 Make Up Kind of Giant's family, your host here, Eric Coffey. Today's interview is a, wow, it's power pack. Today we are interviewing Rob Wong. Rob Wong is the former associate administrator of government contracting business. He is responsible for ensuring small businesses get their fair share of the pie and reports back to the president of the United States. He was in that role from 2017 until he recently retired this year. Listen, these are the kind of people that we normally don't get our hands on. We don't get access to. Rob was, I mean, he was courteous enough to take and spend the time with us here at Good Con Giant and share with you the things that he sees, the things that he saw. He spent the last, in fact, he comes from government contracting 30 plus years ago where he helped write and institute some of the laws that we see today governing the HUBZone women-owned program and the very small business program. So again, Rob is a plethora of knowledge and information. He's also very kind, very funny, very courteous. You're going to enjoy this interview greatly looking forward to talking with Rob again. He wants to come on and start doing more teaching, training and helping advising of small businesses. So again, this is the person at the very top of the top of the top. He was appointed by the previous administration or the current administration. And so again, depending upon when you're listening to this, but yes, Rob is the person who, again, was very instrumental in helping to help the small businesses achieve 30 plus percent goals over and above what they've been doing in the past years. He's responsible, or his team for that matter is responsible for the Runway Extension Act and much, much more. So we're going to get into that and all of this wonderful stuff in today's episode with Mr. Rob Wong. Enjoy. You know, in regard to what we're talking about, I don't know much, but I happen to know this industry really, really well. You know, your life looks better in the rear view mirror when you're looking out at the windshield going forward, sometimes it looks crazy. But I can tell you that I was, I have an Asian dad, so I've had my first job that was 20 hours a week ever since I've been 11. Had my first company when I was 13. Back then we strung tennis rackets when tennis was really, really cool. So my joke is that my brother and I were the, for Rockville, Maryland, there were nine pro shops around the area. And my brother and I were the first source of Asian outsourced labor. So we would pick up the tennis rackets and we'd bring them home and we would sit in the basement where I am now. I actually live in the same house I've been living in since I was nine. A lot older than that now. So my dad, when he wanted to help me says, well, if you really like business, then you should go work with your uncle. And my uncle was the only other one that really wasn't a scientist or anything like that. So I went to work with him and it turns out that he was one of the first 8A companies in the United States. So government marketing services, 701 East Goody Drive, Rockville, Maryland. I had to take the bus out there. That was cool. But so we sold. How long ago was that? How long ago was that? Boy, I worked there. I mean, I think I first worked there in 1977, 1978. Wow. He was 8A in 78. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty amazing. That's how I like that. So why that's important was we didn't have any marketing or sales people there. Okay. Ada Hackett, whose daughter was a classmate of mine. So that was cool. Mrs. Hackett was there. She had a red phone and she had a blue phone. And at that time, the red phone I think was GSA and the blue phone was SBA. And at that time, the way that they explained that work was when the government had a need for small business at the time, and this was when it was all really just forming, they would call SBA. And the contracting officers would call SBA with orders. And in our case, it was sporting goods, office machinery and office electronics. So what I mean by that, that's my joke was that it's the HP12C calculator. Okay. I don't know that one. I unloaded boxes of those from UPS, put them up on a fourth floor of our warehouse with a ladder on the outside. I'm not sure we had OSHA back then. Yeah, I packed and sent those like crazy. But so I was fascinated that people would be ordering these things by the hundreds. So who orders so many calculators who orders all these things, right? And then I rolled in, it was the government. And he just explained, is the government buys a lot and just be quiet and pack them. Okay. But so at that time though, we didn't have marketing and sales staff. And that's important for people to know because that was the time when all we had was the certification. But the competition for ADA companies was not very large. So I believe that SBA at the time, they basically would say Eric and Rob are in this area to produce, software or whatever, or let's say furniture. And there's like, Eric, okay, we need a hundred chairs. Can you fill that? Well, I can do 75. Okay, then we'll go down to Rob. Rob, we have 25, can you do that? Great. And then once they had enough, then SBA would disappear. But we did not promote each other, right? Right. So then fast forward, my uncle sent me to law school. He told me to go to law school because if you wanna work with me, which I did, he says, nobody listens to the CEO and president, which I am, but nobody argues with the lawyer. So as fate would have it, my law school roommate got married and he had a neighbor of his join me at the wedding. We sat at the same table. And Bob Weber and Rob Wong, kind of interesting. It was an Arabic wedding. Have you ever been to an Arabic wedding? I have not. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of people there, just by coincidence, there were three people that were not Arabic and we somehow sat at the same table. How awesome is that, right? And so Mr. Weber says, he goes, you're Sam's buddy. And I said, I am. He says, Sam worked for us at SBA. I said, I've heard about that. He says, do you know Victor Young? And I said, I do. That's my uncle. He goes, I know Victor too. He was one of our first 8A companies. And this is our agency. You should come talk to me when you graduate. And so probably about a year later, I graduate. And this is a time when we didn't have internet or cell phones. So guess who calls one day? Mr. Weber, in this day and age, you might consider that stalking. Right, that's pretty remarkable. But so he just says, he goes, hey, we just said, congratulations to Sam. Remember, you promised you'd come talk to me. So I went to talk to Mr. Weber and I ended up getting a job in the general counsel's office. And then I ended up writing a version of the 8A regulations, the first rewrite they had in 1990. And then I was counsel to the 8A program. And then I helped to run the 8A program for six months. And then I went to be a district director for two of the SBA district offices. And by that time, it was 1997. And then I left SBA, came back to Washington, and I thought I would have a law firm. And then I realized after a while that the law firm that would help 8A companies. And I realized I really would rather be that company rather than be the attorney. So I started my own 8A company and I was in the IT and professional services areas. And then from there, I had leadership, because I had leadership of about 16 8A and HUBZone companies. And