 Hey, welcome. Welcome. Welcome everyone. Welcome to today's session. Happy Monday to you. Let's get our week cranking Before we get started, let me know who's out there today Today's lesson. We're going to discuss the SBA subnet the US Small Business Administration subcontracting network subnet website and so that's what we're talking about today's lesson and You know what happens is I'm always always always always inspired by People like yourself out there. So you are the ones that inspire the content You are the ones that give me the incentives and give me the ideas for what content we're going to talk about next and so today's lesson We're discussing the SBA subcontract network because this particular network in particular has been Brought to my attention by some of my students as an avenue for breaking the federal contracting And so I just want to discuss that and also let people know that we did have on our website I guess from the SBA. So if you are like the 50% of people are going to click off of this I want to kind of go over an overview within the next few minutes So that that way if you decide to click off of this You will have the most pertinent information and so just for the set the tone for today's conversation We're discussing the SBA's website subcontracting network. My podcast guest Angela Terry interview number 28 Who actually is a program manager for that network and we are discussing? Prime and subcontracting opportunities as well as what does the rules say in terms of when a prime has to subcontract out And also when do they have to create a subcontracting plan? So I know we said all that in a mouthful with that said let me know who's out there. Let me know who is logging on today Let us know again your organization the city you're from. What is it that you? Intend on doing or selling to the government So let's start off with that first and foremost and allow some people to join us in the room today The other thing I want to mention is this we actually Have for all of those people who are new to our channel. My name is Eric coffee. I'm gov con Eric You will find all of the notes content descriptions everything in YouTube underneath the image So if you click and open that box all the links to our courses our programs our books Everything that we carry will be there The other thing that I want to share with folks is that we are on our way to our goal of helping 200 firms achieve $5 million in revenue mark We currently have four companies and that doesn't include myself because I didn't want to throw myself in the mix with four companies That are part of gov con edu who have now hit that five million dollar plus mark So again, if that's something that you want to do if something to strive for visit our website gov con Giants calm for more information visit slash pricing to find out how you can get enrolled in 1.0 or 2.0 today Or if you're already enrolled and you want coaching We do now offer coaching for folks out there So again, just a little bit of help along the way to get people pumped up towards their goal of achieving five million dollars in revenue So again, all those people out there. Let me go to the chat and see who is joining us today out here I don't see no one type it in the chat. All right. Yes, Rafa We know you're gonna be one of the 200 people you are next on the list. I can already feel it Rafa You're definitely one of the star persons out there and I can I can't even wait until I hear all of the Great things that you are doing because I know when I don't talk to you that you're working on big things Who else is out there 19 people in the room? Gives a thumbs up. Let us know you're here. Tell me who's out there. Chris digs. Welcome SIPA one welcome Chris digs from Winston Salem, North Carolina, San Diego, California How are you today? Welcome. Thank you for joining us This is interesting. I really do believe and and it's funny because Rafa, you know we It's interesting that I receive messages almost every day from Gulfcon ADU students but it's what's funny is the fact how it all kind of comes together and I'm actually gonna pull up this text because Lilani sends me these text messages Which are awesome and she talks about the law of vibration and I really do believe Rafa in that and you are vibrating on the same Energy as all of us. So you're I can I can feel it already I got a text this morning for one of our students. He wanted sole source for 250k and he's got another one coming for 700k I've got another person that emailed me. She's waiting on a million dollar sole source That's coming down the pipeline. So I'm telling you I went from one a month to one a week to now twice a week hearing all this positivity and goodness Let us know who you are. Who's out there today. I know Rafa. I know Sherry I don't I know Mark out there. I don't know some of the other people. So again, let us know who's out there Who's cranking with us today on this session again your company? What is it that you do and what city are you from let's connect? Let's connect because it's so so important if you did not catch the video with Randy and Her success definitely take a look at that. My man Mark jumped on marks from Houston, Texas Consulting with electronics manufacturer Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Has anyone checked out the new beta dot Sam. Anyone check that out yet? The new beta dot Sam. Yeah, no, maybe so Anybody like it any thoughts thoughts complaints inquiries anything no, all right Okay, well listen I don't want to I want to be respectful and courteous of the people who are on the 23 folks who are on at this moment So I want to be respectful and courteous of your time and also my time because we usually gonna stay on for about an hour And chit chat about this. So again, let us know who you are Chris did it. Thank you Chris for following instructions That is so important. That is actually one of the first things that people should do is You know, the government likes to test us to see how well we follow instructions and part of the RFP process and Rafa Stop me if I'm saying something wrong part of the RFP process when the government is writing out these requests and these solicitations is Checking to see if you follow instructions. So how many folks out there are actually following instructions That's one of the first test that the government puts you through when you are responding to their requests Chris congratulations for signing up to mark assault clients now You got to start doing the hard work signing up the people is easy But you've got it now start doing hard work, which is digging in and folks I'm gonna go to the big screen for this one because I think it's really important in fact Let me just put this back on for those who just joining us for this because let me tell you right now Right now is the absolute best time to engage with Contracting people right now right now. Why why is that? Does anyone know? I know Rafa knows. I know Kwame He should know Mark you should know what Sherry should know. Why is right now the best time to engage with the contracting people? Why is right now the best time to engage? Okay, we're June the 7th. Why is it now? Does anyone know out there, I know Rafa, you know all of my Students my advanced students don't raise your hand so fast. Don't jump in and answer it I want some of the newbie people out there to answer the question Why is right now the best time to start reaching out the folks and start building those relationships? That's right KY son third quarter spending that's right That's right the government fiscal year ends in September and we're in June. Okay Marlin. Yes, Marlena. Yes, there is they do have the new infrastructure bill, but more importantly government spending July August they're gonna be writing contracts the biggest Percentage of contracts that are awarded are gonna be awarded over the next few months The largest percentage of contracts are about to be awarded over the next few months And so if you are not in their ears in their brains If you're not in their head if they don't know you on a first-name basis like they know Randy and Rafa and Eric and Lelani and Lissette and Maria if they don't know you on a first-name