 Hey, do you have a proposal that you're looking at, found something in FBO that you think might make sense and you're not really sure where to start? You saw some project and you said, hey, look, I think I can do this project. If you want to know where to start when you first pull down a solicitation or proposal, I'm going to tell you in this upcoming video, we're going to talk about today, starting with section L, which is your instructions and conditions and notes to officers and section M, your evaluation factors for award. So again, we want to tell you today how to review those two sections and make it a determination whether or not this is a go or no go, and if there's something that you want to pursue. All right, so listen, let's jump over to big screen and get started right now. All right, welcome over here to the big screen. I pulled up a couple of projects off FBO, the infamous FBO that you guys always like to go to. This one's canceled, but it doesn't matter because the purpose is to grab the information. Here's another project that one of my potential students was looking at. And so I just wanted to address some issues that I see when people submitting proposals. First and foremost, let me grab this FBO one. Where did it go? All right, so we're here on FBO and we're looking at this particular project for base operation and support facility investment and facility management services at Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island. On the right hand side, you'll see all the files, the solicitation numbers, and what I did was I clicked here, the solicitation, I pulled it up, and I've got it over here on the right side of the screen for you guys to see. This is the format in which the majority of solicitations follow, and we talk about that in another video. But the important part, what I always like to stress to people before you get started and you want to assess whether or not this is something that you can do or that you should do or pursue is you go straight to the section L, which is Instruction Conditions and Notice of Offers, and section M Evaluation Factors for Award. Those two sections will give you the important information to know what are the requirements, how many people you need, what are the skill sets that you need, also what are they looking for in terms of past performance and past experience. Those are really key elements in helping you to determine, first of all, if you're eligible to participate, and second of all, if you, not only if you're eligible, but do you have the necessary requirements, the facility clearances, the backgrounds, do you have all of the things that they're looking for in order to be deemed a successful awardee of this particular project? And so what I always tell people and what we did with my team is I would teach my team, okay, if we identify a project that we like here in FBO, then the very first thing that we do is we go down and we look at the solicitation, we look at the Evaluation Factors for Award, and then Instructions and Notice of Offers to determine whether or not this is something we should pursue. So everyone out there, before you jump into getting pricing and getting proposals and excited about a particular solicitation, first let's look at sections L and section M before we get started. And some other particular projects like here on this one, they call it, I'll pull it up here, they call it, it's under section E for Instructions for Bids Submission. If you guys can see that, let me zoom in a little bit. All right, see, it's called Instructions for Bids Submission. Very the same thing, but again, you want to make sure that you meet the requirements. So for example, let's look at this shredding one since I've got it pulled up on the screen here. If you were interested in this particular solicitation, obviously it says here Department of Veteran Affairs, Washington, right? The first thing is it says it's a set aside for Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses. So if you're not a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business, you are not eligible to participate, I would not even bother with it. The second thing is here, under Instructions for Bids Submission, you see where it says, let's talk about it. So number one is your offer form, number two is your pricing, number three is your representations, number four is the actual bid. And then number five shows you this evidence of successful past performance. And this is where a lot of people get caught up. This is where a lot of people make their mistakes because they come to me and again, I'm not saying when I say make their mistakes, sometimes people assume, make assumptions that are not true, whether it be in their favor or whether it be against them, right? So sometimes people say to me, I get this question a lot. Eric, do I have to have past performance experience with the government itself? And so here it will let you know if government past performance experience is required, or if just regular past performance or experience from being a 1099 or a subcontractor or in a private sector qualifies. So this is not something that you have to ask me. This is something that's clearly written or stated inside of the bid request form. And if it's not, it's something that you can easily send an RFI to the contracting official and making sure that that question gets answered. So let's take a look here where it says, number five, evidence of successful past performance. So if you were going to bid this particular project for shredding, right, the solicitation number, first and foremost, we have to know that you've got to be a veteran of a small business, right, to qualify. That's number one. Second thing, successful past performance. When it says identify any federal, state, local government contracts, as well as any private commercial contracts. Do you guys see that? Zoom in a little bit. See here, identify any federal, state, and local contracts, as well as private contracts of scope and size were ongoing, completed in the past two years, include the following information. So again, when people call me and they ask me or not call me, but they email me and they say, Eric, does a private sector experience qualify here for this particular solicitation? It's eligible. Now also people ask, well, Eric, what if I did it 10 years ago? Well, apparently it says here in the past two years. So anything that you did 10 year ago will not qualify. So now it says list the company name and address type of services performed, the name, telephone