I'll just try to help them to grow. I mean, I know how to start companies from zero, right? I mean, like, it's all those stories, right? Nobody has that book, but you know, after five years of years, like, oh, great. And then in 2017, I got a call to go to the transition team for Mr. Trump. And I was actually resistant to do that. So I ended up just talking to the person that they thought would help to run SBA. And I thought that my time was over after that finished. And then I got a call from Mrs. McMahon that said, you know, I enjoyed meeting you and the end of the day, would you consider coming back to SBA? And so I had actually thought that GCBD that they had already had somebody chosen. And they said, no, we think that you'd be perfect for it. And so, you know, I thought that was a great job. And I talked to Mrs. McMahon and she was absolutely wonderful. I told her, I mean, the story I told you was, you know, I said, I haven't had a boss for 20 years. He'll do my best to fall in line, you know? And so she was so amazing because she said, if you know how to fix these programs, I will do everything I can to support you. And she was fantastic, you know? And I was certainly not the easiest employee ever to have, I'm sure, but I tried to be happy and be helpful every day I was there. I was blessed with this incredible, incredible staff. And several of them, as I told you, I mean, I went back to SBA and I saw four or five of my friends who I've known for 35 years and I brought some of them up to the team. So for three years, it was the best job ever. It was like going to summer camp. And then, you know, you get to go with your friends except they all know stuff. And you have the ability to go to a leader that says, you wanna fix that, fix it, right? And I think that we did some really good work. We fixed the HUBZone program, I believe, or we at least made it a lot easier. I'll back up a little bit and I'll tell you that my goal when I went back was to try to do two things. Make it, you know, I treated our SBA certifications in the government goal like it was a business goal. And so the end of the day, I wanted to make the public to see the value of SBA certifications and the government contracting market. But more importantly, I wanted the government contracting officers to see the value in using SBA certified companies. And that had always been my mission. That was my mission at SBA and it continues to be my mission. But so what we tried to do, if you look at our agent, if you look at our industry, there were some really bad things that were happening at SBA and then also within the industry as it impacted small businesses. We had the ADA program and I think that it was outgrowing its sole source threshold. So at one point we tried to do that and raise it from 4 million to 8 million. And we had that up to as far as we could go and then that didn't go any further. Disappointed about that, but I hope that the next administration will move that forward. Then what we did was I said that we had this thing, category management and category management by the data. I mean, you know this as well as I do. It's killing our industry. And it's because I think the government and its desire to hit certain goals, it's a great idea, but I think that the application to small business is difficult. There is no way in my opinion that for 23%, if we're 23% of the contract force, right? 23, our goal, 23% of the money has to go with small businesses. If we're 23%, we shouldn't be taking an equal share of the weight of category management. So I would hope that the next administration would do something like count all of the small business awards towards category management. Let the efficiencies come from the 77%. I think it would make more sense if contract officers would love it. They don't have to redo anything. SBA, you know, and the government will hit it small business goals and there'll be plenty of opportunity for people. But the other thing we had was HUBZone. I love SBA, it's been the best agency for me. My whole career is around SBA. And I wanted to do something that would be helpful to them. And so if you knew the genesis of the HUBZone program, that was in the 90s when the A&A program was under constitutional attack. And so the HUBZone program, yeah, it was under the Adirand case. I think it was like out of Arizona, it was like a government contract. And it was basically, they were saying that the only people that, you had to be a racial minority in order to be able to bid. And so Supreme Court said that's, unless there's a demonstrated need, you know, or demonstrated a need goal, then all these programs should fall. And SBA luckily was given the opportunity to prove that the A&A program was a program where everyone had a chance to get the certification. But in the meantime, Senator Kitt Bond, who I had the great pleasure of meeting, it's really kind of cool. It's like somebody who wrote the Constitution for us and I actually got to meet him, right? Coolest thing ever. But so he wrote the HUBZone, which was based on basically economic disadvantage, right? It's super, super program, but in practice it had some rules that basically penalized small businesses for being successful. And so, you know, in kind of cooperation with everybody in our industry and our agencies and cooperating agencies, we made the changes that we hope would take away a lot of the obvious barriers so that more qualified companies will set up this HUBZones. So it will not only help the small business community, but it will help economically distressed areas. And then, you know, so when Senator Tim Scott came out with the Opportunity Zones, man, that was really great. It was like something great that even got even greater. So we should see really good growth there. And then likewise, at the same time, it was because the government, the contracting officers really wanted to hit that HUBZone goal, right? So we tried to fix that. We had something that was left over from 2015, the WASPE program, the SBA as an agency was directed in 2015 to set up a formal certification. So, you know, it's, you know, ha ha, you know, you saw my testimony where the first question was like, why are you breaking the law? I'm not, sorry. But so we were able to stand that up. But I think we stood that up. I think SB just set that up a couple of months ago where we started taking the applications I think in July, maybe. But so, you know, so now we have that certification and then rumor has it that we will, that SBA may be getting the Service Disabled Veteran CVE program from VA. