The Government Could Become Your Best Customer! Part 2

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios. It’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by Wbec West. Join forces, Succeed Together. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Lee Kantor here another episode of Women in Motion, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have DeLisa Clift with Global Business Development, strategist Carrie Rogers-Whitehead with Digital Responsibility and Martha Brown with Advantage Brokerage Corporation. Welcome, ladies.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:00:47] Happy to be here.

DeLisa Clift: [00:00:48] Thank you. Lee.

Martha Brown: [00:00:49] Thank you. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:50] Well, today’s topic is about government contracting and what kind of a primer on government contracting. I’d like to kick it off with DeLisa. Do you mind just sharing a little bit about your background and educate our listeners a little bit about government contracting and how it applies to your business?

DeLisa Clift: [00:01:09] Certainly. Good afternoon, everyone. Again, my name is DeLisa Clift and I’m the founder and the CEO of Global Business Development Strategies. And what we actually have been doing for the past 13 years is working with both private and public clients and federal government contracting, as well as state and local government contracting. And what does that look like for our private clients? It looks like preparing them to make sure that they’re eligible and ready for some type of small business certification, whether that is a woman owned small business, a service disabled, veteran owned small business, a veteran owned small business, and even the minority businesses. We work with them to make sure that certification is right for them and the pathway into getting them certified. Once they’re certified, then we work with them in creating a pathway to help them to identify whether it is local government contracting, that they want to pursue state government contracting or even federal and help them to create a strategy as to how to get them there faster. We help to equip them with the right tools and resources that they need to be to be successful in either of those government contracting spaces. So we are pleased to be here today and we’re excited about sharing with the other people that are on the platform and looking forward to providing a wealth of information going forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:31] Now, Carrie, do you mind sharing a little bit about your background and and your kind of relationship with government contracting?

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:02:38] Yeah, happy to. My name is Carrie Rogers-Whitehead and the founder and CEO of Digital Responsibility. And we have local, state and federal contracts and educational services. And I came from a government background and switched to private sector. But we got some you got some really knowledgeable people here. I started from scratch, spending a lot of time using a lot of my local resources and places out there. So I appreciate people like Delisa and others who help learn more about government contracting. And I’m here to share what I’ve learned on the ground and through trial and error and excited to excited to share that out.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:13] And Martha.

Martha Brown: [00:03:14] Thank you. Lee I’m Martha Brown. I’m with Advantage Brokerage Corporation. I am the founder and president of the company. We provide logistics services focusing on interstate trucking. We are not asset based. We are a freight brokerage and custom warehouse solutions. Our primary sector of service is within the passenger railcar manufacturing sector and their vendor networks. We have DB and WB certifications in key transit agencies and I have been in the logistics arena for closing in on three decades. We operate under the prime contractor who actually has the government contract, so we help them fulfill their WB or DB goals with the transit agencies that they ultimately sell their passenger railcars to. So I have to bring a perspective on a secondary level as opposed to dealing directly with government agencies. I hope to bring a little bit more perspective and learn perhaps of providing services on a secondary basis.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:28] Well, let me throw out the first question. How did you all get started in government contracting? What was kind of that catalyst to to, you know, try for that first contract? Anybody can start and then please everybody kind of follow up.