basis They're not gonna call you. They're not gonna reach out to you. They're not gonna send you an email You're not gonna get the message. Oh, don't forget like my man Frank Okay, so if you are not in their brains, if you're not top of the mind, they're not going to remember you I can tell you this morning My first calls of the morning were to government people my first calls First calls this morning. I reached out to one of the people at my Naval facilities now fact they're called fe ad facilities Engine facilities. Oh I wrote it down, too But I reached out to my person that's over that helped me get my ID IQ and I spoke to him this morning Guess what I learned what I'd spucked in this morning. He said Eric. I'm leaving after the summer hell the summer is now He's leaving. I didn't even know this if I had not called him and engage with him this morning I would have had no clue. So he said to me. He's leaving this morning I'm sorry. He said this morning that he's leaving this summer and that he was going to be Transitioning with the new fe ad. Let me pull that up because I wrote that down. I don't even know what that stands for I got to pull up in my notes. See I take notes too because he's the fiat. They call it fiat for now fact Does anybody know what fiat means? Okay facilities engineering and acquisitions division so for now fact they have what's called the fiat facilities engineering and acquisition division and this is the person who actually helped facilitate my Interactions with the contracting people to get me my ID IQ over at NAFAC. So we're interesting enough When we talk about small business specialists and program managers and engineers There's other people within the organization who have roles and responsibilities to help facilitate contract interactions And in fact The reason why I called is because I want to expand our offerings to another facility that we were not presently working at And so I called him this morning He's gonna not only Give me the person's contact information. He's gonna make an introduction and he's going to do a mipper and Allow them to Pull contracts or task orders from my ID IQ in order to get me my initial Starting project now if that sounds confusing to you that means you need some education All right, if that's confusing if I said a whole mouthful and I know I did then guess what you still need more learning You still need you got a long ways to go and understanding this stuff But it's great because you're in the right place in the right channel and this is what we discussed By the way, 29 people watching give us a thumbs up Let us know that you like it as well and let us know you're here I've only seen three people Edward Moore told me he's here Chris Diggs told me he's in the building I don't know what else you other people do I know Kwame but Kwame and other people don't know you optional solutions Tommy Foster. Thanks for putting it out there as always RB says I don't like the new photo process with Sam Well, I get it. It sucks. All right. Listen, let's jump into this small business administration subcontracting network and let's talk about that because This is something that someone brought up to me and they said Eric what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start out by subcontracting and So I'm gonna go here to the SBA's website on subcontracting network and when you go to this website Right, let's just go through it. You can do a search and you can look for keywords. Let's just pick a state I think let me see some of you were what are we let me pick a state someone's from San Diego Chris's in San Diego All right, let's let's go to California All right, let's go to California And let's hit submit Maybe this is a better screen for you. Okay, it's not doing anything great. That worked out. Well All right, it was just slow. All right So we pulled up California and it gave us some results of opportunities hardware and It lists some companies on here contact information phone numbers and What not? It's got a pretty big list on here Which is interesting so California California, okay, and now most of us are aware that and if you're not we'll go back and do it It just it just it looks like it was a little slow on the database And that's what happened. So let's go back And I want to do something else. So here if you notice and the drop-down I've got to change this over and the drop-down it gives us some options to choose the different programs For some reason it's not showing it on my screen. Let me see. How can I get this on the screen? Down here, you see what says search for business So when I click this little arrow All right, you see the arrow. I have highlighted now when I click this arrow below it It gives me women on small business for some reason not popping with my screen So I'll just read it to you a day small disadvantage Alaska native Hawaiian blah blah blah So it goes through all the social economic Groups and then also list top secret clearances and things like that So it gives you that option to pull from and select if you have any of these particular Social economic categories you could put it in there and it'll sort by that and then you could choose by state now Sounds good right fair enough Before and so so that's that's the website where you go out to find subcontract opportunities So now let me set the premise for why we're having this conversation today Why do the large companies who we already know want all the contracts and They don't want to share. Why is it that they are even? Advertising on this particular website telling us about subcontracting opportunities Well, it starts off here and we'll do really quick history lesson And it goes back to I was just not gov where they are mandated and required to do this No one voluntarily wants to help the little guys Maybe okay. Yes, maybe there's a few people out there But for the most part the majority of and again because they're where we teach right? Capitalism capitalism says right you want to strive to achieve the most profit. Well Part of that means cutting out these you know these types of programs and so the idea is that here the government requires that These prime contractors use us and it says here They have the requirements and it tells you the numbers and you can read it and there's some exemptions and things like that So ultimately they are required by the SBA to do these things So that's first and foremost. So the government requires them to create subcontracting plans And this particular article last year The SBA clarifies the rules on what it looks like to create a subcontracting plan And that's great because why so many of these big guys and Think about this way if the government had to put rules in place. What does that mean? They were failing to do this So some of the things that they talked about was were excuse me proper English Eric Turning a subcontracting plan reports late. So they have a plan But they're not reporting on who they're helping and who they're serving not paying small business subcontracts on time Not having doesn't employ to monitor the plan better maintain records and procedures So compliance with the plans not doing market research Okay, because why they say we made a good faith effort and we couldn't find anyone Does that sound like some of the things that we've heard in the past? I'm sure it is So the government came back and they put these rules in place and they said hey The SBA wants to clarify this and they put it in here, but guess what they had already done that in 2013 already So what did I learn? When I had Angela on my show and we actually this was the one and only live podcast that I did In talking with Angela Terry She informed me of some interesting things that I did not know and if anyone is interested in their edification or learning of Government contracting I would encourage you to listen to this particular episode. Why because Angela stated to me I said Angela listen. I've been doing government contracting since 2007. We're in 2021. So it's about 14 years now Your website has been terrible often times. It doesn't work. It's no good It's not usable information And so on the podcast she came on and she was very candid and very open and I thank