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So the goal in my mind would have been to take every formal small business certification and put it under one roof. SBA. That makes sense to me. And then, you know, the market for small businesses is roughly 75 to 100,000. But the market for small business, and that's just in government sector. But for the nation, it was, you know, before COVID it was 30 million. And I think that if we can become known as the National Certifier of Diversity Supply, I think we become, it helps SBA to become more relevant to all the 30 million small businesses across the country, not just the government contractors. I like that. I'm reading here, it talked about your strategy was pretty straightforward. To make SBA certifications more useful, to increase the supply of contracts reserve for very small business programs, and to improve GCBD's customer service. Yep. I mean, those are, you know, listen to your client, right? You know, you know, a lot of them were like, you know, I try to, you know, I try to call you and nobody answers, right? So what was funny, you know, you know, you know, trying to be an entrepreneur, it's like you pivot on the run. I remember sitting there in a conference and well, okay. Here's my email, as you can't get any higher than me for here. Everyone's, you know, sometimes people listen to me. And then I started giving out my cell phone. So what was the funniest thing you laugh, right? That's crazy. I would do that. That's sad to me. And as I'm speaking, like, you know, like I'm on stage speaking about stuff, right? I would end up doing this. Like somebody would buzz me and I said, okay, five, five, five, one, two, one, two, I got your message, but let me finish this and then we'll talk. That's funny. So then I ended up doing a small business breakfast. Okay. And he said, like, okay. If you want to talk to me, I said, you know, I can't, you know, can't usurp our time with this, but you know, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, if you want to talk to me, if you're from the DC area, I'm down at one of my favorite restaurants every weekend to get up early. And I said, as long as the breakfast lasts, I'll talk to you as much as you want about anything's SBA. So I think over three years, I think I had close to a hundred breakfasts, you know? I think that's what we should call it, right? Breakfast conversations with Rob. Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that's what we could call a series, breakfast conversations with Rob. So here's, I mean, here's the wonderful thing about Zoom, right? You know, okay, except for the food part, you know, I can now do, so I've had two of them so far, but I can have up to 10 people. I sit there and they talk and they ask me about certifications and how you can use them. And then it usually turns into, how do we get started? How do you get started with a business that has nothing but a name, you know? And then, you know, so it's just fun for me. Probably you could do the exact same thing, right? Well, yeah, we could do it. I, fortunately for us, I've taken those conversations, turned them into videos and I put them online at YouTube for everybody to watch. So it's resulted in, you know, tens of thousands of views. So, I mean, the wonderful thing, the wonderful thing about Uber right now that I think is kind of cool in Costco is that, you know, sharing is caring, right? That was a dirty word five, 10 years ago, but can you imagine, you know, the joke I would say is like, if you helped, you know, if you helped a hundred companies a year and I helped a hundred companies a year out of the 75,000 companies, that means there's 74,800 that didn't get any help. There's plenty of help to go around, right? And I think what's interesting is, if you look at the consultants and the specialists and stuff like that, you know, my bone to pick with them is that they operate as their own little fiefdoms as if they're gonna capture the entire market. And what's crazy every once in a while is that the cost that goes to a small business, just to get basic information is exorbitant. And so for me, for most of the things, I just, I'm very happy to give it away so that we have a better informed public and that again, when they finally put the pieces together and they can win a government contract, I think they'll do a better job, right? And I think that makes our government better and more efficient and that serves the public better. And then it also keeps us safer as a country, so. I agree, I would agree. Let's talk about, you know, what do you think about in the future and how we can improve things? Obviously, you've done a lot of great things for the last, you know, three years at your time. But now looking forward, right, to 2021, 2022, what are some things that you'd like to see happen that could help improve whether it be the use of small businesses, whether it be some of the rules or the procurement guidelines or maybe it's just the agencies in general. Maybe you wanna put a billboard up until all the contacts and officers use small businesses, right? I mean, one of the things, and I know this is kind of loaded, but one of the things that Emily said, because you referenced Emily Harmon, I remember her, she said, and I remember this distinctly, she says, small businesses, we need to celebrate our victories, right? Because sometimes there's contracting folks out here who don't know that we're having these victories and because it's not being publicized, kind of like what you said, they feel like it's charity work to give us an opportunity. Yeah, yeah. Because we're not publicizing our success. Yeah. Going well. So what do you say to that? I think if I had to talk to the small businesses, everybody has to do their part. If you think about this, the government contracting officers responsible for millions, hundreds of millions of work that needs to get done in a quality manner. So when people say, hi, I'm a minority, give me money. That's what I mean. It's like it's a charity. They're giving, you want work based on how you appear. That means hub zone, I live in a poor area, give me money. I'm a service disabled veteran, okay? Service disabled veterans absolutely deserve every bit of help we can give them. They deserve it, okay? But it's still not as effective a message as you could have. Same thing with women, okay? If you look at women and if you look at service disabled veterans as an example, for 8A in January, you have probably 5,000 to 8,000 8A companies. You probably have about the same for hub zone, okay? You're going to have 13 to 15,000 women-owned companies because now we have a certification that becomes our largest, that becomes our largest or SBA's largest market by volume. And then if you get the service disabled veteran, that's another 13 to 15,000, okay? So the challenge is that now you have the wonderful thing everybody knows about the 8A. Why can't we all be 8A, right? Right, so in my mind, I think that there's just some things that could happen. If you can, so what would I do in the future? How do I see the future? Can I qualify that real quick? When you say why can't we all be 8A, meaning why can't the women and the veteran get the same recognition or acknowledgment as 8A? Right, okay. Not literally mean be 8A, but the same type of push and armor behind it, everything that goes behind the 8A program. I think that the challenge is this, is that what can SBA do with regulation? That gives somebody in my old job the control to change things as regulations. The challenge with the things that everybody really wants, that's a congressional thing. And you have to work with the hill to be able to do that. But I still think that if we continue the rhythm of good ideas that help small businesses across the United States, hopefully one day we can make a lot of progress like that. In the meantime, here's what I would do. Tools that people could use right now. With category management, the good thing is that the dollars and the opportunities for small businesses are increasing, but the number of contractors is potentially decreasing. In the old days, in the 70s and in the 80s, and even when I was there an 8A company in the 90s, you could have your own independent company not work with anybody and still would have a good chance of building a successful company. I think that's much