 Hey, what's up, Moe? What was that? Moe? Moe! That was you that was making your phone say that we're maximum 3, max 11, or something like that. What's up, Moe? Hey, not much, man. Sorry I've been in Sabato for so long. Just been trying to grind some deals out. Well, now you see, Moe, you come back and now you got 55 people on a Tuesday call. Woo! Congrats. We're smoking, baby. We're smoking. Hey, I have something I'm working on and I wanted to get your thoughts on it. I've been introduced to, or I'm going to be introduced to a contracting officer for the Department of State. And I want to know how to handle that introduction and how to stay politically correct in a sense, where I don't shoot myself in the foot. So tell me what's the, I guess, some background that you can publicly share. So the background is a friend of mine has been circulating my work with the federal government and winning government contracts and so forth. And she has a friend that is a procurement specialist overseas and she tried to connect us and we connected. We talked a little bit. We got some background information. And then she said, you know, there's somebody else that can possibly help us in terms of advising and pointing us in the right direction. And they're looking to make that introduction probably between the end of this week. But what is it that you want from them? It's like, basically I'm looking for any type of advice that they could share without kind of put themself in jeopardy or put us in jeopardy in terms of. I guess, are you looking at overseas contracts? I guess it's more of my question. I'm looking at contracts wherever they are, even at March. You know what, that's a good one. I like it, though. Yeah, I know. I mean, one of my contracts right now, I shipped to six different countries in the Pacific. Yeah, I know. But it was sort of elated, Mo. Come on. It was educational materials. Well, you know, the government, you've got to be able to do work anywhere, right? If you're working with the federal government? I agree. I agree. Well, I guess for me, one of the questions, I guess, that's never a bad question is what kind of challenges they're facing that they need help with. I can tell you, and again, speaking even today with one of my podcast guests, who's Alaska Native Corporation, before we close out, I asked her, I go, what do you need help with? And she opened up to me and she told me what she needed help with. And so one of the things that I can tell you, and Justin Harris, you may be able to give some insight, because Justin Harris, his aunt is a contracting officer. And I know we met with her before. And what I did in the conversation, Justin, I don't know if you remember, we talked about where are some of the areas where they had challenges at with companies and contracts and things like that. Justin, do you remember the conversation? Talking about with Christian? Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, it was pretty much we tried to find the problem areas of insider agencies to see if we could pull somebody else from GoCon to be back to help solve that. So I think the department would say, if I was meeting with them, I would just sit back and listen and say, hey, I find out that, hey, I know you're a big agency. You've done this for a bunch of years. Are there any type of repetitive issues that are occurring that you wish would solve? Is there anything itched that needs to be scratched, any voids or gaps that need to be fulfilled? And then just let them talk and listen. And then you listen for things that which you think you can help solve. And what I learned was not to over talk and not to put all you, I do this, I do that, more so trying to figure out what they need help with. Yeah, I don't ever go in trying to tell people whatever stuff that I do. I ask them the kind of stuff they need. And then like you said yourself, Mo, like you don't want to pigeonhole yourself because if you go in and say, I do this and I do that, what if someone says, oh, we don't buy that? We don't need that. That's my- Exactly. And I learned that from one of your podcasts also. I think the doctor from, forgot what, I think she does on one of your podcasts, the woman from Florida. Okay. What's up, Kate? What does she do? Tell me her, you know her industry? Pharmaceutical consulting. Oh yeah, yeah, deep. No, that's not deep. Kate or Caddy? Cat? Cat? Cat? No. Marisa's trying to- Beverly Kay Kendo. Yeah, Beverly. Yes, anyway, remember that scenario that she asked the contracting officer, you know, how can I help you? And he said he had a laboratory. He's trying to move for months and he couldn't get it moves. Right. I definitely have those type of, you know, questions in my pitch. And again, you know, keep it very general. Don't pigeonhole myself. So yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, I think, and by the way, Mo, thank you for asking that because that's great for everyone out here listening. And right in my new book, Maria, someone gave a feedback that said, what are things that Eric doesn't like people to say? And it's like, hey, I'm a small business. I could do it all. That is the worst thing that anyone could say to the government agents, right? Is that I'm a small business. I'm a woman-owned. I'm an A&A. I'm a hub zone. I'm a minority-owned, blah, blah, blah. I could do everything. That's just the worst thing to do. But I will say, Mo, not just in that podcast, but we were at the Hub Zone National Council and I was having lunch or dinner with a lady who said to me that she had broken into this agency exactly what she just said, Mo. She did things that were not related to her business at first just to help them until they finally came out with something that matched her skill set. And so she just referred people. And that's a lot like what Maria does now. Maria is just a facilitator. She's helping, she's being a resource specialist to the government agencies, not just to us. I gotta get on a one-on-one with Maria. You do. You do. Maria, why don't you tell us the story what happened today? What did you say to the guy? I think it's a great example for people to learn because she even surprised me. And you know, that's hard to do. So I went to a walk-through slash site visit of it's something that came across Eric from like an old, old contact. And he's like, you know what? I don't know if it's even worth our time. Because all he was told to us is we're moving furniture. It was one of my old contact and officer buddy. So I met with a guy today and he was telling me how this is just one project. It was a lot of stuff by the way. But he goes, yeah, I'm like, it's interesting because the first time I went to a site visit was this office they was in Marathon and I thought I was lost. So he started asking me, did you do anything over there? And I'm like, actually we were, I do construction. So no, we didn't get a lot of stuff over there. So then afterwards he kept asking like, he's like, there's a lot of stuff to do over there but we just can't figure out like it's hard to find if something's wrong with the roof, I have to go get a roofer. And then I have to get it through the process. So I go, why don't you guys do a BPA and just assign task order? He's like, huh, that's a very good idea. That's true. Because if we get a BPA and just if I need a roofer you're gonna go find it for me. And I'm like, that's basically, and then I'm like, yeah. And if you can't do a BPA, because it's like BPA, it's a little bit complicated. I'm like, just get an A&A company and still source it out. I'm like, that's exactly what I do with the Coast Guard. He has all these little contracts that are not big enough, but they're small enough. And I have done everywhere from carpet to tile to repairing a ram to doing an ADA door. But if everything he needs, he just has to call me. I'll find the person and we just soul source it out to an ADA company. But I'm the one that's doing the actual work. I'm the project manager. I'll find the stuff, everything's through me. So it's funny cause I was gonna show you guys the text message. Cause right when I left, he texted me cause I gave him my business card. So he, I guess he goes, hi Maria. It was nice to meet you today. I'm like, likewise. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I will follow about the possibility to do the GC stuff at Marathon. So you have to like, and Eric's like, oh really? I'm like, don't think that this idea came from me. Cause he gave me the same idea when I started at the Coast Guard. It's like, if they're just giving you all these little taps, why don't they just do a BPA? So after he explained it to me, I was able to regurgitate that same thing to somebody else. Click the join button now to find out all of the different membership options. You can start off as a fan supporter and move your way all the way up to a GovCon Insider.