it's right. Some people like to hire AI companies to do this stuff, but I would rather you hire a proposal writer who might be using AI in the background to go faster, but that person is going to make sure it's written properly. Having a lawyer, a contracts lawyer a phone call away to make sure everything's right very very important to have that kind of person on your team. So these are some of the types of experts that you need nearby. I know some other people with expertise, like people that were inside GSA schedule consultants. If you plan to get a GSA schedule and if the government buy using GSA schedule, I want to copy on that, do not get a schedule and then we'll talk about that later. But do not get a GSA schedule unless you really think you need one, but I highly recommend if you do hire a consultant.

19:13 It's like it's the best investment. It's expensive, but it's better to have a consultant to help you negotiate your pricing properly rather than you try to do it yourself. So GSA consultants probably good to have, and they'll help you manage your schedule throughout the year, doing your reporting properly, etc. So again, these are some of the experts that you might want to have in the background. It probably will come up with a couple more during this meeting, but I know a lot of these people. I will always bring you two or three so you can choose. And I don't get paid by anybody by giving great referrals for great people. Yeah, I mean that is just powerful information, especially making sure that you are cyber compliant. I know I do consulting putting in software systems, and I have to and I'm that's not even with the federal government, that's with the state or the city. I have to be able to prove that I'm clean as far as my system attaching with them because I work remotely, and so that's starting to catch on through other areas of the system, you know, not just federal, the state and local and city.

20:33 They you know, if you have access in any means to any of their information, you have to be certified that you are cyber compliant. And so it's just something well, we need to just go ahead and do that anyway, because you know, those little buggers are really busy these days creating all kinds of havoc, and so you can't be doing work and you communicating with the federal government, state government, and then you've got all these viruses and you've got spamware, ransomware and all this other stuff, different things that it's not working correctly. And you give them a little bug that calls the problem, you're going to really have a problem. So yes, yes, follow those instructions and get those particular things done. So do you think they need to have past federal experience to start as a business.

21:34 That's a great question. Things have changed a little bit. I in the past, I've all been all about you having some past performance commercials fine, stay and local great even better. So if you don't have federal federal experience, they're kind of welcoming new companies to come in with great outcomes that they can prove in the commercial world. So yes, they emphasized past performance for you to be able to even bid on some things. But really read read the fine print on the past performance. Whenever I see a bid Angela, the first place I go this is the past performance. And if it says you must have past performance with the federal government, they mean it.

22:24 So you need to have you need to have it, or a seeming partner that you're going in with needs to have it. If it says you must have past performance with a government entity, that opens it up the state and local or my first deal that I got, I just got a little shit, a little story to share with you. So I was going after the federal government kind of early on after nine to eleven. And I don't know if you remember, but right after nine to eleven was when they built all the TSA offices, over four hundred of them by the way, right, and the company that I worked for set up temporary offices at the time. So I started going from TSA office, the TSA office, the TSA office, and they all kept saying, Washington won't let me work with you, And I said, well, let me meet mister and missus Washington I might have even told this story last time, but they took They pointed me to a lady named Milen Tapscott who was the head of facilities for TSA. So I went to go see her, and she came down for a lobby appointment with me and admitted she was not happy with her current company that delivered four hundred locations of temporary offices.

23:39 And so she said, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to stick it to them and walk you into the headquarters of Homeland Security because I heard through the grapevine they're setting up a temporary office. So she introduced me to them. Okay, So then I walked in and started to talk to the facility manager there, and his first question was do you have any past performance with the federal government? And I said, my company has been in business for twenty five years. We've been doing business across the country, and I actually had helped personally Boeing move from Seattle to Chicago, and that story had just happened within the year of this call. Right, He said, listen, put in that past performance. When I put the bid up, put in that past performance. So the bid comes out.

24:29 So now I'm expecting it. I've talked to the end user. He's inviting me to bid. The bid comes out, and this is what the phrase said. You must have past performance with the federal government or equal size and scope with the name brand prime wheel, recognize sucking that Boeing past performance and I beat the big boy incumbent. Oh wow, that is really great. But it was a relationship angela that said, he listen. I so you need to. So they're going to take a chance on someone new if you can show past performance somewhere. But if you're walking in with no business at all, you don't have any past performance. You're going to need to build some in the commercial marketplace or within the primes before you start writing proposals. Otherwise you're going to need teaming partners. But let me tell you, if you plan to be what we call a prime contractor, the company that's going to be billing the government, handling the bills and paying subcontractors, if you plan to be that company and you're leaning on your subcontractor's past performance, that's always been a middleman approach that a lot of people have been saying that has made them successful. But this administration's going after that they want the original companies with the past performance that did the past performance to do all the work challenging the pass through the middleman.