DeLisa Clift: [00:04:45] Adley. I’ll start, if you don’t mind. Sure. For. For me getting started in a government contracted contracting. Looked like coming from corporate America, where I actually started my first business and realizing that there was a void in local government agencies where they did not have a space that was designated for small businesses to actually go into government contracting for the products or services that they were looking for. And so what that encouraged me to do is to actually start soliciting the local government agencies to say, hey, look, there is a void that you all need to create a platform that is equitable for small businesses to benefit from, you know, contract opportunities that you have. So help them to explain to them exactly what that would look like. And fortunately, but unfortunately, it took me writing seven unsolicited bid proposals to those government agencies before anyone finally gave me a foot through the door. And that foot through the door looked like, okay, you can come in and you can do some small business workshops to teach people about, first of all, how to do business, the business like way for local government. And so I did that for a number of years and realized that this was definitely going to be an opportunity for me to have more listening ears in the government agencies. And so with that propelled me to do is to start looking at creating this these programs and soliciting those to those particular agencies in which they were adopted. And we start managing from a prime contractors perspective, three different local government agencies, supplier diversity programs. And so that was the impetus for me to get started, just realizing that small businesses did not have a seat at the table like they needed to and they were not getting able to partake in procuring some of those dollars that were should be set aside for small businesses. So that’s how we first got started.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:06:54] Carry. Oh, I got started from the government side writing grants myself, so I was kind of on the other end of things. I was writing and managing grants in the government sector, so I was aware to a small extent of kind of what, what the grant writing process, what did it look like, what was out there and went into utilizing a lot of those resources since I was familiar with that. But but like Lisa said, a lot of a lot of maybe small businesses might not be aware of what is there. I attended a lot of state. I use my procurement technical assistance center, like tech center a lot. In the beginning, I was showing up for constant classes all the time and one thing that they said is like, Yeah, they want small business to know more about all of this information, all this, this stuff, all these opportunities out there. But sometimes, you know, it wasn’t getting out there to everyone. So I’m glad that there’s more that that’s being shared in there. And it is a bit of a a learning curve, I would say, because there and we’ve been throwing around words at this conversation, the DBS and and secondary and primary and prime and all this. There’s a whole different language and vocabulary that you have to learn. And sometimes that can be intimidating for especially a really busy small business owner who has a lot on their plate. And so they might push that aside. They might say, I don’t have time to learn all of this. I don’t have, you know, the capabilities. And yes, it is a big lift. But, you know, it’s a long term it is a long term strategy that can be really, really great for your business. And I’m glad that I spent all of those hours and I’m continuing learning all of those words in government contracting.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:31] Martha, you want to share? You’re muted.

Martha Brown: [00:08:40] That’s there. Sorry. Um. Yes, I got my start. I opened my brokerage 13 years ago. My first brokerage. I have two now. My first freight brokerage was opened 13 years ago. I had previously been working as an independent agent under another company’s authority, and I had been consistently servicing a large passenger rail car manufacturer and they kept asking me to get certification. I didn’t know what that meant. And there was a big contract coming up between them in Washington, DC, the Marta system, and they were pushing and pushing and pushing. They wanted to give me more business, but they needed me to get the certification. So I looked into it and found that the only way for me to do that was to make the leap from being an agent for another company and having my own federal license. So it was just simply in response to a customer need. Um, so that was, that was the beginning of that. We now have got or certifications in many transit agencies. I think there is 20 some that I’ve got. So they, they keep me fairly busy throughout the year getting recertified for sure. But yeah, it was response to a customer need. I got started.

DeLisa Clift: [00:10:08] You know what Lee would like to piggyback on something that Carrie said that was really important, which is understanding the government language, because I think that that is probably one of the most important aspects of a small business that’s looking to go into government contracting is to find out exactly how that language is applicable, because we know working in private sector, we don’t speak the same language in the federal government space, right? So having that language to be known and understood will help you to be more intentional about looking in government contracting and being able to be successful in that space. So language is definitely very important.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:51] Now, is government contracting something that you have to kind of put all your chips on the table in that direction and say, okay, I’m going to do government contracting because I have to learn a new language. I have to kind of understand the maze of, you know, working with the government and all of the, you know, kind of agencies and people involved. Or is it something that can exist as a subset of my business and I can kind of dabble in it a little bit.

