 DC check. I'm this early morning walking around the city. They're waking up here in DC Live walking around, you know, this is a great city First of all, if you're in a government contract, you've got to come to visit DC All of the agencies are here All the major organizations Associations are here and you should at least find a reason to get down here and pay a visit Why because If this is going to be your livelihood This is going to be your life blood It's going to feature a family then you need to make a sort of effort to get here find a reason Find some money Get up here pay a visit Once you've done your market research, you know identified Who it is that you want to start doing business with You know start the local level again. I always tell my people start the local level first Start the local level talking but at the same time Reach out to some people up here because really what I found And like I said, I was here last week for a conference the hub zone national conference Sat in did my own meetup sat in a mastermind group Turn around came back up here this week for cbc congressional black talkers What I found is that there's a lot really really Friendly people out here that are wanting to help but if you don't Come here if you don't Talk to them if you don't come and try and meet them engage with them You would never know that for yourself. So again It's like you got a seat to believe it. I mean, I'm I'm surprised. I'm shocked Like I said, I've told you the past I've again when I called DC They picked up the phone the agencies at the top they answer the phone and you call that We call them DC numbers, but At the same time, I think Really, we definitely To make it in sort of effort to try and come up here If it's not but maybe once a year come up here and Actually try and do a sit-down with someone at the agency because really all of these people are Much for How do you say the word? Much more open To hearing The issues that are going on outside of DC, right? So a lot of times if they're not if they don't get a chance to get out and visit Arizona or Tennessee or Iowa wherever you guys, right? they're not gonna know all of the things that are going on in the ground and For you to come up like for me. I mean, I've been true a lot of love Here since I've been here and I'm a Florida boy and I'm like, hey I'm a Florida boy. But again People were like, hey They don't know what's happening in Florida and vice versa. You don't know what's going on in DC because you're in your state They don't know what's happening in your state because they're in DC and the only information or dialogue They get is from the people that either come to them or for the people that they're talking to over the phone But that's not the same thing as hearing from the source. So I would encourage anyone and everyone out there who Wants to call this market their market who wants to seriously go after this these opportunities I would definitely say get your butt down in DC I tell people all the time. It's not enough to sit behind a computer and try to make this thing work That ain't gonna happen. You got to go to conferences. You got to go to events You got to show up. You got to be present I'm telling you even at the hub zone conference it was interesting because I met a company and this guy He was the director for this company and A lot of times I tell people we you know, we well and you've heard this from probably your parents and It's common thing. We got two ears one mouth to listen And so as we him and I were talking a lady came up trying to sell her services and she said She's from california The company was basically california, but they were doing work here in DC major major prime contractor Does billions of dollars of federal contracts all over the country? And the but the guy who was like small business guy was super super nice down the earth guy And he asked her he said, um Let me ask you something. He says kid. Do you guys can you provide flooring services here locally? And so for me, what is that? What are you here when someone tells you something if you're paying attention? That's they're expressing their needs, right? Obviously he had something in mind. I probably he was working on That pertain to flooring And so again, if you're only trying to tell them about Your painting company or if you're only trying to tell them about that you do stucco or drywall or electrical work, whatever This may be You're gonna miss or glance over that opportunity And so again part of it is showing up being present and then the second part is listening You know on another example one of my students that I was chatting with Him and I were having a conversation and He he's in the video Space where they you know, they make like production videos things like that So we're having a conversation and he says Is the company they didn't have any past corners And I go well, have you tried getting in through the agency through a different a revenue avenue, excuse me And he said no, we were on a phone call and the agency just told me hey, you don't have any past performance Since you don't have any past performance You know, it's not even no purpose sleeping on the call And so I said well, did you bother asking him if there's something else that they needed? and he said that he did not do that And he did not try and identify the agency's needs before talking to them Which is something I tell everybody don't just call and call find out what they need and what they buy and make sure that You even should be dealing with that particular agency or that particular person but nevertheless After talking he said to me, you know Eric They did ask me if I was a day And I go bingo And you said what no, right But again part of the conversation we're talking about today is listening If he had simply just paid attention to that statement the person was again was telling you what they needed And so a lot of times I think what's happening is We don't even know how to recognize an opportunity if it slaps us in the face I mean this guy was given an opportunity and he Was it being attended? He was so focused on Selling his services selling them an idea of what he provides Uh And he didn't think about the customer frozen what we want to do Here with my people has changed that and we want to be a customer focused so we we want All of my people who watch me follow me listen to me I want you guys to be focused on the customer's needs Finding out what the customer wants talking to them and that's the conversation that we want to have because When you start listening the people are more than likely telling you what they need And again, I have other examples of another student of mine, but I don't we're not going to go into that now. I just wanted to say look These are clearly opportunities in disguise Um, they're not coming to you with a big old bow and a box and a ribbon or that kind of stuff But if someone says are you this? Do you have that? Can you do this? Those are closed into their needs They don't have to say I need a flooring company I need a day I need like they don't have to say that they're directly right explicitly but asking you if you Can't provide this service or can provide this social economic category to me That's already spelling it out. So again Make sure you listen two ears one mouth pay attention to what the customer's asking for and then we're going to talk later on about delivering excellence because That's another shortfall that I find with companies who I have either Coached into getting in contract help facilitate contracts facilitate projects is not delivering excellence So we'll we're gonna we'll jump on that on another video, but just want to do a Talk to you share a little bit about what I've experienced in the last couple days and what's going on with me. All right Talk to you guys soon