harder now because the contracts, the contracts are now becoming kind of a box for the contracting officer to check. And so what they're trying to do is they're trying with category management, it has them in this consolidation mode. Would that be equivalent to like bundled contracts of the past? Yes. Just making sure the terms, I know we... And it makes what it has the effect of doing is making the contracts larger and more complex, harder to execute. So my view has always been teaming needs to be important and teaming was something that we could control. So that's why what we did was we combined the all small mentor protege with mentor protege. That's why we are getting, SBA is with the new regulations that were published they were published October 16th, 2020 and they were, they're effective November 16th of 2020. So a couple of weeks ago. Now we're, SBA is generally getting out of the joint venture business. You have to get your all small mentor protege approved and then your joint venture underneath has to be approved for sole source eight A awards. Other than that, I mean, the hangup used to be, right? All small mentor protege was kind of like the second option for a company that couldn't take it down by itself. And then they make this marriage of convenience. And then they realized it's not working. So, and then one of the things was that SBA used to be the holdup for the joint ventures. And if you can imagine, let's say in Washington DC, I mean, everyone on the metro probably went to law school, right? There's thousands of lawyers up here, right? And everybody, because for SBA, that was like, they put a lot of effort into it. They take these joint venture agreements and they make them like a small phone book. Are you old enough to know what a phone book is? I do, I do know what a phone book is. It's probably something you sat on, thanks for the interview. I did sit on it before, but yes. I'm old enough that I had to use it. But so, at the end of the day, it was just like, let's see, pause for a second. And just done. So the joint venture would come back and the joint venture was like this really thick document that had nothing to do with, you know, how SBA had envisioned a joint venture. So we ended up sitting on it for a long time. And that, you know, again, we're motivated by getting that 23% money awarded to a small business. And if they can't move because something's waiting for SBA, that's a problem. So, you know, we let them, I think we let the market take a look at that for compliance because everybody's always looking in government contracting. And we said, okay, we're really only going to worry about the joint ventures for SoulSource 8A. So the all small mentor protégé joint venture should go much faster, okay? But I think with category management and with these bigger contracts, you see all of these really choice contracts coming out. 8A stars three, right? They have Oasis Small Business. They went away with Aliant, but allegedly Aliant Small Business is coming out. I mean, I don't know. But these are all forms of GWACs, Metox, Max, right? So the joint venture, even in the rule, if you looked at the joint venture rule, it used to be three contracts within two years and the year starts after the first award. Nutty, right? So what we changed it to is like two years, the two years starts after the first award, get as many contracts as you want because the challenge with joint ventures, this is kind of convoluted and I've had too much caffeine and diet coke. But the same problem with the joint ventures, which would kind of help small businesses to get more opportunities because they can team with the larger companies was the same contracting problem as the hub zone. So what we said with hub zone as an example was is as long as you are eligible at the time of bid, we changed a rule that had said, you also have to be eligible at the time of award and we got rid of that because for the government, that's the government contracting officer, that was the problem with them using hub zone. And I could see that's the problem that they would have using joint venture because if they, you're a government contractor, you're putting out 10 bids at a time. So in the hub zone, if you won an award, it was a people contract, well, guess what? You're supposed to get four awards in a month, you get that first one, you're out of compliance because you don't have the people, right? So now it becomes illegal for the government to award you two, three and four. So that contracting officer is never gonna use that program again. We had the same problem with joint venture, was like, can you imagine they put out, you could put out 10 awards, 10 bids, and if you win the three, well, the end of the day, you may not be able to accept that fourth one because you've already hit the limit. So for, there's a portion of hub zone that says, as long as you're eligible, bid on as many contracts as you want, and the government now has the assurance that if they go through the bidding process and they make an award, they have the expectation that the small business will be able to perform. And likewise with the joint venture, take that restriction off of the, take the restriction off of the three contracts because you give the government more assurance that they can make the award. The joint venture still is limited by two years because SBA doesn't want a long-term joint venture because then you'll be affiliated, right? Right, right. So we tried to retain the sanctity of the rule and protection of the market and who should get in, but by the same token, make it easier for the small business to get our certification and more importantly for the government to rely on. Oh, what other things do you think that are, that you guys have done in the past that are benefiting small businesses today? I think that, you know, I think that the push, here's some things that we were trying to do that I hope someone in the future will be able to do. I do think that the sole source thresholds need to be updated for 2020 and beyond. And that's to give, you know, the ADA program is a business development program. It is actually unlike the rest of the programs, but this is the one where we take people as entrepreneurs and we turn them into government contractors. And I think you, at the end of the day, the purchase of general items that the, you know, since 1990, the cost of things has increased. And to the point where a lot of the basic awards for basic things still exceed the threshold amount for sole source. If I think the other thing, if we could do something, if we could give sole source at a little bit lesser level, but still give sole source to all of the certifications, I think that would be beneficial. You know, if you gave, if you gave ADA, let's say 8 million, then make HUBZone, Women Owned, Service Disabled Veteran, give them a sole source, who knows, maybe 4 million, something like that. It's something that wasn't there before, but it makes all of our programs more special and it still retains the specialness of ADA, which is a business development program. I thought that the VA, Service Disabled, can do sole source. So they can, in theory. But for, if you look at the way that the government spends its money, I think 70% of the 134 billion is in construction, IT and professional services. And under the rules for Women Owned and for Service Disabled Veteran and for HUBZone, you have to be the only solution provider that provides