DeLisa Clift: [00:11:22] I think that government contracting could be what we consider as an addition to your business model and thinking about what that in addition to looks like. One of the main things that I would recommend for people to do is to do a SWOt analysis on their business to make sure that they understand what their strengths are, their weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats that exist for you as a small business. Looking at government contracting because it is a different monster altogether. You know, again, I’ll go back to the private client that, you know, you might be able to service in a in an easier way, whereas your government clients are going to be a little bit more invasive and it’s going to require a lot more of your attention when it comes to looking at your outcomes and your procedures and things of that nature. So I think that it should be an addition to and I think that it should actually take a little bit more of your attention than maybe your private clients do because of some of the regulatory compliances that you have to meet.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:12:28] And I would say, and I agree with Delisa you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket for sure, but it really depends on the industry and what you’re selling and the type of contracts you have. So I’ve had contracts that are highly intensive and take a lot of time and they’re larger and they have a lot of staff that you just need to spend more time depending on what services and things you’re delivering and the education services realm. If you want to work with any kind of public school district, you have to go in government contracting. You can’t just show up at a public school and sell your product the same way. So I think it depends on the industry and the area and the type of contracts you can have. Very you can have small ones, you can have very large ones that are very time intensive that you do need to focus a little bit more. But, you know, to your point, there’s a lot of compliance and requirements in terms of accounting, cybersecurity, you know, and data privacy issues that, you know, you might spend some extra time on getting getting together on that.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:37] Now, what does it like kind of your day look like when you’re working on a government contract? Is a day working on a government contract different than a day working on a client that isn’t a government, you know, part of the government Is there a different things you have to do, like you’ve mentioned, compliance and and I guess different types of reports and things like that. Is there kind of an action plan that you have for your government clients that you don’t for your non-government clients?

DeLisa Clift: [00:14:15] I can speak to that. Lee. Yeah, there are different things that the government clients might require that your private clients might not. Such as your outcome reporting, you know, your status, reporting on the project as you’re moving forward. And I can speak to the example of maybe a construction project where the construction project might go on for a period of a year or more. So you’re going to have different types of project management meetings throughout the process of that particular contract and to be able to understand and track where you are with with the progress of that project. So my private clients might not require those types of meetings on a periodic basis. They just want the outcome. So it could be a short term project for those private clients where some of the long term projects do require additional meeting and additional information to be presented to the contract holders.

Martha Brown: [00:15:19] May I offer from a secondary perspective? Here we because we are helping our customers meet goals that the transit agency has set forth. It might be 8% spending on DVD or WB or a combination of them. We’ve got much simpler reports than actually doing direct business with, let’s say, the federal government. I did that back in the 1990s. And there is there does tend to be maybe a little bit more paperwork, a little bit more reporting and stuff when you’re dealing directly with the feds. But when you’re in a secondary or tertiary position, you still do need to account for certain things which may just be validating the spending that the vendor that that the that the vendor that they’re working with is telling them that they paid you. So we’ve got to corroborate what they’re, what they’re saying so that everybody is kept honest. If they’re saying that they spent $150,000 in the last quarter and we only report 50, then they’re going to go and look at the at the prime and say know where is this discrepancy? So even secondary and tertiary government services or excuse me, people servicing governments on on those levels still do will be needing to do some reporting directly to the entity.

DeLisa Clift: [00:16:42] And I agree with Martha dearly because, you know, when she talks about prime contracting reporting and subcontracting reporting, one of the main things that comes to mind is the certified payrolls. You know, when there are projects and there are federal dollars that are involved and their certified payrolls that are required, not only does just the prime contractor have to have to submit those particular reports, but the subcontractor does too. That’s working on the project. So that is something that’s very different than what your private clients will require because of course they might not be dealing with contracts that are involving certified payroll requirements. So yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:21] Uh, do you all mind sharing a little bit about. Let’s start at the beginning. Like if I’m putting a proposal together, can you share some tips for writing a strong proposal or a strong capabilities statement for my firm? What are some kind of do’s and don’ts around that? Because that seems to be at the crux of getting, you know, winning any bid.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:17:43] Yeah, I can share having written it from the government sector and the private sector. First of all, utilize a lot of the resources that you have locally. Maybe that’s your, that’s your group, your procurement technical assistance group or other other people out there. Have someone look over your work or, you know, maybe that’s an editor that sometimes as a freelancer or someone on your staff too, because you you’re going to stare at this document for many, many hours. And you may miss things there, too. But I have kind of my my process, I guess, is I print everything out. I know that’s like a lot of paper, but having it in my hand to glance at over and over again is very helpful to me because that’s sometimes the tricky part in government contracting. There’s very specific rules and specifications with how you respond and you want to make sure you’re getting all of them there. So I’ve got like my highlighter and my pen and my Post-its and I’m like going through it. So I have my initial pass where I outline everything and I copy and paste the exact verbiage that’s used.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:18:40] And then I fill it in slowly and put the put it all together, usually pricings at the end because maybe your idea, you started writing it one way and then it changes you kind of like worked on it and you’re like, Maybe they want this and you consult with other people because you can interpret the same type of verbiage differently, but get on there and get that outline and get it printed, Get it looked at. Because so often maybe you only the Q&A time to ask questions of the contracting officer is only like a week. And I’ve had situations where I didn’t look at it soon enough and I had a question and the timeline was gone. So I was like, Well, I’m just going to have to guess. I have to do my best on what they want there. So at least getting that down. And then like a lot of that writing and I always do pricing very last because you just don’t know sometimes what you’re going to pitch until you wrote it down on a piece of paper.

