 Hey there it looks like we're live. Hey, we're live. Hello everyone. How's it going? Happy Monday We are back with Judy Brett in the building In a couple weeks, but we have brought her back on I see some people are already following instructions from the previous sessions Introducing themselves telling us where they're from telling us their name telling us the name of their organization Good job Brian. Good job. Well, Ani you could tell the ones that are regulars that know what to do So your regulars are awesome Your community is so active and I have to say thank you right off the top for all the Great folks that I've met and had the chance to have Conversations with because we have these conversations here. So thank you again Inviting me. No, thank you for coming on and I see some people some familiar faces on here I see a couple new people So again, if you're new welcome welcome welcome, we like to use this as our Session where we introduce each other. We talk a little bit about our businesses We tell people what we do because by the time this finish there will be hundreds of people who've seen this content and By next month thousands people have seen the content. So let them know who you are What is it that you do what your business does and where you're from? Those are the three things that we ask Brian's already done it. The Lonnie's already done it Let's see Dale Let's go Johnny Hawaiian put something in the chat Ferdinand put something in the chat mr. Agent 81. Let us know who you are What is it that you do it also helps when we are talking and we're giving illustrations We're giving examples and we can talk towards examples that that where we can relate to but if you don't tell us anything about your business You don't tell us what stage or in what you're working on It's really difficult for us to give practical examples that you can relate to so we're just gonna Ramble off stuff that makes sense to us, but it may not be applicable to your put your situation So definitely Lloyd welcome. Thanks for telling us a little bit about what you're doing I hope things are going well at the VA mark. That's great nice nice and What does Polanco management do and when we're here one of the things that we both love to do is Hear about your situation and what kind of business you might most like to win and with what? Agency so hey, can we start out? I Wonder if you have a Federal agency where you would most like to win Your next contract or your first contract if there's a federal agency where you would read you've never done business And you would like to win for the first time put that In the chat along with what you offer. So I'd like to offer floor polishing machines to veterans affairs, or I'd like to offer Scientific equipment prototypes to health and human services. So put the your First contract you'd really like to win for what and with who put that in the chat because that's gonna give us Something to play with on our topic tonight. Don't you think Eric? Yes, I love it I started it off just in case you slow pokes we're messing around You see my answer Judy. I did okay. Is that good or should I do something different? That's exactly the right thing. It's exactly what I want to see Yep And so sigh the DIY guy. What do you have to offer to the Department of the Interior? Right? Modular units good Eric. That's great. Thank you. I pay attention really and I like your example because everybody who does anything that might be of Value of importance in the case of disaster response Listen up because the forecasters are all saying that there's going to be a record Hurricane season a record season for extreme weather and the time to Get in line the time to make friends is right now long before The forecaster puts it there and says it's time to evacuate. This is the time of year When you need to be making friends with the whole set of people in the community That's going to be involved in responding that already has their continuity of operation books and their dust and them off So I love your example gee I have temporary housing to offer FEMA in modular units, right great example Yep You Julie says I want a micro purchase with the VA offering medical supplies got it Huh? Great, so give us some context before I dive right into the deep end Eric. I Wander it off and did a double half gainer off the low board without even warming up. Oh, okay That's okay. Hold on. So what kind of context would you like? Well, we were going to talk about micro purchase and this is the Fifth in and the set of six topics now that we've been talking about and building Relationships with people solving some problems, right? No, and in regard to micro purchases, you know, I have personally I cannot recall successfully winning a micro purchase Okay, now that explains something important to me because I know you've often said, you know Small businesses don't let anybody talk you into these little bit twiddling things. Yeah Go for real things micro purchase a micro purchase kind of isn't your favorite topic It's not for me Julie. I you started in construction, right? Correct. Okay, so That that can be a different situation and right my very first Contract was a micro purchase my first federal contract and I have to tell you the federal government is not usually my client I have Pursued some federal business in parts so that I can have the same kind of experiences that my clients have I can live to tell the tale the very first thing I ever sold was to The small business administration. Okay. It was a micro purchase done. I think on a credit card. Okay in the last Four weeks of the fiscal year. Okay The small business administration bought a box of my books Before there was a box and before there was a book it was based on a relationship that took With somebody it took 18 months for me to get to know that person. Now. That's an unusual length of lead time Relationship sale at the end of the fiscal year for less than $10,000 paid on a credit card And I and I got no doubt not