that solution. And for construction, that's usually not the case. I do think that, yeah. But I don't think that it would be, I don't think it would be bad if you could somehow give them more power. I do not think it would be a good idea to make all of them the same. Cause then I think what would happen is, is that I think that it would definitely become a box checking exercise. And I think that the specialness, it would take away the incentive, I think for small businesses to actually be innovative, right? That actually brings up a really good point. Before, and they had the 809 panel. Yeah. And they talked about innovation and how we're not getting the best people into the government space and go to the government sector. You wanna talk a touch on that? So I met the gentleman that was running the panel. I met him three times. Nice, nice guy. Can't remember his name though, sorry. But I mean, at the time he said to me, at the third time I went there, he says, you are at least persistent. I said, thank you. I said, I don't think you mean that as a compliment. He says, I don't. But he says, let me be honest with you. He says, the 809 panel was basically commissioned to find out the efficiencies and we are never going to side with small business. He says, it's not personal. We're making the recommendation to Congress though, because that's what we see. And it's just, you know, and he gave me a very, I mean, he gave me a well-reasoned, I think a logical argument. I mean, he was anticipating it. By the end of the day, he says, you're not gonna change my mind. And he says, you know, we're trying to do something for all of government. But at the end of the day, he says, the way that it's written direct to, and this is not his words per se, it's been a while. But he gave me the impression. He said that hitting goals for goals sake is a noble idea, but it is not necessarily an efficient idea. He says in general, he says, you know, he said, if in theory, you know, huge government contract company could do all of the work better than anyone else, we would make a recommendation that they go with them. And I said, okay. And he says, this is not personal. They're asking us, what is the fastest way to get there? And this is it. And he says, government is not designed for that. And he says, if there's any hope, he says, there are lots of people that don't agree with us. So what's interesting that you just mentioned, one of the motivational speakers, and I can't think of their name says, we need to ask better questions. So I think that goes to the government asked a specific question and they're getting the answers for that question. So I think Congress probably didn't ask the right questions. Well, and so- Because again, like he said, that's the result. Like if you want efficiency, just use Amazon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that pops off. Yeah. And if you want, you know, if you want a quality and more opportunity, that is certainly a noble goal, but that is not efficient. Not efficient. Right? You know, it's like, you know, the joke is I'm fat, right? So I said, like, look, if you want me to eat hamburgers fast, I could probably eat them faster than giving each kid an opportunity to take a bite. I like that one. I think it was. But I think that, you know, I think that we need to have efficiencies because if you look at how government is, a lot of times, you know, as a government, you can see things. We're not perfect. Right. You know, we've got things that, you know, have worked for 20 years. I mean, my joke with these programs was, I'd start my speech and said, okay, you know, to all this crowd, right? Except for your spouse, what do you have that is 30 years old that still works as well today? I said, 30 years ago. I said, that's kind of the situation that I walked into. Most of the regulations that are in place, I actually wrote in 1990. So let's, you know, I've had a bunch of time to look at things that were working. It didn't work. And it was a combination of our ability to do it and it's our ability to do it quickly. And was it actually a good idea? I didn't want to do something just so I could wave my flag and leave and get a better job or something like that. But I wanted to do something that was meaningful. I mean, I believe that I had a lot of luck. I'll just say that I think my mother, you know, my mother in heaven was looking out for me, but she gave me the perfect situation. And she knows that I was, okay, I'm not here, I'm not here for myself. I'm here because this agency and this industry has provided me with, you know, a pathway and a goal. And it's given me a purpose. And I just wanted to try to do something that was efficient and effective that helps everybody, right? So I think that, you know, if I, you know, there are certain government policies that could change and there were ones that were just very heavy, maybe too heavy to lift or at least got to try. But I think hopefully with the changes that we made, I think that, you know, the government has responded, there's more opportunities, 34% more opportunities and dollars now than there were when I took office. Explain, please. Sure. When I first- For all of us, not for all the non-mathematician people. Oh, sorry. If you look at, if you look at the small business, the historical high spend for small business dollars was 99.1 billion, right? The thing is I told you before, if you took the NBA and the NFL and a major league baseball and hockey, I think the combined revenue they produce is roughly 60 to 70 billion, okay? The federal government spends 99 billion with primes. And in the first year, we raised that to a historical high of 105 billion. The second year, we increased that to 120 billion. And then last year, the last year that I was there, they raised it to 133.1 billion. So there's more opportunities for small business. So we've increased that opportunity. But likewise, we wanted to make the regulations and the operations of small business relevant for 2020 and beyond. And I think that, you know, yeah, we tried to do those things. And I think that the pathway forward for a lot of people, unless you can get the sole source limit raised, unless you can get rid of category management or count all of the small business awards towards category management, I think that teaming is the way forward. Teaming and subcontracting. It's a different way than in the 70s when my uncle had a business. It was different than when I had an ADA company. But I think that, you know, opportunity is opportunity. And I think that I have always built companies by teaming. That's how you start a company from zero, right? And it's based on, you know, first and foremost, if I had to give one tip to everybody that's listening, you know, understand the problem that your client has and that they know that they have and provide a solution at a reasonable price. And, you know, that's the only way to move forward. And I think if we could get people to understand that, most people generally, I think, in our educational system and things, we've all generally been raised to be technicians, right? Eric, if you work hard in school, someone will always give you a job. Yes. And we're moving in society. If you wanna know what my real goal would be in life, if I live long enough, I would love to move incubators onto campuses of high schools and private schools in the area, because I believe that when you go to school, you know, you look like you're an