her for that She said to me well Eric It's because that the SBA really had not put a lot of effort into the website and I go, okay well, they're touting this website on They're they're touting the SBA subcontracting that website on the SBA's website And I said, yeah, we know they're saying that but the reality is That like most things the government even though they want us to be great and to be better They don't hold themselves to the same standard so it's basically do what I say not really what I do is that fair everybody understands that and One ex classic example is I'm on the government's website today like this I pulled this up today literally under the and so I just To set the tone for how much the SBA is prioritizing this right under the SBA's website SBA gov right federal contract and guidelines prime subcontracting All right when you go to their website and you go to the content under prime contracting does anyone I'm gonna say this because I Know I've got some smart people in the room. Does anyone out here see anything wrong on this website? Okay, I'm gonna have you focus on a particular paragraph Anyone out here see anything wrong on that website anyone anyone anyone out here By the way, give me a like we hit the like button There's only 12 likes hit the like button and I want my smart shark I want my a student to point out. Okay, Nikki's on the line Anyone out here see anything wrong in that paragraph anyone please please please please Where's my sharp students? Where's my sharp students? Okay, take a look on the website anyone I have seen anything wrong. I'm wait. I'm gonna wait I know there's a lag on here. So I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna wait. I know there's a lag Come on type it in a chat box Thank you. Thank you, Florida Rain. Thank you Stanis. Thank you How was it possible How was it possible that They are and and again, I'm just setting the tone because And look right here below Subcontinent network database. Wow Exciting stuff. How was it possible that? This information is still on here. How was that possible? All right, you can post your subcontinent opportunities of subcontinent networking database. All right And so I just kind of really want to show you The amount of effort that they're putting into this and so Imagine that they pass three stimulus packages trillions of dollars All of this money out there for small businesses for EATL for PPP and all this stuff And they can't update their website. I just again and and I just say that not shot at the SB I think they do a lot of great things. They help a lot of small businesses and they're trying their best but in certain areas they're falling short and the Subcontracting is one of the areas where they have not put a lot of resources in it And if anyone out here wants to talk to the current administration about that feel free to share this video So going back to Angela Terry what Angela said to me and she kind of hip put me on game was that the Website here, which is you know the SBA subnet website Was actually a list That was created hold on what happened where I go now. It's taking me off the website. All right So on the SBA subnet website and I don't know why it took me off. Oh here it is Got you. Okay, so I click the wrong button So on this website all of the contractors that we showed you on the screen or were The bulk of them I won't say a hundred percent, but you know 90 plus percent these companies Were companies that actually Were audited by the government they found to have not met their subcontracting plans and as their Penalty or consequence for not meeting their plans were then required to post an opportunity on the SBA subnet website I'm gonna say this again Okay, and go back and listen to the podcast the SBA subnet website is composed primarily of a list of contractors who fail to meet their sub contracting plan requirements They didn't meet it They had no intentions of doing it. It wasn't that they'd even try. I don't even know these people, but I can tell you It's not hard. I mean there's 39 on you over here right now listening to us There'll be hundreds people listening in the next few days and thousands over the next few weeks They didn't even try so as a consequence for getting caught because The majority people don't get caught as a penalty for getting caught. They were then required to post their projects on this site Now is that somebody you want to do business with? Maybe Probably not You make the decision listen everyone has to run their business how they run their business Everyone is where adults were grown men grown women out here And so you have the choice, but I it's my job my responsibility my obligation To let you know this because I don't want you out here To get caught up and thinking that these are good wholesome people that really want to help small businesses What makes this whole thing work is just like if you or I if they've got a stop sign or they've got Signage that says speeding limits 50 miles an hour if there's zero enforcement What happens if there's no cop car out there if there's no camera lights people running light people speed if there's no enforcement then People to kind of willy-nilly do what they want and the issue with the subcontracting plan while it's great And we love all the rules and the laws They don't have people to actually police and follow up to see if they're doing this No one's checking these reports and in fact there have been many instances where large contractors Have said that their subcontracting plan It's not public information and even when they went to court They fought to not show it to us and not make it available So you can't even determine whether or not they're in it can be a force because they said it's it's private It's information that's private to their how they operate and run their business So what does that leave us? And where does that leave the people out here who are thinking that this is a great tool or great resource for small businesses? To me it leaves us high and dry Which again, I'm not complaining because the government has so many avenues of so many ways in which you can break in and you can market yourself I just don't think that this is one of them. All right And I'm not just saying that because of the interview Angelo Terry because the interview was really great and I appreciate her candidness what she said to me and Listen, don't beat me up later on if I get the numbers wrong But it's something to the tune of and then this interview was in 2019. So their goal was to audit. I Think it was a couple hundred people three to four hundred people. Let's say in the year 2020 Now we know it when at the time of that interview, we didn't know about Coronavirus and happening all this stuff. So what do you think really happened? They probably didn't interview them and then they're the goal for the following year Which is 2021, which is the year that we're in presently was something like 1500 contracts Does anyone have any idea that there are hundreds of thousands of contracts out there? In fact, I'm gonna show you something so that you can kind of understand. We can let me help you quantify this. All right Let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back Over here on the SBA's website. You can actually get a list Where is it at you can download this directory of federal government prime contracts that have subcontracting plans So the government does make it available on their website to download directory Well, of course your boy Eric went ahead and downloaded it in preparation for today's call and so you have on here this directory and on the directory and I'm sure we all recognize plenty of the names right the big boys general dynamics. Let's see floor Right Gil Baines Which by the way, I can tell you from someone that I know that Gil Bain That says unless someone comes to their door and tells them they have to do these things. They're not doing it Harris corporation Hensel Phelps Honeywell right So all of these companies this list Companies not contracts the list of companies is to 2,900 so we're talking about almost 3,000 companies and Imagine right you multiply that by the number of contracts. They have it's enormous So