only my money in the bank account But I could say I've done business with the small business administration and that opens the door Because nobody wants to be first, right? Sure. And so for a lot of people Micro purchase is valuable and sometimes with construction. Let's say You are involved in a specialty thing. Maybe you fix railings. Maybe you do interior painting Mm-hmm. A lot of the time even with construction Somebody has a little job they can't get anybody to do it somebody can't be bothered doing that project So that stairwell is always in disrepair that wall always needed painting That switchbox has always sending off sparks and setting off the alarm at a weird time and nobody knows how to fix it Right sometimes to say give me that little job that nobody wants I'll take care of you Those words I'll take care of you Are the most powerful words anybody can tell me I Will take care of you. I will stop it from hurting. I will keep you safe. I will make you shine I will fix the thing that's been irritating people and being distracting and that has been making you look bad forever I'm gonna take care of that for you. What a lovely gift To give to someone to say I'll take care of you. No, and I will say I've done simplified acquisition But I've never done micro purchase and for you simplified acquisition Again in construction, it may be a project that's big enough, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars nice nice little job And for construction We've done 15 25,000 things like that as well sometimes so But I've just never done credit card purchases. No Maria has Maria. Maria just said on there She wrote it. She did a painting a room for a contract. She did a Michael. There you go The Maria's done it before and so the cool thing about that is you can you can say now I've done business with the United States Marine Corps. Ooh, right really The fact that it was for painting a wall the I I did I did a project for the Department at Homeland Security is a $2,500 lunch and learn I only got to do one But hey, I got to do one. No, that's why I've done business with the Department of Homeland Fricking Security Isn't that cool? That's cool. And so business begets more business and the people want to make it easy to Give you a little bit of a try do a project that they don't have to run a big fancy competition for because lots of the times and users have things that they need and They might be interested in a new vendor and as vendors we might want to win that $250,000 project the multi-million dollar project but if those buyers don't know us a Micro-purchase gives them a low risk way to try you out and Gives you an easy way a short-term project where you don't have to invest a lot of capital and you get to shine You get to show what a great job you did. It's not going to take you forever to do that So you're not trying to deliver a giant project first time out of the box You can show you did well do another one and you get cash flow so Some of those things really debunk the idea that you need to be spending thousands of dollars on a big proposal when you can start to build trust and They can get to know you on a smaller project and There are Thousands of companies and I think there are thousands of companies who are your subscribers and in your programs whose businesses May be very small and may never Aspire to be multi-multi-million dollar businesses in the first place so it may be that a Good series of a few Micro-purchases that might build into our topic for next week simplified acquisitions that could make all the difference in Your business doing what it needs to do bringing in The money that you need to support your family to help somebody Achieve your business goals right now that could make all the difference and the fact that those don't take huge proposals to write But are based on relationships Is the thing that surprises people? All right, you heard it here first. You heard what Judy said Micro-purchases is a lot of smaller companies out here may not be aspiring to do Hundreds of thousands a year may not be aspiring to millions of dollars a year great way to get your foot in the door I don't have a lot. I personally don't have a lot of experience with micro purchases So I'm gonna be sitting back and watching on this one Okay, but I'm letting Judy take controls. I'm she's in the driver's seat. I'm gonna be the passenger I might be like well ask me you're the skeptical passenger and I like that So you should ask me those questions. So let's take a look at some of these So Isaiah Simmons said I did five with the post office last one. I did paid out $2,200 How who here would would sniff at that that's in these days who can afford to turn down work? Sometimes you do if it's not the right thing, but What else have we got Maria says I did another one for USDA for trimming the driveway Before starting our sole source contract and here's something to think about lots of times people say well I want to be awarded a big sole source contract For a larger value sole source contract There's a long list of work that the contracting officer has to do to justify and document a sole source So the bigger it is the more pressure the buyers are under to show competition It's why it's to your advantage to build a relationship Because there's lots of options that a contracting officer has to conduct a full open fair competition and also Make it easy for them to award the work to you both of those things can be true at the same time Some of that comes from your buyer Getting used to what you do well You being able to show them How you're special how you're different and that lets your buyer Shape the desirable requirements and the mandatory requirements in the specification So that it doesn't have your name written on it in capital letters But it's leaving the door open for you. It may Be defining it in such a way that there are very few companies that have two or three particular characteristics that are important For the job being done