number, email address, responsible individuals who had first hand knowledge of performance relative to the same type of services you want to put in there, the people that you dealt with. Now again, well, Eric, if the contracting officer is no longer there, if the end, it's okay because it says name of individuals had first hand knowledge. So that could be a superintendent, that could be a project manager, that could be a team lead. Again, this pretty much does not exclude anyone. It allows anyone who is actually out there physically, whether it be the janitor or the may, I mean, it allows anyone to physically witness you doing this type of task to have their name and number put down on here. Date of contract performance and the total value of the contract, which includes all change orders. This to me is pretty straightforward and spelling out exactly what they're looking for here. Now let's go a little bit further. Past performance is one indicator of your ability to perform the contract successfully. Current and relevant information, source of information, context of data, all of this stuff as well is important. Offerers may provide information on problems encountered on identified contracts and offers corrective action. They go much into this information as well as other information obtained from sources when evaluating offers performance. What they mean by this, this is actually a very good section. A lot of people skip over this and so what it means is if you had any particular problems on the job, I know it's in our human nature to hide them. But what the government wants to know is, and I see this on a lot of proposals now coming out, is they want to see how are you able to think outside the box or creatively to work through a potential solution for a problem that necessarily that you created, but a problem that you encounter experience that maybe the fact of your past performance will not indicate that. So let me give you an example. I was working on a project and we were building a building for the US Army Corps of Engineers. Well on my write up, if I write, well we built a building that was 65 feet. It was a pre-internet metal building with insulated metal panels. We did all the interior and the finishing to fit out. It doesn't tell you about any of the challenges that we had in that job. So an example of some of the challenges that we had in that job where this says problems is when we'd start doing the building, it was in winter. And so when it was in the winter time, the ground would freeze up in Kansas and then when when the sun would come out, it would then turn the ice into water and then the water would get into the soil would turn it to mud. So now we're operating machinery in either frozen ground, frozen dirt, right, which you can't drive machinery on because we're lifting up, you know, tons of actual materials and air. So we can't drive the machinery over the ice or we were driving machinery and mud, which makes the machinery unleveled. So again, if you're lifting up heavy loads, we're talking about tons and tons of actual steel going up in the air. Then now when the machine is a little bit uneven, then the machine stops vibrating to lift the load up. All right. The other thing that we experienced in that job, an example of a unusual site condition or problem was that there was a little like river stream on the side of the building. So on the west side of the building, there was this river that we could not, we could not reroute it. We could not cover it up. We could do anything with it. So our machines had to be on the opposite side in a parking lot away from the actual building. So then now we had to get machines that were longer because if you take like a triangle and you take the distance, right? Let me show it to you. So now this machine, I'm going to go over this river and we extend out even further to get to the actual building itself. So those are things, examples of external situations, conditions, problems that you experienced that you not necessarily will be indicated in a write up per se of, you know, the job, how much it was, whose person knows, you know, and the reason why they want to know this information why they know that their job is not perfect. And they already understand that they may experience some challenges on their particular project by you indicating that how you overcame a challenge or situation. There may be an instance in their particular solicitation where that particular instance may arise because again, they know the site, the conditions better than you do. By you writing or explaining how you overcame these other scenarios, it may give them ideas on how someone like yourself could also resolve similar like issues on their particular project. Makes sense? So what, you know, what I tell people is this, you know, don't just do the bare minimum, you know, the bare minimum is going to make you eligible. But if you go over and above, then it demonstrates your ability to think, it demonstrates your ability to problem solve and to, and that you actually have the, you actually have the ability to help the government see beyond, you know, what's inside the frame, right? So they always say you can't see the picture if you're in the frame. So it helps the government to be able to extract that. Okay, this guy has the wherewithal to come up with a solution regardless of whatever the existing condition is of this particular job. So, you know, if you do have something experienced in nature related to a problem or situation encounter, make sure that you put that in there. That's going to give you much more points than the guy who just lists his past performance. It says here offers are no relevant past performance or information is unavailable, should not be evaluated favorably or unfavorable in the past performance. However, the bid and offer with no relevant past performance may not represent the most advantageous bid to the government. So they're not saying that you're going to be disqualified. But again, if someone else shows up that has past performance, you, it's pretty much you've wasted your time. So again, like I said, you want to start off with this for me is a great place that if I was looking at this particular proposal or the solicitation, I would start here. And if I don't have two years past performance experience, I will move on to the next thing. With that said, let's look at this other one base operations here. This is the base operation for support at Newport Naval. This was canceled, but I just thought it was a great particular solicitation