for the government to say they're gonna try and audit a few hundred of these Right is pretty insane Another thing that's interesting. I want to go in and mention and this is a kind of where it's funny This is not an issue that they're not aware of here in This particular house report The government houseports is incentivizing fairness and subcontracting act This is not a new issue folks General accountability office if you watch the video that I did the other day We mentioned the GAO they actually talk about small business subcontracting and And let me just change sheets. It talks about Here discusses how the small business administration proposed contracts. They reviewed 26 contracts were examined and It shows what happened in that report So it says here for half of the 26 contracts agencies could not demonstrate the procedures for procurement center representatives PCRs that were followed All right fortune is 26 contracts the contract officers did not assure a contract submitted the required subcontracting reports So if they're not making sure they submit their reports and they don't hire us and no one's checking reports Then what happens? All right, so without complete accurate information of goals agency can adequately assess Whether or not they're meeting their subcontracting plan requirements. So again, I don't want to be the dead horse here Definitely go listen to the podcast With Angela Terry, but ultimately what's happening is I Just don't Again, the whole the topic of today is whether or not it's worth it to pursue this as an avenue And because someone asked me that question. I definitely wanted to educate people out here As to how this works and the background of it and also the premise because remember The way I see this is I suffered long and hard many sleepless nights a lot of pain a lot of pain You trust me. I had many times that I did not want to get up. I couldn't open my inbox I didn't want to open my email because of all of the pain I was facing from all of these bad things that were happening out here to me So if I can save one of you if I could save one of you From the pain and suffering that I had to endure and that I had faced and grow my business That's what I want to do. And so that's kind of the the premise for today's video and that's why I came on to share this because Ultimately, I want people to take a path of least resistance as much as possible A path because I know that we have limited time limited resources The path that's gonna afford you the most opportunity for yourself your business and for your partners And so that's the the nature of what I'm coming on to discuss It's not to beat up the SBA or to say anything bad about them because they're doing the best they can They also have limited resources just like the rest of us out here. So they are doing the best they can with their limited resources That doesn't mean that I wanted to impact the people that are following that are learning and listening to me I want you to have all of the information so you can make the best possible decisions for yourself and so I hope that at least by going over some of this stuff and Giving you the knowledge now you could make an informed decision as to whether or not this is a path that you want to pursue so again, I Just want to come on and really share that and let people know because some people I Know how difficult it is when you're first getting started I know how difficult it can be when you're trying to figure out where where to go net what to do next And you're exploring all these different avenues and then you read on an official government website that they have this other official website that has these these programs in place and then Really, you don't really know a lot because this isn't covered by mainstream media This isn't covered by news sources that come on across our TV And so I feel like it's my responsibility to share this information and pass it along Questions comments Let us know who's out here Let us know what you're up to. I'm curious what everybody's up to this is our this is our fellowship guys and girls This is our time to come together to discuss the wonderful world of government contracting And all of the great things that come along with that So tell us who you are what's going on what you're working on I'm curious to know anybody had any experiences with this stuff Let us know Like I said at the beginning for those folks that did not that are just joining us. I'll just kind of reset For you we have hit four people have hit the five million dollar mark So I definitely want to celebrate that but also I want your name to be on that list So definitely I want you on that list At the five million dollar mark where goal is 200 firms And so we're gonna keep pumping this thing up until we hit our 200 firms and by the way That doesn't count me so and I'm because I'm going for the big stuff. So actually There's gonna be another chart. That's on the other side where I'm gonna match what everybody else is doing So when now that you guys have hit 20 million, I want to do 20 million to match all of you guys out there So as your numbers increase, I'm gonna be doing matching numbers over here as well So let us know what's what you got going on Where are we at? As Nikki said, yes, we need small businesses to respond to sources sought out there. I've got a video coming up Thank you Edward more for that by the way, I appreciate you Yes, Nikki, thank you for bringing that to our attention. We need all of you respond to sources sought to market research We need all of you If you don't have the capacity if you don't have the capabilities We need you to to learn how to team up with larger Companies again, not large companies, but larger companies than yourself who has the capacity who has the the past performance who has this Demonstrated capability that the government is looking for so. Yes. We need that Nikki Thanks, Rafa Appreciate a guy glad you learned it Edub says either someone is getting hush money or the KO isn't doing their jobs properly So Edub truthfully the KO it's not their responsibility to handle this It's it goes on to the PCR which was mentioned earlier But yeah, it's the the response that you're gonna get from government is that they're stretched thin they have multiple job titles and so they're so busy handling reporting that they can't keep up with all this stuff out there so that's kind of the response but For me, that's not good enough for all of you the people that are on here watching today So for me That's great, and I and I appreciate that and again, like I said, I love the SBA I hope that someone shares this content with the administration because our goal is you know one of the things and by the way If you don't already know this GovCon Giants recently became a 501c3 nonprofit And so you're gonna see us doing a lot more advocacy work on behalf of small businesses In addition to training so not only we're gonna do a training technical assistance But we're gonna be doing advocacy work and the truth be told Right now We've already stopped two projects, okay, I stopped the project from being released because we told the Persons in charge that this project was not going to help the local people and so we sent a letter up We sent it up to the administration and we're able to stop the government from releasing that project at the highest levels And I've we've done that on a this one particular project and we're doing on a second project right now So we a part of our mission It's gonna be advocacy work on behalf of small businesses in addition to education because what I'm finding is There's no one out here. That's really pushing to make all of this stuff work Not the p-tax not SBDC not score not the universities None of these people none of them are pushing to help this work They're sucking up all of the money and They're doing they're not giving anything back in return. And yes, there are great people out here There's great programs. There's people that have really good intentions But intentions are not enough if intentions were good enough We would not be on a steady decline of small business contractors for the last two decades Two decades not two years two decades. We're