26:04 And it's this is hot news right now. The eight program is getting questioned heavily right now, and so there are certain set asides out there. If you're in small business with the set aside and you're bringing larges along with you, make sure you're doing at least fifty one percent of that work and that you're not just doing a little markup and just building. Wow. That is a huge change. Oh wow, just this week, if you look up DoD and you look up eight A there right now auditing every single eight AY contractor asking them to send in three years of paperwork of the tracks of how they're paying their people and the split of the work and all of that. They're investigating every eight A right now. Wow, And they're looking for any inappropriate pass throughs and throwing those people off. So the middleman approach is going away.

27:06 You have to have a capability, yeah, to be to be selling to the federal government right now. Wow, that is that is a huge change, and that's going to affect a lot of you know, organizations because it's always been you know, you you're subcontracting with a prime and you rarely are doing fifty one percent. But because the prime is there, you know, you were able to get you know, the award. Wow, that's huge. I hope was Angela. It was. It would stated in the in the document, and people would be trading their employees back and forth, so they're looking for anything that's misbalanced.

27:52 Most people, most eight days that know what they're doing, are compliant. So I want to be really clear that most companies are very, very compliant. But the game that's been sold the last four or five years of you can be a middleman and the government's looking for you because you're a woman owned, because you're this, because you're that. There was, unfortunately, I mean fortunately, there was this great opportunity that happened in the last administration where ten I think it was ten or one hundred billion dollars was set aside for women disadvantage businesses only, and it was going to be a ten year program, so everybody and instead of women owned businesses. I'm sorry, I'm really going to say something controversial here. A lot of women owned businesses have been in the business going after this business with wonderful capabilities that haven't had the opera. They've been in line for many, many years. So great for this program that happened. However, it created a marketplace for consultants to come in and say, hey, ladies, leave your job because the Feds are looking for you and be a middleman.

29:09 And that's been a wolf ticket. I'm sorry, that's been sold in this marketplace. And now that money has been has gone away and it's back to capabilities only. So now we have a lot of women who have left their jobs and bought trucks and logistics and warehouses with everything on the line to. Be a middleman, and it's gone and it. Never really was there in the first place. Angela, I'm sorry. Show you the data. You have to have capability past performance. You have to have a business that already is established, right flower, and grow in this marketplace. Except they want to look at outcomes that you can prove you've done and how your outcome can help.

30:00 Them, right right, right. Yeah. The one thing is, you know, like you keep saying, you need to have your superpower, you need to have your capability, and you know all of that stuff, but they're also going to want some proof that you really do possess that superpower, you really are one of the best in your particular arena, and that you not only can do the work, but you're going to be exceptional and be able to document why you are going to be exceptional to win this award. And so there's a lot of you know, support information. And I'll tell you the federal government can really beg for a lot of support. I mean just down.

30:47 To the little. Receipt I mean, there's just a lot of support that you have to be ready to present that this is why you are the best and that you can do the job. Wow. And I would suggest that if you are an individual and you want to do work with the government and you're good at what you do, you know, if we look at the data and see if they're awarding to people like you your size, then we can see there's a marketplace for you and you can compete in that area. Right. The other thought is is if it's too big of a like, if you're a teeny tiny company that has let's say, for example, AI expertise, you're going up against some really big players that you know you can possibly bring your expertise to the big players and you could say listen, I maybe you were a federal government employee and you're starting your business. You could probably go to one of the players and say, I know people over here, I have expertise in this area. Can I be a project manager or be part of one of your projects?

31:56 And they can use your background and expertise to possibly get into an agency. You become a programmer project manager there and you start building your book of business internally. That is a smarter approach if you're keeeny tiny. Now, if you're selling products, it's pretty easy to flip and win business if you have a relationship and you can get in there. But if you're offering a service, finding a way in with the primes to be part of their project team might be an easier. Way to enter. To get in and all they grow from there, get your book of business and then five years from now, take that book of business and start creating your own right right?