in a way that will mean it gets done well And the contract will be low risk of failure and high odds of being really successful Julie can we Earlier you asked folks to put in here the specific product or service they want to offer to a specific agency Okay, I I don't see that in here. I'm looking at the group chat. I see So for example Adele row, I want to sell standing on our filtration units to the DOD and other agencies Julie, what would you say to that? So um Adele. Oh stand alone indoor biodefense air filtration units to the DOD. All right Adele The Tricky part is I want to sell to the DOD There's no such thing as selling to the DOD Adele when you have a contract A real federal human is going to sign that contract That's a person That's a person who is the one who's got everything on the line when they choose you And so if you want to sell standalone indoor biodefense air filtration units, um Adele Start close to home Find someone if you have never sold to Anyone in the federal government before they're going to want to see that you've sold the product or the service that you offer to Another organization or customer that has a size and scale of requirement Really similar to theirs One of the things that matters are does how many of those Adele? How many do you want to sell you're looking to sell one or five or five hundred or five million? Finding someone who has a specific need To have an indoor biodefense air filtration unit. Maybe they've been told they need to have one Maybe if it's coveted response, that's actually a helpful thing to know There may be some folks who Are getting ready to bring a workforce Back into the office and so you have to have a specific problem That that buyer needs to solve and go in and talk to them About how you've solved That problem for someone very similar to them Yesterday afternoon And so come bringing a case study of how you solve the problem how effectively you did it And you're going to be calling on individual federal humans If there are people that you've already sold to who are familiar with or have relationships with the folks that you Want to be doing business with Leveraging the relationships you have to get an introduction to somebody who needs what you do is helpful With what you're doing Sometimes if you're dealing with something that has to do with facilities management You might be dealing with the prime contractor That is has the facilities management contract. You might be dealing with the hvac contractor It's possible that in your situation Somebody might have a really specific Need for an individual office So you got to get really tightly focused rather than I want to go and put my Biodefense units Up on the internet and people buy a truckload of them. Maybe that will happen in time Gotta have a good idea about what they're already buying That is similar to what you offer that gets kind of interesting And that's a way and a reason to tap federal market research data one of my favorite topics and find out if somebody didn't have What you offer then what else are they buying and who are they buying it from? And that will again look at who's buying a lot of these things if they're buying a lot of them They already know that they're a type of thing that works And they might be interested in one that has better features Better customer service better training better support possibly better price and so you're not trying to educate people from zero on why they need Air filtration air biodefense systems. You're already talking to people who know the language You know appreciate the value of the problem you solve our del does that help? That's a long explanation So give us some feedback and uh, Eric feed us another one All right. So again, I'm looking here at what people wrote and What we're asking again very be very specific about what is it that you want to sell and to what agency? Uh, Adele says it's anthrax and covet starting close to home. Yeah, you have an appointment with dha in two weeks All right, uh defense health administration excellent um, so Adele you definitely want to Um Think about who you already know who might know somebody in dha again dha is not your buyer You're going to have a specific military hospital So you want to find out what equipment they're already using if you're not already working with um training that eric has provided or with your procurement technical assistant center or our good buddies at Gavology and learning how to tap past federal contract data. You want to go into your meeting at dha knowing what equipment they're already Buying and how you bring better value. So that's something to think about Another thing to think about especially with micro purchases What would be the value of say um a pilot installation or a sample or a test So anybody here who would like to win? A micro purchase That's actually not The Thing that you want to go in approaching the buyer with remember that you need to be able to solve a problem somebody has For less than ten thousand dollars So I want everybody here to think about that contract this specific individual contract for Less than what problem could you solve? Or what could you deliver for less than ten thousand dollars? I want to see that in the chat now ideas might be um a report an assessment a study Brian a lunch and learn a class a training and evaluate brian off actually brian offers assessments Yeah, I know Say he had done 100 wished he could get a gig for lunch and learn. So yeah You're so you could be a training assessment. It could be a training design workshop So that way people are giving you ideas for new things that you can offer them. How bad would that be? um You can present leading edge a showcase of the leading edge solutions in your realm You could be presenting um Ideas for how to solve a particular problem um So jesse you got paper towels that is often going to be a um a price and service and delivery thing So it might be that um, you know amazon is not your friend So to be able to offer and