a two decade decline So if all of these people With all their great intentions all of these organizations that get all this money from the SBA, by the way If you did not know the SBA spends two hundred and forty eight million dollars trying to train us Two hundred and forty eight million dollars trying to train us us me you Rafa Stan Marlena Everyone They're spending two hundred forty eight million dollars giving it to the same people every year and This is what we get in return a Decline for two decades. Don't let me get started. So part of our mission What we're gonna do is more advocacy work on behalf of small businesses because I Think that small businesses should be the ones making decisions for other small businesses Not corporations and not universities and that's just kind of the way I feel about this thing And so ideally I told someone this recently. I see myself as Ben Crump for small businesses So I'm gonna when I I would like to ideally two or three years from now when I show up to a Agency or show up to a city and we talk about they know that they don't have to give us our peace They already know like they got to come off it. It ain't gonna be no. Well, we tried we thought no no no That is my plan. That's what I like to do But back on the subject of subcontracting a network, this is this is how I feel and if you can't see like the energy is there You know, I'm sick of people making excuses. I'm sick of people of saying they tried they want to do this They you know, they've got these great intentions. It's not enough anymore. And I think that There hasn't been enough strong people that don't rely on a system That can come in and say how they feel and what they truly believe and so You know, you're gonna see a lot more of that coming through and my content in my videos. So Because again the education part is great But then if you're fighting people who don't want to let you into the system and again Don't use as an excuse. Please please please please please No excuses. All right. No excuses I don't want people come around hand it with a bag of excuses. So no excuses. We know excuses are like You know what that we all have so no excuses, but If I can help push the needle a little bit if I can help to push the needle to where people There's more participation more activity. That's what I want to do and that's my plan. So, all right What else? Thanks Rafa for joining fan support. Thanks for the five dollars Contribution everything counts everything helps Thank you for Ronnie for putting in there your business. I'm gonna give you a shout-out Ronnie McCoy Sacramento, California business enterprise consultants looking for a joint venture on the West Coast big up to Ronnie Stanislav Varenyk, we sell medical supplies and would like to sell more to the federal government You know, we have people that sell medical supplies to the government And they do it very well the VA hospital is always looking for new vendors Rafa is a active contractor with the VA hospital. So There are people out here that could do it. Yes So going back to what Nikki said we need to respond to sources sought and we need people out here Showing up. So again, we are giving the big companies. We're giving this SBA We're giving the agencies excuses because we're not showing up So we also have to take responsibility for that for us not showing up not saying we can do these work so again Before we go start pointing fingers to other folks. We got to do our part. I know I'm doing my part I know the people who I keep calling out their names on this list are doing their part Are you can you say the same for yourself out here? So yes, I'm gonna beat up the SBA I'm gonna beat up the agencies I'm gonna beat up all these other people But I'm also gonna beat you up too because are you doing your part? Are you doing your part? That's what you got to say to yourself when you get up every day. Hey, I did my part whether it's you know learn Prepare yourself. So again, I want to make sure that That again, I'm holding everyone accountable. It's no look even myself It's I don't have even my son to tell you he's no different anybody else. So I'm not gonna let The fact that these people may not be doing everything just right Allow them to let to be excused for you to say well Eric That's why I don't have any contracts because That's not true Because we could get contracts. We win contracts Yes John and wine, that's right point your fingers back at you look at take a look at the mirror Are you doing everything possible? Are you putting yourself in the best position possible? And for again all those new people joining that have not that didn't hear me a few minutes ago This is June the 7th June the 7th my first call this morning was to two government officials We're being soul-sourced contracts weekly Sometimes twice a week The they're pushing this stuff out The the Biden infrastructure plan is not even approved yet. We don't even want to talk about when that drops right now They are pushing out contracts so much so fast It makes all of our heads spin Rafa, what are you saying happening over there on your side? Okay, I'm telling you I received a text message today at 11 o'clock for contract I received one on Saturday one of my students waiting for a million dollar soul source a 250 soul source I Got a call this morning from a contact officer trying to give me a project, but we can't get pricing from our subs This is the time to get in front of your federal humans This is the time to start talking to people. This is the time Look, we talked about capability statements the people who heard me six months ago You should have this thing already wrapped up. You should have your capability statement together You should have your teaming partners together. You should have their list of past performance your list of qualifiers Whatever that looks like for you. You should have this stuff already put together Please please please please please. I don't want to hear that you missed the boat because come September You missed the boat and the fiscal year starts over again So now was the time to get in front of these people look at Rafa. There's so many solicitations out there Stephanie by the way soul source contract. I mean, there's so much For everyone Everyone who wants a piece of this there's so much stuff out here for all of us It's just a matter of making sure that you Put yourself in the best position and that doesn't mean just showing up empty-handed showing up with no team Showing up with no past performance showing up and not being ready. You have to show up and be ready. I Had someone that signed up recently this week or last week to one of our courses 2.0 and She told me we went and we had a conversation. We talked about Her potential her billies and I connected with someone right away And when I connect you with someone if you get a chance to do a one-on-one call with me When I connect you to my people, they're ready to go Rafa. Are you ready to go or not? Okay, when I connect you with someone Charles you ready to go They were like my person said, okay, let's set up a meeting. Let's let's meet They wanted to actually physically meet this person because they were in the same proximity and then they then that first start backpedaling Stay ready. Be ready When you come and you say Eric, I need your help and I need like I'm gonna make some introductions Today I had a call with a student about 1 p.m This is a great story. We had a call today 1 p.m She just signed up. I think a week ago or two weeks ago to 2.0 course We had a call today at 1 p.m. We start talking. She told me what she did. I said, okay I got this guy this guy this guy this guy for you start taking notes. I'm sending emails as we're talking Right and when I send an email said this guy right here. He's right in your backyard You need to talk to him. He knows your area his organization works for does whatever 50 60 million dollars and And so I sent the email before we finished a call He had already emailed back so it gave her his number and said to call her and then when she received the email She said to me. She goes wait. I know this guy I've actually been stalking him for the last two months because he buys my