athlete. Did you play sports? I did, I played football. Yeah, it wasn't just ABCs and one, two, threes, right? Okay, if you had, were you musically inclined, you have band. I played the piano. Okay, good. And then, you know, if you had acting, you could do that in science competitions. I was at school, we had a home ec. So we used to cook, we had wood shop and home ec. Okay, good, good. I mean, it's kind of teach- Middle school. It's almost teaching kids that they are capable in ways other than just reading, writing and arithmetic. Right, right. And so what I always wondered is, is for kids like me, why isn't there something, why isn't there a team? Why isn't there something of focus that would encourage me in entrepreneurial ways? Man, Rob, you and I are so connected. I actually, when I was in college, I co-founded the Entrepreneurs Club at University of Florida. Nice, yep, nice. I said that, you know, so our motto was that school teaches you how to write resumes, we teach you how to read them. Oh, I like it, I like it. And so we led with that philosophy. And by the way, that's really what I wanna do in the government contracting space when we talked about before and it was off record, but you know, I would like to educate people on this marketplace in ways that they're not being educated now, in the forms of entertainment, bringing programming that highlights government contracting in a positive way. For those of us like myself who don't necessarily wanna go to the military, but I can still serve my country via being a government contractor. Yeah, yeah. And that's the way I see myself, is that, hey, I'm doing my part. This is to me, is my part of serving our country because I am fulfilling a need. I am providing solutions and services and innovative ways in which we can help create efficiencies, reduce costs and things like that. So I mean, that's, I really, I'm putting a lot of all of my time and effort into that. And as you can see, man, you just turned me on with that. I tell my team all the time, that's my vision for everything that I'm doing. Most people, when they start their entrepreneurship, they're teaching themselves. When have we ever learned anything in education by ourselves? Never, never. Right? Never, never. I mean, it's homeschool without a mom. Right? Wow, wow. Do you know what I mean? I know, I agree. No, that's the best way, that's an excellent metaphor. I mean, so our joke that we talked about was fail off and to succeed sooner, right? We get used to progress and not perfection, right? If it isn't working great, we'll try something else. We will find a way or we will make one. And what we wanna try to do, at least at this base level, you know, I'll talk to anybody. Can I get my phone number? Of course. All right, great. Everybody listen, 301-996-8696. My email address is rwong at fedsolve.com, F-E-D-S-O-L-V-E. If you hear this podcast, just tell me, I will talk to you as long as you want about SBA and government marketing or government contracting and how to get started in this industry. But at the end of the day, it's like, you know, the joke I say is like, you know, maybe I'll go to hell a little slower, Eric, you know? But I do believe and it's, you know, I practice what I preach. My daughter's going to school since she's been a little kid. She's been helping, she's been doing things. It's like, what are you capable of doing, right? And I wanna teach her and I wanna teach other people the companies that I mentor, companies that I work with, companies that are put together on teams. I want them to really look at themselves as their best option. And you're not educated to do that, right? And so if we can start with my dream, if we could start with learning that at school, I think it would change the mindset. As odd as it sounds, like, do you know why we have ecology and we do recycling and things like that? Started at school. Think about it. Yeah, little notes on the back of the backpack and stuff like that, right? I mean, it's the best way to teach kids. Why do you think that there's, you know, drugs and alcohol and smoking, okay? Hit the kids at school, right? Right, right. I mean, that's, and I think that entrepreneurship, teaching kids to be empowered to think for themselves if they need it. It's always an option, right? But you've heard, you know, you've heard it as much as I have when you counsel new entrepreneurs. You know, there's only generally two categories of entrepreneurs in my opinion. They can't stand their boss or the boss can't stand them. Right? And the thing is, is that they leave with a technical skill, I hope, right? And then it's just like, okay, well, if you can tell me what it is you do, I know how to leverage that. I know how to get business from that, right? But, and then it starts with, as long as you have a technical skill, as long as you can identify a problem that your client knows it has, provide that skill at a reasonable price and you got a client, you know? No, I think many people do the cast of white net approach, which is, I'm the jack of all trades. Oh my gosh. And I tell them, yeah, but you're fishing in an ocean. I just, you know, you're fishing in an ocean. People like to skip to the end of the, people like to skip to the end of a book to read the last chapter to find out how it ends out, right? And then they're like, ah, I just copy that. My analogy, like you were saying with an ocean. It's like, if you look up in an airplane in the sky and it has, you know, where are most people looking, right? They're looking at the tail it's a nice pretty plume of smoke, right? You know, and then you realize it's like, okay, but if you look at where the airplane's going, you really should look at the nose because all the coordinates are designed to go to one particular place and that plume of smoke is just a result of them going at this one place. So as a weird example, if you identify a problem that you know your client has, your elevator pitch should be 15 seconds because in my opinion, your 15 seconds, all it does, all it does is establish to the person that's listening that this person is competent. After you do that, then turn on, say, but that's enough about me. What are the problems that keep you up at night? I'm a problem solver, let me try to help you. I don't know if I can do it myself but I'll try and find somebody. And that's how you start that conversation, right? I mean, I've used that over and over and over and over again. It's just people being people, trying to be happy, trying to be helpful. And invariably, if you get your first contract, right? If you focus on the government problem that you're trying to solve, all of your teaming and all of the bright and shiny that you're saying that you're trying to do everything, that will fade away. And if you sit in front of a contracting officer as a small business, okay? If you look like you or you look like me, I guarantee invariably, hey, are you A&A? Oh, was it my tie? But what will happen is that will eventually come out but they will be impressed by the fact that you understand that you took the time to understand my organization a little bit. And you're asking questions and now you're asking me what my problems are. You'll get your first opportunity. I have no doubt. And then you become not only the solutions provider that you intend to be, but you also become more importantly, just to help her, a problem solver. So they'll come to you and say, Eric, I know that you're out there doing