32:40 Uh? Do agencies all also use GSA schedules and host like industry days, you know to publicize what their needs are and how often do they do it? If they do it, I mean have like little you know, what do you little conferences? You know. Oh great, Yeah, so you have a two part question. I'm going to start with the Industry Days Park First. Industry Days in the past were created by the small business officers within the agencies to kind of do an ali alias in free. Hey, anybody out there, small woman owned a day service disabled that, anybody out there that is planning to sell to our agency. We're we're having an event that you can either hear us speak and tell you what we're looking for, or you can submit your capability statements so that now we have a file of all of you. We're going to show you where to register at our site. But really, what they're doing, I'm just being frank here, Angela. What they were doing is meeting their good faith effort goals in the far they're supposed to meet certain numbers to be able to hit their goals for small businesses. But if they don't meet those numbers, they have to prove they tried. So these events are built so that they can get there.

34:00 You know, they're file full of the small businesses. Now, how do you break through that? How do you break through? Go to the event, show that you registered, support their efforts. Like I here's my capes, I'm registered at your site, so that now you can start getting in there and looking for those end users and those projects and program managers. And if they say are you registered with our Small business Officer? Have you gone to our events, you can already say done. Now what can we talk about the stuff? Now? It's your way of saying, I did it, I'm there. So those are good. Sometimes they talk about contract vehicles that are coming down the pipeline or opportunities like for example, the Army Corps of Engineers. They do a lot of construction type stuff, so in their regions, those type of contracts come up every five years and then they list their projects. So if you're in the facilities the world, you need to go to those industry days to see what's coming right in terms of projects, it might not be in the data yet, so you see the and forecast they give them to you. So those industry days are good for that. Now, if there's an industry Day Angela for a particular opportunity, they might say, for example, we're looking at I'm just going to use this as an example. For now, we're looking at building a new wing on a building that never happens, right, we're building and we're considering you know, construction and sustainability and small and large and bonding and this is coming down the pipeline.

35:30 Why don't you come to our building for a walkthrough and we'll show you our plans and you'll meet the project managers and the architects and the construction manager and that kind of event you want to go to if you're focused on the agency and they're in your backyard, because you're not only going to meet the people at the industry days. You're going to see you'll see physically who they're looking at when they say things, because those are the people they know, trust and love. So you can pay attention to the body language of who knows. You know, if somebody does a hearty handshake like hey Joe, great to see you again, you know that's someone you need to talk to in the parking lot because that's a seeming partner that has a way in right, So you can kind of see the dynamics and you can see this base and you can meet the project manager for that. So sometimes when they have industry days, especially if they're in the facility world in person, go to those now. If if it's something online. You're gonna they're gonna turn your videos and your microphones off, just gonna listen to people. But watch the dynamics in the room.

36:39 See if a prime contractor is one of the speakers. Hello, right, so see the dynamics of what's going on. So industry days I think are important, just so you're it's like watching a news program about your agency and who's who, and what's going on and what are the what are they leaning towards, what are they hinting at? This is public so you might have a question later on that you can ask them specific. Hey, I was at your event, great job. I have a quick question. So your shows support So industry days can be good. Some other industry days are just where they bring in a speaker like myself or a proposal manager or whatever, just teaching vendors new things. GSA used to bring me in as a keynote speaker on this exact subject how to sell to them because I could say things they could not. They would start the meeting with this is Eileen, This is not our opinion. This is strictly her, just like the beginning of this radio show. Right, And then I can get up there and say it's a relationship. And all GSA executives are down front going, you know, because everybody's behind them and they're like, oh, Iileen tell them it's a relationship, right. So sometimes they'd have an industry day where they bring in someone like me to to be a keynote to tell vendors how it really is. So I would say target your industry days to the agencies that you've proven in your analysis, what agencies you need to know, and who you're watching for. For example, if

38:12 a project manager or program manager that's an expert in an area that you're in and they're speaking and you want to meet them, go to that event. So if they're speaking at a trade show, go to the event, get there early, find a comfortable seat in the middle, Be there first because their entourage is going to sit around. You ask them questions, afterwards, meet them, wait till everybody leaves the room. So you got them to yourself in that speaker That last person always ends up talking to me for fifteen minutes and getting good stuff. So you know, support your project and program managers. When you see that they're you know, speaker somewhere, go there and get there early, super early. Find a key spot and stay late and talk to them after the fact.