like that. And the reason why I was aware of it because it's something that we actually looked at. If we scroll down to section L and M. So we get past all the price stuff. I know it's a long document. All right, here we go. Section L instruction offers contract proposal certification. Alright, so it says here contractor is to certify and writing the proposal warrants in this proposal that you limit to your approach to staffing methodology work plans will meet performance objectives set forth in this criteria that you you're not excused from meeting such a performance objective, you understand you bear all the costs and performance associated with adopting acceptable additional and alternative means or methods of meeting the performance objective tells you about inquiries who you should be responding to 10 days before the proposal to do tells you how they actually get rid of your proposals. This tells you the site visit the date time. How do you request information to get on access on the base gives you the paperwork that you need. Alright, here we go. So the instructional office competitive acquisition, definition, amendment solicitation submission modification, the first page of the proposal must show tells you solicitation number name address, office are responsible for submitting proposals to the government's designated tells you how tells you if there's any modifications, tells you if it's late, what to do, tells you maybe with Tron mark each sheet of data it wishes to restrict with the following legend use or disclosure of the data contained the sheet is subject to the restriction title page or proposal. Alright, so here as we scroll down further tells you the content of your proposals says your non cost price factors. So it says non cost price factors binder. So offer social meant one mark original and two copies in each separate three ring binder with the following characteristics. If you do not submit three binders, you're going to be disqualified, period. Don't submit three binders, you're going to be disqualified. So again, it tells you here what the what they're looking for. Number one, you got to be eight and a half by 11 format. Don't submit 12 point aerial or times Roman font, 100 page limit inclusive of charge forms, documentation response, solicitation request, pages sequentially numbered. Again, you know, for me, I like this because there's no confusion on what you need to do. A lot of times when they don't spell out exactly what they want, people submit different styles, different formats, different documents. You know, for me, this is great because the government's telling exactly what they want, how they want it to look, and how many pages they so you can't make a mistake. So I find it hard or difficult for people that make mistakes because they're they're spelling out exactly what they're looking for. You just have to follow the instructions. Include a cover page with the contract number, title, prime name, address, phone number, facts, Dunn's cage code, POC, phone, email address. Exclude only information, response, the factors one, two, three and four separate by tabs applicable. You know what they're saying here? They're telling you do not give me a bunch of fluff about your company was founded in 1803 by the George Bush's seniors, fathers, grandfathers, cousins, uncle, and you went married by the Kennedy's house. They don't care about that stuff. Only answered the questions. A lot of, and again, you know, we have this problem even within people who I consult with their team send me stuff that tells me that they're working on a project at this particular building. The building itself is a world-renowned arts classic center. It's going to be 68 stories. It's going to be the first of its kind in the city of Seattle, Washington. It's going to be the highest sky rise on record. It's going to have the tallest peaks and the highest. They don't care about that stuff. What did you do in that particular building? Did you build the walls? Did you put the doors in? Did you paint the building? Did you pour the concrete? Did you put in the elevator? Did you put in the stairs? They don't care. It's a world-renowned first class. None of that stuff. So again, when they're saying here the information only in response to the factors one, two, three, and four, that's what you should be putting down here. Provided approved SBA-JV agreement or SBA Metropolitan JV agreement if applicable. So people, again, I get this question from people Eric about JVs and SBA Metropolitan JV agreements. These are formats that the government clearly recognizes. These are the new for right now in this particular era. This is how the government seems or deems resolving the issue of bringing more small businesses into this marketplace. They figured out that they want to give out these large projects, but at the same time help service small businesses. So this is their solution in this particular time of how they're going to be serving small businesses, but yet getting the large products accomplished. So again, if you are not aware how JV works or approve mentorship program works, go back and watch some of our other videos. Provide attachment J-12 contract self-performance certification on subcontracting in accordance with the factor one management approach. They want an electronic copy of your technical proposal on a CD-ROM. So again, these things they want in PDF and PDF file on a CD-ROM. Make sure you turn that in. So again, if you don't submit three binders, you don't submit a CD-ROM, any one of those things that you didn't do, if you submit two binders, we submit three binders in no CD or, you know, if you went over 102 pages, what I've seen is we'll go back up to that. Some contracting officials have told me if you submit 102 pages, they'll take the last two pages and throw them in the garbage. They don't care what it says. Some other people say that they'll just take out two pages arbitrarily and throw those in a trash. So these people are, they're like, they're black and white, you know, what it says zeros and ones, X's and O's, that's it. There's just no gray area. So if you submit 110 pages, if they grab the last 10 and throw them out, that might be your most important stuff that you're talking about. Again, follow the format, follow the lay of the law. Do the things that they ask for, because again, I know a lot of people have been disqualified for really silly stuff. All right, your technical proposal should include the following items. So again, it talks about what you should be including