services and I was not able to reach with him and So I go and as you see within five minutes, I was able to email him and get him to respond So it's that kind of things that I'm doing for people making those connections making those introductions Connecting the dots for folks out here is the beauty of having such a large platform and having 11,000 emails People on my email list, right? So the beauty of almost having a million views of government contracting boring talk is I kind of know a lot of people and my podcast guests respect me and because I give so much a lot of people Want to give back an exchange and so with that said I Don't ask for favors very often So if I email someone and say hey, can you talk to one of my students or meet with them? they go yeah, absolutely Eric for you definitely and That that introduction that call that communication is worth I Don't know tens of thousands a hundred thousand depends on what business you do together with that person So that's invaluable pretty much. You can't put a measuring stick on that So I don't know what's gonna happen From that relationship, but I just thought it was a great story to share because it just occurred today and you know I want to share these kind of things. So listen questions comments You know, I don't want to keep running my mouth over here if no one has anything to talk about We were discussing by the way hit the like button. Please. Please. Please make sure you hit the like button on this If you're just joining us, I see we've got some people that just came in the SBA subnet website We're discussing today If you want more insight and information to whether or not this website is worth pursuing I would highly encourage you to listen to this podcast episode with the SBA subcontracting manager Angela Terry where we discuss this program and Interesting enough and I'll just kind of recap the reason what makes it fascinating is the fact that the companies that are on the SBA's website the Majority of these companies failed Failed to meet their subcontracting plans and hence they were audited and they were penalized and so because they were penalized they now were required to post openings for projects on the SBA subnet website a little caveat that they failed to mention anywhere in writing on any of this information but because I am Govcon Eric and the Advocate for small businesses or one of avid one of the advocates for small businesses. I'm here to share this information I don't want anyone to fall into the trap of thinking that these folks out here Really have your best interests at heart because they don't And that's not everybody but for the most part, you know, you've got if you got a filter Out between the good the bad and the indifferent then You know that creates additional layer of work and scrutiny that you've got to go through and you're already busy trying to run a business So why put yourself through that? Questions comments concerns Confusion I know as I gave a mouthful Rafa, yes, can you share something? Rafa says SBA gave a bid speed a grant for us. It's a great search engine for free. I Love it Rafa Rafa send me an email with some more information so I can share that with everybody publicly How they can also get access to that? That'd be great You're actually the second or third person that said that to me. So it's not the first time I'm hearing this My man D boy says fire water mold restoration. Are there any opportunities in those areas? Absolutely. Are you kidding me? You mentioned fire water mold restoration. That's all disaster stuff D boy. I mean When it comes to disaster, I would think about my man Mark Masters So if you go to my podcast lists gov conjoints.com for its last podcast type in mark Masters as his name and that's all he does is he fights wildfires for the government He's got the contract that does that Let's see who else out here Edward Moore fiber optic access control CCTV My tribal partners got a company that's $30 million a year in that stuff Edward Moore Georgiana Johnson premier healthcare services in Virginia pending any certification looking for mentor protease Sweet Georgiana. I'd like to hear more about what is it that you do? What premier haircut services because nowhere on there? Did you tell me what you do? And your next code is not correct. It's 62 11. It's not a max code. So Let us know what you do at premier haircut services. Do you do staffing? Do you do telemedicine telehealth? What kind of people do you staff or if maybe you don't staff maybe provide some sort of training or onboarding? Let us know Georgiana. What is it that you do exactly so people can know how they can best help you By the way, I only have 37 likes keep hitting that like button share it because this is how You pay it for it for me Let's see what else we have. We're like partnering with you for group training JT Davis Absolutely JT Davis send us an email service at govcon giants comm We're listen. We're open to all types of opportunities. In fact, we're engaging with some of the major League sports organizations today to do training. So definitely hit me up Rafa's on LinkedIn all my podcast guests are on LinkedIn that you can find them What else are we good all the hearts are clear anybody has any questions about the stuff that we talked about today? Anybody needs some more clarity on anything that we talked about in today's session. No, yes, good So that I sign off should I go home? You guys want to talk about Bitcoin? No, I'm not talking Bitcoin. I'm just easy. I Know y'all on top Bitcoin and Tesla cryptocurrencies the market's crashing all this good stuff. I Can tell you with the the market. It's interesting enough with the I don't know if anyone's read this But we we the we have a shortage of housing We've always had a shortage of housing for workforce housing But it's that shortage it keeps continues to increase and that's why the homelessness is out of sight or out of control in places like, California But I can tell you this with what what I've my experience is is that as the the commercial sector continues to thrive and be successful and in every place USA They're building building building like crazy high-rises apartments houses communities And every place USA that they're building that Allows us to step focuses on this federal government contracting world to have less and less competition. So as the As everyone on the outside and you look at your windows and see all these people are building like mad It allows the market for government contractors to be wide open and as they continue to hack our pipelines and hack our Food networks and as they continue to hack all of this stuff again It leaves the market for government contracting Exposed to those folks who really want to learn how to do it because As long as these other markets are thriving people are going to continue to ignore us. So You know when this kind of stuff happens I Tell you what you know when this mid this major meat producer was hit by a cyber attack What that does is for those people who are in cyber Security who are in IT on the government side? You're not going to get any increased competition because why? This major meat producer is cutting checks to folks who are doing this kind of work and the commercial work So as long as they're getting broke off by these people the government people are untapped and So that leaves opportunities for me you Chris Rafa JT Queens TY Matt, Giant Hawaiian D-Boy Edward Moore Georgiana it leaves Arlene It leaves opportunities for us that no one's going to come over here because they're too busy Handling their commercial clients and this is great news for all of us. So I want you to realize That there's a convergence of great things happening here with this other market wide open and Constantly the the need for construction is out the roof cyber security is out the roof Those people don't need to come to the government market because they have enough work over there and they're busy over there So that leaves this for us wide open the infrastructure package is coming down a pipe, which is insane amount of money and all of the funding that the government has thrown in for the last three stimulus packages there is a convergence of