39:03 Right, Oh my gosh. Yeah, you know, it really is all about the relationships. It really is. I meaning to know them. They'll even you know, if you get to know them and they know you and they feel that passion. Sometimes they kind of like, oh I didn't see that, and they doesn't help you. You know, they help you with the information that you didn't get right or you didn't this is what I need you to do. If you do this, then we can push this forward, you know. And just because they're not there to say gotcha, they're there because they really need some help and they want to help the person that they feel comfortable with that they can trust. And so it's just yeah, you've got to You've got to go out there. If you're feeling you know, that good about you know who you are, what you're offering, and things like that. You do all the little technical stuff, you get the little pricings, you get all of these things, you know, all set up.

40:06 But then now you've got to get to know somebody that is really going to push you the rest of the way over the hill. So you've got to go out there and really have that confidence to talk with them one on one and sell yourself as if you are the only one. Not exactly, I don't even think about the competitors. I'm it, and let me tell you why I'm it. Exactly, and here are the ways to justify it based on things that I've done. And I just realized I didn't do the second half of your question, which was GSA schedules. Oh yeah, So. GSA is an agency of the government that goes out to the commercial marketplace and they're inviting vendors to offer their most favored customer pricing to the federal government. Now that's a very general thing to say, because that process takes about a year for you to apply, get the information in, and then you go through negotiations with them on your pricing. But the bottom line is is once your pricing is approved, there's a far rule eight point four that basically says if the bid is under twenty five thousand, let's just say that for now. If a bid is under twenty five thousand and it's a product, a buyer can just go to a website called Gsaadvantage dot gov. It's just like their own Amazon, and they can just click and buy things under twenty five thousand dollars,

41:37 so they can just buy if it's a car twenty four nine nine nine, they can buy car after car after car if they wanted to. So that's under twenty five thousand. If you had a service that was under twenty five thousand, the rule says that the buyer has to look at the prices of two others and they can choose you if it's under twenty five thousand, and all they have to do is download the priceless of two other vendors. You could give them the priceless of your competitors and your priceless here's three. And if you need to do anything for twenty five thousand or below, maybe a training class, maybe you know, something small, a walk through in a design of your office, whatever, they can pick you. Just award you a contract. If you've been if your pricing has been negotiated on GSA, it's under twenty five thousand, three just download the priceless of three and they could just work with you, even if you're more expensive than the other two. So that's under twenty five thousand. ANGELA. Over twenty five thousand, normally bids go on to Sam dot gov, which can take up to two hundred and sixty nine days to award. That's ridoculous and it's ridiculous. So what they do is on GSA, if they invite three like vendors on the same category, they get three bids that are all comparable. They can award it and it takes like fourteen days. But they

43:08 also have an internal bidding site called eby where they can post an opportunity within the like vendors. Like there's categories for computer you know, programming, there's a category for electricians. There's a category for furniture, so it's over twenty five thousand. They can post it within that category and every vendor on that category can bid on it. But all they need are three written bids and within fourteen days they can award. So the agencies, any agency can use this ANGELA, any agency based, World Bank Congress can use this website. However, however, no, however, yeah, not every agency uses the GSA tool to buy. Sometimes they use their own internal contracts, like the Navy has something called seaport, NASA has something called soup. But let me do another. However, However, since this administration in October first twenty twenty six. GSA, the agency is now taking those other contract vehicles like SOUP from NASA and managing them.

44:30 And they're taking CIOSP three from Health and Human Services and they're moving it over and GSA, their buyers are getting bigger and bigger. They're positioning themselves to be the main purchasing but they're they're incorporating these other agencies contracts. They're getting rid of their competitors and bringing them in, shutting down those offices and the other we're seeing this happen. So GSA is going to be important to vendors, but we have to make sure what you offer has a category. There's no category for construction on GSA. I'm just saying, so you don't need a GSA schedule. Okay, there's one for construction management and facility management, but not for building a building. Those are all through the Army Corps of Engineers their contract vehicles. Who knows of GSA pulls those over but right now, so the Army Corps of Engineers manages a lot of their own construction contracts. So we need to do research for you to number one, see if there's a category for what you sell. See who's on it and see if the buyers are actually using it to buy what you sell. So I'm going to give you an example of one of my clients who had a GSA schedule. They were at zero sales, which means nothing went through it. And I'm telling you now now half of GSA schedule holders are at zero sales,

46:04 oh zero. And here's why. One a GSA consultant convinced them they needed one and they actually didn't. Or two, they're not marketing themselves. They're just sitting and waiting for the orders or the bids to come from e by, So they're they're not marketing. So I'm going to give you an example of the first one. So I had a client and actually a GSA scheduled consultant came to me with a client they had that had approached them and said, will you manage our GSA schedule? Somebody else convinced us to get one, and we need you to help us every month, you know, send in our reports and handle it. And this this GSA consultant said, Eileen, can you teach these people how to sell their product?