sometimes you're not in a place where you can offer something that somebody's got Your paper towels have got to be Better faster cheaper saying oh, it's environmentally friendly is Especially it's going to cost more Hard to justify even though there's Executive orders that go back to two administrations saying oh, there's a mandate to buy environmentally friendly stuff Did we get it on time? Can we afford it? so cmmc Assessments So cmmc assessments or something a vendor would need I don't know whether the government itself is That's not something to probably sell to the federal government itself Right. Okay a micro creative campaign mini online training mini marketing website under 10,000 column. That's brilliant. I love that Great idea Um, let's do it. Can you help out? He keeps saying he can deliver all things food. Can we clarify? All things food related. Yeah, philip. That's really interesting. Does that mean food service tools? Does that mean catering? Does it mean advice on nutrition? Get a little more specific for us Your government consultant based down in california got that philip um Love to hear more about that and so I've never heard of virtual cpr training before Virtual cpr. Um, I've never heard of that. I would bet you could do it There's a lot of physical things everything from dance classes to singing that people are teaching online So I would bet that if it may be that you have to send a physical equipment or model that might be something you have to do. Okay. So um Depends on and and there's so many really cool things being done virtually. Maybe it's possible to do it with Oh, yes, simulated environment. Okay. I like that thinking Cloud environmental security assessments. That's a great one. I love that. That sounds good. I like it Contracts in trucking small company one truck one trailer nickel sand mill make some buddies make some friends um People want to know where our micro purchases posted. The answer is They're not These are things that happen conversation by conversation. So if you're looking to Do business at the micro purchase level that's going to come from a personal relationship And so you're going to be making friends the good odds are that you're probably only two degrees of separation Two conversations from somebody who probably needs what you do But you've got to get to know them And you have to know the concept of players And layers and maria if you can drop our govcon personas guide in the chat that would be great We talk about something called the players and layers methodology There are five people you need to meet and if you're offering something It's all offering to solve a problem at least at first that you can help with at A very low price tag You might want you might not need to know the cabinet secretary Or the cio or even the base commander helpful to know if you're looking to grow to that stage Who the big cheese is in your food chain? But for sure you do need to know the contracting officer It's helpful to know the small business specialist small business specialist is not going to lead you to the micro purchase Small business specialist if you've done your research Can help you fill in the gaps in your research and your knowledge when you're looking to find out who should you be doing business with Who should you be talking to so of the five players and layers? Stakeholders probably not as important for micro purchase, but helpful if you're growing small business specialists can be your advocate and Help you fine tune your navigation and your call planning when you're building relationships End user for sure your end user has a lot to say about hey, I want this thing Contracting person could you make this happen? Please? That's a short jump So contracting and end user and small business specialist all really really helpful Probably don't need to know The stakeholder helpful to know the industry player. Who else are they doing business with who are they buying from right now? That either you are going to have to complement or be compatible with or Might feel uncomfortable that you're nipping at their heels So you've got to slide under there and go this other thing that In certain name of big prime that they don't do we can take care of you that thing that they've left unfinished We've got you That happens all the time So by the way while we're reading the comments, there's about 60 people watching so far 17 likes Make sure you give us a thumbs up if you like the content I'm going to go through and continue as judey's talking filigree and questions Paul has a um has something that uh, they're asking about um, let's see here. What was that now? Um What is micro purchase exactly? All right, louis. Yes, let's start back at the beginning a very good place to start federal buyers a warranted federal contracting officer someone with buying authority may purchase Goods or services worth up to the value of $10,000 They can pay you on a credit card, which is typically how it happens they can make the purchase Whether following the rules with virtually no competition no small business set asides the buy american act does not apply And you've got to know the rules, which is why I have a class that goes through then I'm not going to go and read the federal acquisition regulations to you It's not quite the wild west. We're just handing out contracts hand over fist They're supposed to look for local suppliers. So if you're close to a federal buying installation agency a base a fort a camp great because they have encouragement To award contracts to local suppliers. So that's an advantage for you. So go local is a big deal It's very helpful Brian, do I mention getting paid for lunch and learns in my book? I think the particular lunch and learn I got paid for I didn't tell that story in my book. I will tell you the story of how I won it I was just finishing. I was at the government procurement conference So I guess it would have been two three years ago now And I had finished the presentation. I was giving