DeLisa Clift: [00:19:30] Yeah, and I definitely agree with with Carrie with that. One of the very first things that I do, if I’m looking at a solicitation, is to figure out if I have enough time. I mean, that’s one of the main things that you run into when you don’t have enough time to prepare a successful response to a solicitation. So give yourself enough time. Make sure that you understand the scope of work that’s required. Make sure you understand the report, the actual set up for that reporting, for that solicitation. What does that look like? Is it 12 point font that you’re going to need to make sure that it includes? Is it a limited number of pages? What does your solicitation response, what does it need to look like? Who does it need to go to? How soon does it need to get to them? And again, what Carrie said, what is the time frame that you have to ask questions for clarity regarding the scope? And one of the things that I think that a lot of companies can do to shorten the window is, you know, what your capability is for your company so you know what your team looks like, You know exactly what your service is, what your value proposition is, what you’re going to provide. Create a template that contains all of that information on your company first. Because what that does, that helps you to then drill down and focus on your response to just the scope. If you have your template for your business and what your business offers, it’s going to shorten the window of time that you’re going to need to devote to putting that together. If you already have it in existence somewhere, then put that together with your response to the scope and then be able to have enough time to submit it. So that’s one of the things that I think that company can utilize to help to them to be more successful in submitting a successful bid.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:27] Now, you mentioned the opportunity to ask questions at some point. Is that something that you should really take advantage of and make sure that that way you’re at least having a conversation with somebody? That’s part of the decision making process and a subset of asking questions. Is there room to negotiate where, you know, to get clarity around the outcome they desire, but also maybe put forth an alternate solution or something that wasn’t in the RFP, but maybe you think could be helpful.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:22:00] Yeah, I think of sometimes as RRSPs is like from a game of telephone and you have the content expert or the person that’s actually doing the thing, passing it on to various different people, to a contracting officer. And, and some of the process, especially in the federal, could be years from the idea and the need to the actual solicitation comes out. So it’s gone through many hands and so you might have someone that’s written the RFP that doesn’t necessarily have the content expertise and like logistics, like with Martha does or anything there that they don’t they don’t know. They don’t know what they don’t know. And they might write it a certain way that can be confusing. So by benefit of one benefit of asking the questions is it might clue in to the contracting officer, Oh, this doesn’t make sense. Like or maybe this is unrealistic or we need to rephrase that. So often after the question and answer period, you’ll have an amendment to the solicitation where they realize they they fix things based on what people people said. Even if you don’t always apply for it, it can also be a potential way to market your, you know, your company like, hey, you know, we’re out here just, you know, we’re out here, we do this, maybe we’re not going to respond to this one, but here we are. So it’s a good thing to pretty much always, always do if you can.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:17] And Martha, has that been your experience?

Martha Brown: [00:23:20] Well, I don’t do I don’t do any official proposals to government entities. Ours are directly to our our customers on the private sector. So I don’t I don’t get involved in doing any of the government responding to any of the government RFPs.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:41] Because you’re because you’re a secondary. And so they’re already answering all the questions and they’re just hiring you to to just execute on something that’s within the the thing that they bid on and won.

Martha Brown: [00:23:53] Correct. Correct. At the we we start working a few years before the project is supposed to start because by then they’ve got the order for the passenger railcar. So we start looking at pricing then directly to the customer. And then they use our figures to work into the budget for the proposal that they ultimately give to the transit agencies.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:17] Now as part of the process, how important is kind of following up and staying connected to the decision makers, or is it something that you just put your proposal in and then you just sit back and wait?