construction, hammering nails, do you have anybody that might know how to fix vehicles? And that's the position you wanna be in, right? It's like, great, now I become a connector, right? But I've seen it hundreds of times, right? And I see that a lot of the industry still doesn't get that. And I try, I try through these podcasts, through my YouTube, to my channels, I try to educate people on not leading with certifications. Oh my gosh, yeah, right? Don't lead with your tag. I always, I try. And I mean, listen, I'm even making skits about this thing. Maybe they'll get it through some different way, like through an actual skit, right? We'll play it out. You know, what was kind of cool was I try to find positives out of, you know, positives out of crisis, right? But if you look at the way that we're attacking COVID and PPE, right? And vaccines and stuff, this was a perfect opportunity for everyone to get into the market because nobody had the answer, right? And so, you know, we set up a PPE company very quickly after I'd left SBA, I thought, okay, I'll go sell masks, right? And so, you know, you start dialing for dollars. I was like, okay, I'm trying to find somebody with masks. Oh, they all go to China. Once you get into that idea of what problem are you solving, all of a sudden, if you say, hey, I'm looking for a guy who sells PPE, I'm looking for a guy who sells PPE, we're looking at masks, we're looking at gowns, we're looking at ventilators, right? You know, oh, I didn't know that was PPE, but I know somebody who's in the gown business, I know somebody who's in this business, I know hand sanitizer and stuff. So, you know, you could get into that business really, really easily. And then the challenge would be is now you have to find a supply, right? I mean, but it was just a good exercise around entrepreneurship, is all I'm saying. No, it was. And I know a lot of people that it was their first foray into the government was through PPE. In fact, a lot of people come to me now as a result of, because of the PPE situation, they learned about government contracting. And then that's why I believe, you know, part of what I want to do with my platform is to educate more people about government contracting, like you said, so that we can start bringing in some of those. Again, I have a lot of friends that are entrepreneurs and successful, but all of the myths and the things they've heard about work with the government, the government doesn't pay, they're slow, and it's a turnoff for them. Yeah, and I do think that they, you know, for lack of a better term, they make themselves the victim more often than not. Or they make themselves the center of attention, like, how is this gonna benefit me? Like you were saying, like, they take too long to pay, too long for who, you know? Well, it's 90 days, I can't live on 90 days. Okay, well, then that's your problem, because that's the way it's always been, right? But what I want to be able to do is I try to coach my, you know, coach my team members, just like, make the government your customer. If they're gonna pay you slow, they're gonna pay you, but then just get more business, right? Right. And it's a cycle. How do you get more business? Focus on that problem that you know that, you know, that they know they have and stuff. But there are so many, you know, the industry will put everybody on the same path, but at the end of the day, here's the thing, you know, the real secret sauce is that at the end of the day, you need business development. And business development for most people is an afterthought. Ah, I can just do that in my sleep, okay? You know, my joke is that the only people that don't need business development are companies that have too many contracts. And at the end of the day, all the contracts are coming from ordinary people like you and me who are contracting officers. They got problems to solve. They got hang ups and they got issues just like everybody else. And they see most of the world as like, give me, give me, give me, give me, give me, right? So the joke I would have is, you know, the thing that I've taught my kid as an example, when she was three years old, we started this. We go out to eat and her job was to find out, find out the waitress's name, okay? Find out where she's from. Find out what story is she like when she was a little kid? Why? Because waiters and something like government, your government contracting officers, all they hear are people barking at them with orders. It's very impersonal. But if you reach out and ask them something personal, try to make a personal connection with them, they'll remember, they'll always remember. And do it, in my opinion, do it with sincerity, okay? Don't do it with everybody. If you're focused on your industry, you're gonna probably know five or 10 and you should know five or 10 and you should respect them enough to remember their names. And remember to call when you say you're gonna call and show up because they're taking their time and they're being used to just being order takers, right? But those are the things and that's the hard work, right? That's the hard work that you're used to. That's the hard work that I'm used to. I look at it and I just find that it's fun. I find that that's part of the process. Right, I agree, it's part of the process. I think it's, for some of us small businesses out here, I think that, because again, over the past three years, I've talked to thousands of businesses, sometimes they do the work and they want to happen quickly and it's not happening fast enough. And so they believe that that process of business development doesn't necessarily work because they're not seeing immediate returns. What do you say to them? So I think that everybody has the power and most people have the power in their personal lives. I think that making relationships, you should treat it like you're trying to get married, not like Tinder, okay? Tinder is like, oh, I tried and made it. I think you swipe or you swoosh or whatever, yeah. Thank God, I don't know. You don't know, right? Exactly. But I mean, the thing is, it's like they think like, oh, it's like trying to form a relationship off of a resume, okay? And you've got to put the personal work in there. You've got to try, but people are open to that. And again, I think it sounds short shrift, but if you are the person, if you're focusing again on that problem, you know, you're solving, then it's kind of like us when we're talking, okay? We're focused on the same problem, educating people, making them stronger, better, faster, small businesses, okay? And, you know, to some people that aren't interested, we probably sound like two nerds talking about the thing that nobody was interested in. That's funny. Eric, if we could just help one company. I can tell you this, I already wrote down that quote that you said, I promise you, it will be tweeted, and as soon as we get off the call, the only people that don't need business development are people who have too many contracts. I'm tweeting that as soon as we finish. I'm telling you, I promise you, it's going to receive at least 10 likes. Thank you, thank you. Okay. I mean, it's, I think that, you know, the people that are good, small business people, look at your own life and stuff. You want to find business development and treat, treat your company like it's a kid that has COVID, okay? Most people do business development as COVID, they go to CVS, try to get, you know, if your kid had the