greatness happening and I just want all Of you when you look back at this year Two three four years from now. I want all of you to say I don't want you to say to yourself well I missed out or I didn't see it or I didn't know and I didn't I want you to say Man, this was the biggest bull market or whatever you want to call it when in stocks That could possibly happen for government contracting world because the people who are getting in today You're gonna be the ones who are gonna be in for ten years from now Rafa is gonna be in ten years from now Rafa because why Rafa is now making those relationships with the people who are gonna be in our ten years from now Did you know that all of my contracting folks that the ones the contracting officers at the at the big levels those were retiring We've got interns at all these facilities in all these contact offices. You have interns Who are they gonna remember they don't have any? Relationships with any of the people in the past so it's gonna be you and I The newbies out here that gonna be dealing with the Millennials who are now gonna be giving out contracts in the future So this is a convergence of a lot a lot of greatness That I just don't want anyone out here to miss out on and I don't want anyone to look back and regret But they didn't get started during these times So I just want to say that before we climb climb off Hector welcome Yeah, you can a cayman on a really heavy video today start off with some basic stuff Because like I said that we've got a lot of other basic stuff Hector you could start from that This was this was a really heavy video Welcome welcome Maria Martinez the famous Maria Martinez baby goat as we call her Giant Hawaiian Matt research for Eric on YouTube the free they consider the course that's correct. Thanks Matt. Thank you Yeah, Matt Smith like he said Charles start off with my free content I love the free content because it really is a great place for people to start from so definitely start there with the free videos Matt and I would caution you this Because YouTube is gonna recommend to you all these different people I Would say just try to you know as much as best as you can Be careful where you're getting your information from because a lot of people out here are not doing Contracts we actually do contracts for a living Maria just jumped on she does contracts all the people Rafa does contracts all the blood I've named throughout today's sessions We all do government contracts for a living so a lot of folks out here are giving information from people who they've heard about contracts or Someone else did a contract, but they're not the actual ones Dilling with the contracts day in and day out So I just want to say be I want to warn you and caution you that you're gonna get a lot of information And people come to me and say well Eric I heard a little bit about what you did and it took a little piece of this and a little piece of that And I kind of put it all together That doesn't really work. So Matt definitely if you want to jump in we've got a free course free govcon course com where you can start at and Then also all the free videos and then when you're ready to step up or if you feel like hey You want to skip through we do have a paid program 1.0 2.0 where we actually go through and Work with people On actually training on how to do government contracting we it's you know paid program that we have but the other thing Is that we meet? Every Tuesday and we go over we have a beginners. We have intermediate advanced We have general sessions for Q&A and so we actually go over and we meet with folks And so I'm gonna pull that up on the screen for you Take a look at look who's faces up there Maria Maria's face pops up, but yeah, so this is the training that you can go through Matt and We got 1.0 2.0 course the difference is we have One monthly meeting with the 1.0 and then four meetings with the 2.0 course And so those are the differences other than the 1.0 is our original content and then 2.0 is the latest and greatest stuff So Those are some resources for you to start at I hope that that covered that question for everybody So again, I always tell people start with free I'm okay with that because I want you to to come in I want you to feel like you're confident You trust you like, you know, you like my style because again, you maybe you don't like my style Maybe you don't like the way that I teach so get comfortable with my style and how I teach And then from that, you know, you can make a decision as to what you want to do Hector Gonzalez that applies to you as well how to build relationships Matt we discuss all that in fact on YouTube There's a playlist That we created that discusses where to start. So I would go with that playlist on where to start Matt says he's in a course. I've never met I've never seen you at any of the meetings. So not sure again a lot of people say they're in there taking my free course Oh, maybe you're in a free course Matt. That's probably why so again If you're in a free course, then go you have to go through it and after that then you go to the paid course So that makes sense. We've actually and I don't want to fit anyone but we've had 4,000 people go through our free courses. So I actually I stopped and I think Maria and I both agree We stopped getting the emails because it was just so overwhelming what people going through their free courses Who else T why did that first very helpful good stuff Chris Dix great courses free course again Maria just dropped it in the chat for everybody is free golf concourse calm KC singing journey welcome. Welcome. Welcome Eric our major conferences coming up now and the country is opening back up Edub listen conferences never stop brother. So like the conferences never stop. They just did them online I did I taught conferences last year on the zoom when I zoom it was whatever platform they did But we did virtual conferences They're not the same but You know, they're opening up and and yes conferences are coming back up because I'm actually the Vib network. We're doing a live conference in November And that's out in California and I'm we're gonna go con giants We're gonna be there at that event. We're actually gonna be doing our podcast live from the event at the VIP conference So I do know that there are live conferences coming up because we were invited to one for the upcoming year What else What else Make sure hit the like button make sure to share Adele's has got to spend more time in there. Yes Adele, please please listen. It's June It's June July and August the government is going to be writing Contracts they're gonna be writing contracts. You can either be on the recipient side or we could be on the regret side I want to be on the recipient side not the regret So you decide how you want to operate, but I'm telling you for me. I want to be on the recipient side Yeah, Marie he's probably doing a free course Let's see. What else? What else? What else? What else? Talk to me. Talk to me HHS is having awesome hours and prime country's day in July and July. Yes TY definitely By the way, one other thing that I forgot to mention If you are not on our email list, make sure to jump on our email list Why because we let you know like TY just mentioned about the HHS Event on our email list. We send out emails every Friday letting you know anything that you might have missed whether it be a podcast whether it be a A video or whether it's an event it as we learn about events and we're invited to certain events We invite you so definitely let us know if you're not on our email list You can't get those emails and if you are on your email list and you're not receiving the Friday emails It might go to your spam folder Which again, you just got to figure out how to like get us out of spam because Right now there's so much spam emails going out there I don't even blame them for putting people in spam because I get tired of all these stupid emails myself So definitely do that JT Davis look forward to working with your brother Adele, yes Adele, I want you on that list of contract award winners And then I want you to list of the million dollar first people I'm going to pull this back on the screen since I've got