Martha Brown: [00:24:32] No, we’re in daily contact with them have been since 1994. So we’ve got our finger on on the pulse. And we keep updated, too. I mean, we’re in the industry, so we read publications that are pertinent, that are relative to the industries that we service so we know what what kind of other projects are going to be coming up for other like passenger railcar orders throughout the country. So we keep our finger on the pulse of the industry in general and definitely with the customer. Yeah, we’ve got timelines and things like Covid really messed things up a few years ago with the all manufacturing, everything got kind of pushed, pushed out some of this stuff like a year and a half to two years started later, but that meant that the other stuff dragged on a little longer. So I never even had to lay anybody off.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:24] Now, Delisa is is follow up important as part of your daily work when you’re working in this space?

DeLisa Clift: [00:25:34] Follow up is important in the terms of making sure that you’re asking the questions while there is question and answer time available. Now, after the question and answer, time is over. Then, of course, you can’t communicate in those clarifying questions anymore. But one of the things that you can do is, you know, you want to stay engaged with whatever entity within the government that you’re pursuing opportunities with. You want to stay in connections with them. So what does that look like? That looks like if they are hosting industry days, you’re showing up for those industry days. If they’re having some type of informational session, then you’re showing up for those informational sessions because just like in any other form of business, people do business with people they know they like and they trust. So how are they going to know who you are if you’re not showing up for industry days and you’re not participating in information sessions or you’re not showing up for mandatory or non mandatory pre-bid or pre-proposal conferences. So I think that just constant communication, whether it’s through the life span of a solicitation or not, is important for you to stay in connection with that particular entity that you’re looking to do business with, not just to say that you’re there, but you’ve done research on that particular entity and you know exactly what they buy, how often they buy it to make sure that they’re purchasing what you’re selling. So I think that, you know, knowing your customer is is important. So keeping that open communication line is vitally important to the success of your business with that entity.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:13] And Kerry? Is that what you do, too? You attend industry events.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:27:18] Yeah. Industry specific ones. A lot of it’s relationship building because, you know, by the time the RFP comes out, it’s like the tip of the iceberg, right? There could be years of processes before the actual solicitation is there, you know, conversations about the need, getting the funding, understanding how do we tailor those needs to the correct solicitation? And then finally, the solicitation is out there. So a lot of it is like, yeah, you’re talking to someone for two years and then finally the RFP comes out because it takes that long for the funding cycle to go through. So if you want to go into government contracting, patience is a virtue for sure.

DeLisa Clift: [00:27:55] Yeah. And let me piggyback off of what Carrie just said. As far as, you know, that lifetime of how long it takes that RFP to come out. One of the main things that you can stay engaged with, there are a lot of entities that will submit an RFP, a request for information. When those requests for information come out to your email, be responsive to those because they’re trying to determine whether or not there are enough certified companies that are in the small business sector where there is a woman owned small business, a veteran owned small business or a service disabled, veteran owned small business, or even an ADA. Make sure that you’re responding to those RFIs because, again, what Carrie said is that they’re trying to build a directory of whether or not there are small businesses in those particular set asides to set those particular projects aside. So staying aware of what those look like when they come in and what they’re asking for and the turnaround time regarding your response to those RFIs are important because it helps to build what that RFP looks like when it does hit the ground, you know, for the public to respond to.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:06] Now, how long does it take to get kind of a first contract? Is it something that in your head you should be imagining? Oh, you better commit to a year before you’re going to get anything? Or is this something that can happen in 90 days? Like what’s kind of the time frame if you’re kind of patiently submitting proposals?

DeLisa Clift: [00:29:30] Lee That’s an interesting question because I’ve seen companies go into the bidding process and they have never won a contract a day in their lives, and they could have submitted the first solicitation response and they are awarded the contract. And then I’ve seen others that have submitted, you know, various ones over years and still have not won their first one. So I just think it depends on what, you know, what type of contracts they’re going after and just the overall. I guess just the overall determination of what that organization needs and what you’re providing for them. So I think that it varies. There’s no rhyme or reason as far as a time timeframe goes.