flu, maybe it's easier. Everybody's had a little kid or knows a little kid that's had the flu, they're miserable. So you run to CVS and CVS is closed. Well, I guess I'll have to suffer. That's the extent of a lot of small business, business development. But if your kid is sick and suffering, what would you do? Everything. You're going to go to the grocery store. Everything. You know, you're going to go to another pharmacy. You're not going to quit till you get relief. You'll go and wake up. Yeah. You'll wake up the neighbor. Right. Say, hey, I think you know a doctor, sorry, my kid is really suffering. Don't mean to be rude, but can you help? If they worry about that urgency, if they focus on solving that problem, the ways to do business development are just more clear, right? I mean, entrepreneurship a lot of times is kind of, it's kind of a, you have to play tricks with your own mind, right? Right? You have to fight the battle as an entrepreneur, right? Right, listen, go ahead. You finish that. No, my boss is a slave driver and my employee is lazy. Right? You know, I always tell people and I say, listen, when you're doing something, I say call it an experiment. It makes it less painful if it doesn't work. I say, just call it an experiment. And that's one of those things you play trick with your mind. I said, if you're gonna do something for me, say, I'm gonna do this, it's an experiment. So you're not so much pressure on you if it doesn't work out. And it just relieves you from feeling so intensity and not an afraid to call or afraid to email because you're like, it's just an experiment. It's fine. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. If it works, great. I mean, you know, I think, you know, try something. You're either gonna succeed or you're gonna learn. The only people that, if it's a failure, is if you quit. Right, right. And most entrepreneurs, they don't have quit in them. Right, right, right. Rob, if you had the chance, and we're gonna wrap this up because I wanna chat with you offline, if you had a chance, and I've got this from a podcast I listened to, if you had a chance to put out a billboard to contracting officers, right? Contracting officers, you put this big billboard out and all the contracting officers could read it. What would you put on that billboard? I would tell them to take, okay. I would tell them to take a look at SBA certifies again for the first time. I think we've made some improvements to the certifications. I think that we're improved the teaching so that we get people more message focused. I think that we have improved things to make it easier for government contractors to have more reliance on them. But because of things that we did, and we did some things in the administration that haven't been done in 20 years, and there are people that already kind of dismiss, they dismiss SBA certified companies. But I would say the government contracting officer, look, we've made them better, stronger, faster to fit your needs. Take a look at us again for the first time. I like it. What's the last purchase that you made from Amazon that made you happy? Wow, the last thing that I bought from Amazon made me happy. Oh. Cadbury chocolate bars. Ah, for yourself or for someone else? Oh, it was for me. Yeah, so what happened was, right? And that's the old ones. Is that the ones with the rabbit? Yeah, so yeah, it's like, it has the purple and they were like chocolate with almonds, right? So I found them and it was just like, we're out in COVID, I'm afraid to go out. It's like, I want chocolate. Okay, I'll wait two days, right? Instead, so I ordered two bars. Instead what they did, they sent me two boxes. I'm going to Fatopolis on the fat train. I'm very happy. I'm very happy. At least, at least no one has to see you. You don't have to go out to eat, right? But I mean, I mean, boy, we're big Amazon fans, you know, big, big Amazon fans. No, I just, I find it that question usually prompts something that I didn't know about the person. So I've had some really interesting responses. I had one guest who actually would order a gift for his mom who was in the hospital before her cancer treatments. And so he would send her something every Tuesday because her treatments was her Wednesday. And so you just learn things about people and their purchases and how it impacts their life. If it, all right, so along that lines, if it'll help, I probably have OCD or ADHD. So my wife and daughter have been in Japan since August. Actually, my daughter just came back and my wife will eventually come back. But when they go, here's what I love about Amazon. They store up the list of stuff that you order. And I order the same stuff every week. I just hit one click and the same stuff comes. Oh, so your wife and daughter pre-programmed what you use on a weekly basis. Listen, it's very weird. I can eat the exact same thing at the same time for a month. Wow. And because if I can do that, then I can focus on other things. I was gonna say that probably makes it really efficient. I mean, that's what Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, they all wear the same clothes and outfits because- Yeah, they're smarter than me. I think I'm just lazy and stupid. So I mean- I just compared you to them. I put you at the same level. I appreciate that. It's very nice of you instead. All right, can you send us a parting word so we can close out the small businesses out there? Well, I tell you, it's certainly been a great pleasure to meet another person who is as excited about me as helping this industry. I hope that it's the first time of several. I loved what I did. It was the best job. And I hope that I did a good job. And I would just say that if it was a lot of information to cover in a little bit of time, but again, if anybody wants to contact me, I will talk to you as long as you want about how to get your business started and how to jumpstart your business, how to focus on a message. Again, we tried to make the programs easier for you to have, to get those certifications, more powerful to use, and more importantly to help the government. See small businesses as their best option. And if you need help, and if you'd like to talk to me more about how to do that, it's what I love and Eric, and so glad to see somebody else who loves that as well. So maybe between the two of us, we can help your listeners even more than they can. Wow, Rob, thank you so much. Definitely a mouthful in a short period of time. I love the energy, very exciting. I had no idea that you were this much fun, but Michelle said a lot of great things about you, so. And Michelle, I know her personality, we're a lot alike, so she, I mean, Michelle can make me laugh via email. She's like, I don't even have to hear her voice, but just when she writes to the email, I just start fussing out laughing. I mean, she's committed to this industry, right? You have a lot of guys that are, frankly, they put out their shingles and I promote me, right? But I mean, she carries the message. She's just, you know, she's a great messenger for a great program, you know. She does, I think that she does a better job than we do at SBA, than SBA did at something. We've had some excellent leaders there, but we have so many people that we have to focus on. And she with her organization is means committed, the passion comes through, you know, really, really one of the great people in our industry. Oh, that's good stuff. Hey, Rob, thanks so much once again.