a new audience in the room If you have not already seen this list Okay We have four companies now that have hit the five million dollar mark Our goal is 200 firms 2000 by the way and my goal personal goal is to match you So now that's four people at five. That's 20 mil. I gotta do 20 mil on my side to match up to you guys. So Listen I want you on that list Adele. First of all, I need you on the list of people that won contracts. We've got Probably I think 40 plus students that have won some type of contract in some capacity And that's the ones that respond to us, but then we have four to hit the five million dollar mark So I want you on one of those lists Adele, but you've got to start Email list, how do you sign for the email list? Let me give you a link for the email list How to sign up as well Stephen Espinal says Eric, can you go into a little more depth with your 2.0 course? So the 2.0 course Stephen What's interesting that what I'm finding and Maria taught me this is that the value is again, we provide the lesson So there's the training where we discuss Obviously how to build relationships. We have sample phone calls How to become a consultant? How to call the ostaboo who to call the contact officers what to say we go through all those examples, but More importantly what I found is the value is is in connecting within our network. So Every Tuesday we have a meeting on Tuesday nights at 7 p.m So that's four times a month we meet and The different depending on the week. There's different themes. So the first Tuesday of the month is our general Q&A sessions The second Tuesday of the month are for beginners The third Tuesday of the month are breakout sessions where we actually break out Into groups based on your industry. And so you're talking about industry people And then the fourth session is our intermediate and advanced lessons that we teach So we you know, I teach an additional four sessions Um a month outside of what you see on youtube and that's for our 2.0 Course now in addition to that We have all the content that takes you from After you register in sam to what they said it was becoming How do you not just forget the registration part, but now how do you start building relationships? How do you build your target market list who you should be talking to who you should be calling? And then from that we also try and help connect you with folks. So The thing that I want people to understand is it's not just Okay having the information, but how do you connect the dots on the information that you have because so many people give Just information, right? But what we try to do is help you connect the dots The information how to use it how to make the most out of it and that's what I pride myself on doing Now the beautiful thing about 2.0 is We're constantly upgrading it and so the people that are in 2.0 are going to move to 3.0 When that's released and we're working on that like now we've been working on it for six months already but the 2.0 as it stands today Talks about ostobus contract and the officers, but not only that what happens when you get a contract PCR we have a module on 8a. We have a section on Earning your first 5k so It's a lot trust me Arlene just Arlene is it a lot of information charles a lot of information ty is a lot of information It's a lot of information. It's really Just to be frank with you. It's not a course that you can go through and finish in a month It's meant for you to have the lessons and activities that you need at that time And so it's not meant for you to go through and in 30 days you finish It's I'm at this stage These are the things that I need to know and this is how to do them And then when you get to the next stage, these are the things that I need to know and then how to do those things And so it's an ongoing process because the government is constantly changing So we have to change as well And it requires me myself personally to continue to train to learn Look look see the people right. It's a huge load. It's a lot. It it's I promise you You're not going to find anyone out there that can match the amount of information that we have Think about this way if I could put out 500 videos on youtube What do you think I could put into a type of program and that's not even everything I have in my head That's just the stuff that I put out to as of today. So Um, just kind of want to give you that but really I think more importantly is the connections that we have together that we meet All of us talking all of us interacting. I think that for me is is the biggest part Right and I think that a lot of people would say that Um, a good example is we had a student who had been struggling for a while And and and so he was having a hard time. He couldn't find anyone to Um, he was he needed help with business development. So he had a business He had this company that he literally said eric I don't have resources to hire a business development person Well, I had another student who was looking for a company to do business development for And I said, well, why don't you two talk? Because this guy is hungry. He's young and he's looking for someone to help do business bd4 You have a established business that needs a bd person And so I connected the two of them together And now they are going after big projects together. Uh, so those are the kind of connections that Um, come out of as a result of it um So Yes, arlene drop grant writing. Oh Lelani told me that she literally over the last year year and a half had received over a hundred thousand dollars in grants Yeah, 100k in grants So, yes, arlene. There's so much grant. What's going on? Uh, there's so much money coming out. We're gonna actually spend We're gonna spend a whole another session talking about grants. So, uh, yes Um, arlene definitely I think uh on that grant tip. I would connect you with Lelani on that Let's see. What else? All right. I think I've extended my time Yes, arlene. You need to go slow slow down take it into quality. Definitely Uh, so hey listen first and foremost, thank you maria jumping on and you know doing what you do best Uh, I hope everyone gets the the gist. I don't want anyone to be left out in the cold Um, be careful of this sba subnet site Go and do your research do your homework if they are putting this kind of information out and talking about fedbiz ops Uh, I would just caution you to be really Um, again, listen to the listen to this podcast yourself. Okay, but I would just caution everyone because uh I don't want anyone to get in trouble and I don't want like arlene says this how I paid you Yes, arlene. You forgot you bought the course through a grant So, um, that's by the way arlene, that's really interesting I think you should come on and talk about that because maybe we can help other people get grants to pay for their sessions as well Because we want to do coaching with some more students. Um, and that'd be great if we could do that So, um, listen, hey, thank you everyone who came on tonight Make sure to hit like but make sure to share it with your friends family because we get more by giving to others I'm learning that through my programs the the women First of all, the women are killing the guys just just kind of fyi the women are crushing the guys I think because they listen but also, um They're also giving back and they're helping each other and I know that whenever I refer someone to one of my female Gov con edu students, they really really really Um, they really try to take time out to help one another in each other I got a really warm message today from someone so I just want to share that because I really think that by you helping to share this content and video with your friends and your peers You don't know how that's going to come back around like the boomerang effect and help you out. So Just want to say that and uh, yes arlene send me an email So let's let's get you on and talk about this stuff because I think that would be great Um, and yes anybody that I mentioned today look them up on our website. Look up on our podcast They're on there. They talked about those people Most people I've mentioned they've been on our show one way or another So you just got to research their name and information