your management approach, right? Phase one transition plan, determine your ability to provide key personnel accordance with the RP sections. And I'm not going to go into all of this stuff. Factor two, recent relevant experience of the firm, all right, tells you submit one and a maximum of the five relevant projects of similar size scope and complexity to the work requirements. And it tells you what's the size 700,000 are greater for recurring services. Again, one up to five, don't give them six, don't give them 10, don't give them zero. All right, it tells you the touch of experience from is mandatory and shall be used in submitting project information. You don't submit that you might as well have not done this at all. As or above to be deemed acceptable under this factor, you must be the prime on at least one relevant project scope and complexity. If you do not have one relevant project in which you were the prime, skip this, go to something else, or bring on a team member who has been the prime and who can help you meet that criteria. Again, they said that JV and Mentor Projet was acceptable format, put together a JV and Mentor Projet team, now you're eligible. Factor number three is safety. You're looking at your ER, if you don't know your EMR ratings, you probably shouldn't be bidding this. The company that I work for EMR ratings a factor 0.69. I know this stuff. I know my company, technical approach for safety, factor for past performance, and says the prime contractor will not be found except on the basis of the subcontractors past performance. Sorry, guys, some projects, some solicitations, you can others you can't. That's why these things are bold and outline underline, because this is important. If a completed C parts evaluation is available, it should be submitted with your proposal. If there's not a C parts evaluation, then they got to fill out a past performance questionnaire and offer shall not submit a past form questionnaire when a completed C parts is available. Make sense. And then price proposal. Now solicitation requirements, it tells you exhibits A through E copies of your reps and SERPs and proof of SAM registration. So you notice that here, unlike some of the other ones that we discussed, this talks about your copy of your reps and SERPs and proof of registration and SAM system for award management, SAM. So on most of the times, it will say you can provide your reps and SERPs or SAM and this particular case, they want both. So the difference between AND and OR makes a big difference. That's huge, especially terms of legal. Now just to provide a hard copy of proposals, you just met one non-rewriteable CD with pricing information. And here we go. So remember, I told you there's two things that you always got to look for. This is the second one. Evaluation factors for award, the basis for award. And it tells you here, they're looking at factors one, two, three, and four. It tells you the basis for the evaluation, which one is important. It says the importance of price will increase if the offer is non-cost, price proposals are considerably, essentially equal in terms of overall quality of the price of so high, sitting diminished the value of the non-conservative superior to government. So again, the, your relevance of the actual non-cost price per factors is one, two, and three. They are all of equal importance to each other. And when combined are equal importance to the past performance, confidence assessment rating determined by evaluation factor number four. So again, if you've got to get through one, two, and three, they're all the same. And then number four factor when compared to them. And again, it tells you all the stuff here. It tells you how do they rate this. This is instrumental because if you don't have something on here, then it's going to weigh yourself down. And again, you mean you might as well consider yourself eligible. And again, going through all this stuff, it tells you exactly what you need to know to determine whether or not that this thing makes sense for you. So again, without going into all the details of it all, you see here on the screen basically how you should be looking at that. Now, so one of the things that I mentioned earlier was about the reps and search. So in this particular instance, they wanted the reps and search and the same. And most instances, they want one of the other, let's take a look at this particular solicitation and then we're going to sign out. Okay, here. So on this particular solicitation, it looks like they kind of like blended everything together. So it says here, the offer shall complete. Let's zoom in. Offer shall complete only paragraph B of this provision. If the offer has completed, the end of reps and search, like if the offer had and Sam access to the government, if the offer is not completely interrupts and search, offer shall complete only paragraph C through you. So again, it says here clearly, you only need to do paragraph B, if you've got your registration and Sam, which again, in order to bid, you got to be in Sam. So kind of what really to me doesn't really, this is like an old format. But again, we got to follow the process and procedures. So again, if you already registered in Sam, you only need to complete paragraph B. If you're not registered, or you haven't done your end of reps and search in Sam, you've got to complete C through you. So that shows the difference between some of the solicitations and whether or not you need to submit the reps and search or exclude the reps and search. All right, so that summarizes essentially one of the, what I was telling you earlier about how you determine whether or not you should be pursuing an opportunity, spending your time and effort or starting to bring people on. Hope this helps so much. We'll see you next time. Hey guys, how was that video? Did you enjoy that lesson today? Listen, again, like I stressed in the video, you want to look at the two sections L and M when making a determination, whether or not you want to proceed with a particular solicitation. This information is something that I share with all of my teams, whether you're a consultant client of mine, or whether you're a student of mine, I let everyone know, hey, listen, before you decide on whether or not to proceed with an opportunity, go to sections L and sections M first. I hope that I was able to clarify some things in this video. As always, thanks for watching us here at ScoreContracts.com. Please, please, please, leave your feedback. 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