Lee Kantor: [00:30:23] Now. Like, go ahead. I’m sorry. You go ahead.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:30:26] Yeah, Like Lisa said, I think it depends on the industry and what area you’re particularly competing in. But it is it is a I call it a catch 22 because you want you need a pass performance to apply for a bid and get a contract. But you often need a contract before you can apply and get the bid. So it’s just kind of an interesting situation. So, you know, in the beginning for us, I just I pursued smaller things on a local area to kind of build it up for the larger piece. But at the same time, I was I was building things up. I was applying for things that were way over my head to gain the experience of it because that was something I was advised to by procurement specialists, is that, you know, this can be a marketing tool. You get better every time you write a solicitation. Yes, you die a little inside. You do it time. You do it. I know. And you’re exhausted by the end of it. But by the time, you know, it took some time for me, I mean, it definitely was definitely was more than 90 days. Lee on that one. But through that time period, I got a lot better. And we build that cast performance. And then then it was then it was go time.

DeLisa Clift: [00:31:32] Yeah. And don’t forget that your past performance can live in the private sector space as well. That counts for for past performance as well. Because when we entered into the government space, I had not had the first government contract. All of my past performance was in the private sector space. And so that does count for your past performance as you’re looking into government contracting as well. You just have to make sure that you’re wording it in a way to where it could be applicable in that space as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:32:10] Are there kind of go to certifications that you recommend people having.

Martha Brown: [00:32:18] Um, can I speak to that a little bit from my perspective? Um, for the audience, especially Lee look at, look at what service goods or services that you are trying to sell and who might be buying them. Maybe it’s a school district and go to them. Maybe it’s the airport authority, like maybe it’s the transit agencies, other people. It might be the Department of Transportation for roads and bridges and stuff like that. It just depends. Go to them, as Carrie had mentioned, is a really, really good resource. Make make your local Small Business Administration people, your friends, they’ll help you find the correct entities to go to, how to how to get certified. Whether it’s a an MVP, a WB, a VB, get as many certifications as you can in the appropriate entities, and that way you’re going to show up on those rosters. We’ve picked up a lot of business. It’s not it’s not huge business, but it’s a lot of small accounts because we are listed on rosters for DDE or WB certification in certain transit agencies and they need to they need to move some freight and and meet their goals. So that’s that’s icing on the cake on top of what we do as as our as our base. But look at look at the entities that that your customers are are are dealing with on a government basis and get the certifications through those agencies and departments.

DeLisa Clift: [00:33:58] Yeah, and I agree with Martha Lee. One of the main things that I recommend for people to look at is to find the entity that you are looking to do business with in the federal in the government space, whether it’s federal, state or local, and find out what certification are they looking for, because can you get certified in all the certifying vehicles? You can, but should you? You probably should not. No, because I think yeah, because I think that, you know, when we start looking at certification, you have to be intentional. And what’s your why? You know, what’s your why in that certification? Are you going to take that certification and leverage it to actually create another revenue stream for your business? So think about it from that perspective. Look at what entity you want to do business with. Find out what certification are they looking for, and then go after that certification because we realize that the certification process is very daunting, right? It’s very daunting and it can be very intrusive. So you want to make sure that you’re intentional about obtaining the right certification to get into the entity that you want to get into from a government perspective.

Martha Brown: [00:35:09] Absolutely. And the thing is, you also will be having to recertify usually on an annual basis. And every entity does things different. Many of them have got a similar online format, but some of them still do them by paper, believe it or not. So and you do have to answer a question on every single one that says in response to if you’ve been decertified. So that means whether you’re doing it by yourself because you no longer wish to have certification in that entity and people will look at that because they are. Luckily, there are people who are policing because there has been a history of such rampant fraud in women, business cetera. Et cetera. Certifications. So they are they are looking at the applications very carefully. So it’s better to have as many as you need and then look hard like like Julissa said, to look hard to see if you need that other one and what value that’s going to bring to you. Because once you set your foot in the stream, you’re there and you’ve got to recertify every year. Like I said, I’ve got 20 some right now. So it can be a daunting task to even do the recertifications.

Lee Kantor: [00:36:27] Now, earlier we talked about the importance of research. Are there some go to sites that you’re kind of lean on mostly in this space? There are websites that you go to check for opportunities or for help in the government contracting space.