46:52 But also we're kind of wondering if they should have gotten the GSA schedule in the first place. And what it was it was a membrane for roofing. This membrane was for waterproofing the roof and it was a specialty membrane. It was fantastic. They had tons of past performance, great product, right, But let me ask you, do you think the federal government buys roles of this membrane and puts it on the roof themselves. No, the roofing contractors who are on GSA schedule put all the parts and pieces together and sell the whole package of installing a new roof with that membrane on it. So what I'm sharing is is they're not buying the roof membrane off of GSA schedule as a product. They're going to the roofing vendors who are offering services that bundle all that together. So we redirected that company to go build relationships with the roofing companies who had a GSA SKIP, And then we taught this customer to talk to the facility managers so that they can ask the roofing contractors use this name brand waterproofing. Right, And so there were on schedule, but they could just let their GSA schedule go because it's not going to happen.

48:18 They're going to be buying it from the So we were able to say you don't have to pay this contractor to manage your schedule because it's just let it go. You don't need it. Somebody convinced you that you didn't really need it. Now go spend all your time building relationships with the roofing contractors on GSA schedule as well as the gcs that are selling construction, and then talk to the customers inside and remind them to ask for your product project. So that's how you kind of you've got to learn this market and let the business, let the information teach you. So you need to do your homework before before you spend up to twenty five thousand dollars to get on GSA, hiring consultant and managing it every year. You need to make sure you actually need one before you go an investment. That's why the research is so important.

49:14 And that's why the connections are important. But you know it really and there are all those little, you know, idiosyncrasies that you need to know so you're not wasting money, wasting time and getting frustrated because you don't understand how, like you say, the whole game works, and it's very important to really reach out and find someone like Eileen to help you get yourself started. Eileen, give them the contact information for you. I know it's on the other video, but let these listeners and watchers know how to get in touch with you.

49:58 And if you do, get in touch with me. I also have a little tool that I'm very happy to just provide you. You just mention Angela Sharp. I am more than happy to give you my bid No Bid twenty question template that you can ask yourself before you write a proposal. Hopefully I save you from writing any loser, saving you hopefully, I don't know five to six figures of time not writing a loser. So please reach out to me several ways. You can find me on LinkedIn. Just type in Eileen Kent or Federal Sales Guide into LinkedIn and people will point you in my direction. Connect with me there because I'm posting absolutely every day about all kinds of subjects, but my main subject is contracting.

50:48 Feel free to call me at three one two six, three six five three eight one, but I would like you to text me first and tell me who you are because I get a lot of solicitation spamy type calls. So text me say I heard you on Angela Sharp. I'd love to book an hour of your time to tell you what I do, because I will give you an hour of my time like I am now to talk about your business and see if it's even a fit. Happy to do that for you. You can also go to I have two websites. One is Federal sales Guide dot com or custom Keynotes dot com, so you can go to either of those and you can write me directly to either info at Federal Salesguide dot com, Iileen Kent at Federal Salesguide dot com or my personal email, which I don't mind it's public here Eileen Kent Stevens with a V so e I L E E N K E n T S E N s at gmail dot com because all my emails end up landing in that account.

52:06 I'd be answering you from it anyway. So you have my personal phone, my personal email. I want to help you, and if I'm not your person, I will point you in the right direction to who is. I'm always happy to help new contractors coming in the FEDS deserve to work with great people like you. Yes, yes, well this has been power packed again Eileen and I just want to say to the audience thank you for joining us on a Sharp Outlook. I hope that you have received a lot of information to help you propel yourself into this area of success. We're here every Monday at eleven am Eastern time eight am Pacific time, and we're always here to share great information with you.

52:55 Get in touch with Eileen so that you can move forward. Thank you again for being here and stay informed. I want to thank you for joining us on a Sharp Outlook. We have been informed and energized to take the next steps. We have posted links to websites and videos to learn more on today's topic. Please join us again next week for another thought provoking conversation right here on key for HD radio and Talk for TV. Listen to the podcast on all the podcast apps, and until next week, stay informed.