DeLisa Clift: [00:36:50] Certainly. So one of the main websites that I use is sam.gov. If you’re looking for procurement opportunities, Sam.gov is a great resource. If you’re looking to find out some of the projected opportunities that are coming out in federal government space, you have acquisition.gov. That is another website that you can actually peruse if you’re looking to find out additional information about the different types of small businesses certifications and what the requirements are and how they benefit you. You can go to sba.gov, which they house a lot of those your local tax. If you find Google for P-Tech and find the local P-Tech in your area, they can help you with small business development. Looking at government contracting, they can even help you to create a capability statement along with helping to review solicitations that you’re you want to respond to. I think that that is a good website to go to as well.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:37:53] And and those are some really great websites and I don’t have like a lot more to add except I did I do want to add something I learned when you get up on sam.gov your your information is out there for the world to see. And I’ve got like seven seven messages in my junk mail and probably two voicemails telling me are are your Sam thing is going to expire, give us money. So there’s there is kind of a cottage industry of capitalizing on how complicated government contracting can be and all of those terms. Right? Like, you know, the cage code, your Duns number, your, you know, your WPA or whatever. And they’re capitalizing on people, not understanding what that means and sending these urgent emails that things are going to expire and but we can fix it. And so I’m not saying that that all of them are scammy, but I’ve gotten a lot of scam emails of things that were very free from tech that did it myself. And so I would just caution, as you you kind of go out there, utilize a lot of the local resources that you have for your state and local and county government and some of the things that Delisa mentions. But if you get like strongly worded, freaking out voicemails or emails, you really should avoid them. They’re trying to capitalize on this fear, this misunderstanding and lack and and kind of like this, this urgency that that you really don’t need to pay.

DeLisa Clift: [00:39:11] That’s a great point, Carrie.

Martha Brown: [00:39:14] Scary indeed.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:15] Does it cost money to bid? Like should it ever cost money? So if somebody’s saying I can, you know, have you cut the line in a bid but you pay me, that’s probably a scam because it doesn’t cost money to bid.

DeLisa Clift: [00:39:29] Lee, That is interesting that you said that. I was here doing a workshop today and someone mentioned the fact that, Hey, look, someone has guaranteed me that they could get me a contract. And I said, okay, are they decision makers? Because how can someone guarantee that they can get you a contract or help you to cut in line for a contract opportunity if they’re not in a decision making role? So I think that when, you know, you’re played with those types of telephone calls and emails, be very careful. You just like what Kerry said earlier, you know, there is a lot of fraudulent companies, unfortunately, that prey on people that are, you know, very interested in going to government contracting. And they don’t know that there are some things that they can do for themselves for free. One of the main things that I talked about was to make sure that you have a template of what your company’s capabilities are to start off. And I think that that by itself will help you to reduce the time that you’re going to devote to to creating a response to a solicitation. And utilizing, like Kerry said earlier, a lot of your local resources that will provide free information if you get to that point where you need to start paying for someone to write a proposal for you, then, you know, just evaluate where you are, evaluate where you are and see how you can do it on your for yourself. It might take you a little bit longer time, but again, you put in the work and you’ll be more grateful for it that you’ve saved yourself some money.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:41:00] And utilize spam filters there because the other stuff is publicly available. If you’re on these lists, your certification list or these procurement lists or contracting lists, you have your information there. And that’s something that they can, you know, get that data and and try to make you spend more money than you need to.

Speaker6: [00:41:19] For.

Martha Brown: [00:41:19] Only $75. We’ll help you with your sam.gov registration.

Lee Kantor: [00:41:26] Now, as we’re kind of nearing the end here, is there a piece of advice that you can share to somebody new at this, maybe something you wish you knew when you started out? Um, why don’t we go around the horn to Lisa?

DeLisa Clift: [00:41:42] Yeah, there’s two things. Conduct the SWOt analysis on your business to make sure that your business has everything that it needs to be successful. Information, resources, people and money. Resources. That’s the first thing. The second thing is be very intentional about your approach to government contracting. Know who your government contract client is. Know what they buy. Know if they’re buying what you’re selling, and be intentional about creating a pathway to build relationships within that particular entity to ensure that you’re going to be successful there.

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:42:20] Kerry. I would add on pricing, I’ve learned a lot through that. It’s a whole it’s an art and a science developing a pricing proposal. You have to be a bit of a fortune teller and you know, you find this line with pricing. And so I know that I’ve learned a lot through there. I mean, and one thing that I would suggest is get some expert advice and overestimate rather than underestimate. Because, I mean, the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of inflationary costs and we’ve been in fixed price contracts. And that is stressful for a business. That’s been stressful for me personally, and there’s not a lot you can do in those situations. And these are just kind of some weird years, the last couple years with inflation of 9% or what. But you kind of have to sometimes do your best when you’re writing out something that could last for five years that really may be over or like overestimate how much you need and really try to do your best to think ahead because yeah, government contracting, you can be locked into something and the world and the life changes and you got to have those contingency plans.

Speaker6: [00:43:23] Martha.

Martha Brown: [00:43:26] Thank you, Lee. Um, speaking still from the secondary or tertiary service sector. Follow. Follow the contracts. Keep up on the industry, read the publications, go to the events. Know what sort of things are being planned in your industry, whether it’s it’s building or selling or trends in your market or whatever. Find out what’s going on and what is being planned. Follow those who keep winning the contracts. Get your audience with them and let them know that you’ve got goods or services that will help them when they get the contract. So follow the money.

Lee Kantor: [00:44:08] And that’s an important point because since this is the government, everything’s kind of a public record, right? You can see who the winner was. You can see their bid. There’s a lot of learning that’s available out there if you know where to look.

Martha Brown: [00:44:24] Exactly. Exactly. Find out who got the contract for Atlanta. Marta is awarded a big contract about a year and a half ago to a company that that heretofore had not been servicing. Um, yeah, there was always somebody new coming in. Follow them.

Lee Kantor: [00:44:44] So where do you go to find those kind of winning bids or is there a lot of different places to look depending on the agency?

Martha Brown: [00:44:52] Well, for me, we only really serve as a passenger rail car manufacturing sector. So there is a trade publication that that I read religiously that lets me know what’s coming down the pike, what they’re talking about. Maybe in Sacramento, they’re talking about maybe adding rail lines or busses or something like that. Follow your industry, find out what you’re good at and what kind of what kind of companies you like to serve. In the 90s, we serviced a lot of iron and steel manufacturers in northwest Pennsylvania. One of them was selling some finished steel products to the US government. We were doing government work then for about five years we were actually billing the federal government. That’s why I decided I was like, I don’t really want to do that anymore. But they were selling to the Department of Defense. They were just iron and steel rings. But find out who your customers are dealing with with the government.

Lee Kantor: [00:45:56] All right, good stuff. Now, before we wrap, I want to make sure we get everybody’s information out there. Delisa If somebody wants to learn more about your firm, is there a website that you can point them?

DeLisa Clift: [00:46:09] Yes, you can find us at Global Best strategies.com or you can find us at w-w-w dot D Strategic Bizco.

Lee Kantor: [00:46:24] And then who’s your ideal customer? Delisa.

DeLisa Clift: [00:46:28] Ideal customers include both private and public clients. Our private clients are those that have been in business for at least 2 to 3 years and that have already gotten traction providing services in the public sector and that feel like they’re ready to move into the government contracting space. And for our public clients are those individuals that are looking to stand up supplier diversity programs or need support in those particular program areas. That provides training for local small businesses and connecting the dots to potential contractors that could actually perform on their particular projects.

Lee Kantor: [00:47:08] Carrie, what’s the best way to get a hold of you website?

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead: [00:47:12] Hi, we’re with Digital Responsibility and that’s response. And there’s a hyphen, ability, ability and that word response hyphen, ability dot net. And you can also reach us at Digital Hyphen. Parenting.com We provide services for students, parents and teachers, and my ideal client would probably be like a maybe a state agency working in areas of education or mental or health or social services or a school district. We work with a lot of school districts as well. Thanks for having me, Lee and Martha.

Martha Brown: [00:47:47] Thanks, Lee. My ideal client is and remains passenger rail car manufacturers and their affiliated networks. Those that make the components that go into the composition of the passenger rail cars. Um, and my website is w-w-w dot advantage brokerage corp corp.com. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:48:14] Well, thank you all for participating. You’re each doing important work and we appreciate you for taking part in this and all that you do. This is Lee Kantor for Dr. Pamela Williamson. We will see you all next time on Women in Motion.