I was tired. I was Sitting down at a lunch table and somebody from the department of homeland security in the small business office and immigration and customs Enforcement, I know citizenship and immigration services one of the i words We sat down and we were chatting and he was talking and I was asking him about I was testing my theories about whether or not Contracting staff want to talk to vendors or they don't And he said, you know, that's really funny I one of the things that I have a mandate to do is to encourage the contracting staff to have better relationships with vendors And I said, well, this was in april. I said we could I could help you with that I'd love to put together a lunch and learn on that and this is april Well, I fun as I said, when should I follow up? He said, oh, we should follow up in june So I send him an email in april We followed up in june and then silence silence more silence Nothing nothing nothing came to almost the end of the year with september Hey, would you like to do the thing? Oh, we'd like to do the thing but new fiscal year Let's talk after september more silence more emails. Finally, we get to october I get finally hear back from he said, yeah, I think we'd like to do this thing Two weeks before christmas. I said we can do this So lots of email follow up lots of patience. I didn't hear from him for many many months But then finally said yes, and now we got to the agreement and then the contracting officer writes to me says I'd like to know if we can get a discount going So I'm calling my other friend who's a contracting officer. Oh, they ask that because they have to ask that He said, oh, okay fine. He said, well, I I'm not I'm not going to discount one But if your office buys for or maybe it's $3,500 If your office buys a set of four, then I will prorate your price back down to $3,500 each So I got $3,500 for the one that I I gave Because they and they never came back and asked for any more of them in that fiscal year So but so they had to ask for a discount which was interesting and so and this is the best part 48 hours after I gave the webinar and submitted my invoice I had a payment for $3,500 from the Department of Homeland Security. I wept It was the fastest I got paid by almost anybody So that was my little story about doing business and a lunch and learn with the Department of Homeland Security I hope that helps a little If you like the story if you think that this something that sounds like something you could do If that's helpful, put a thumbs up in the chat. Let us know whether the story is helpful to you By the way, Sylvia says I received my first three micro purchase contracts with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors Doing training for the facilities managers Excellent Good job. Good story Sylvia. That's impressive Sylvia. Congratulations. By the way, glad you're back I know, uh, she was out for a little bit. Hey, there's only 26 like 68 people watching Give us a thumbs up so we can keep sharing keep discussing. Yeah, keep bringing content keep answering questions And call it. Thank you for the plug Um, absolutely. So talk a little bit about what else you might like to offer Oh, and poll wanted to know are these micro purchases location specific? Absolutely. You're delivering a thing to a place You're conducting a training in a location. Yes. They are very specific These are ways to create something exquisite and special to solve a very specific problem For somebody you can help it's personal it's like imagine I love the concept of Design thinking have you heard of design thinking Eric? No, I've never heard of that. Oh, it's so cool And this is a principle that is super valuable for everybody in federal contracting and everybody you ever had to sell anything to anyone The concept comes from Stanford University and it's well worth looking up called design thinking I want you to tell me Eric each about each. Oh you and me are both going to think for a minute and about What present would you love someone to give you you've always wanted? And maybe you've never really talked about very much and if somebody gave you this present Whether it was a physical thing or an experience or a gift you'd go How did you know? Think about one of those things. What would that thing be? What would the present be that you would love to get? I mean if you're listening I want you to drop your present you would love to get drop that in the chat Okay, because we're gonna do we're gonna play a little game here for a minute. Okay, so drop your perfect present the Describe it in the chat. All right. So Eric, tell me what would your Perfect. Oh, if maria were to give you a present Um, I want to go to monaco Trip to monaco trip to monaco all expense paid including casino money, right? That's right trip to monaco I want to go but I want to go in the racing when they're doing the car races So formula one you want to spend the formula what you want to see the formula one competition I want to see the race and I completely get that I completely get that I know somebody who knows the crown prince of monaco Oh, so I I'm too. I'm two degrees Two degrees of separation from the yeah, how did you know you your two degrees of separation from some from the crown prince of monaco Just because you asked the question. I see you asked that question I have it on my it's actually on my bucket list of things There there you go. So now if you were to which by the way happens to be in my background bucket list there So if you were to give me Okay a trip to monaco to see the to visit with the crown prince and see the drivers and do the walkthrough and do the Pit tour I would go I know someone who would love that But I would probably give it away to somebody else um for me that trip would be a um A curated eco tour with scientists to the Antarctic I would love that if I gave that to you you go seriously There's no gamble. No girls and no Maria might like that though. That sounds like a maria trips There you go. Maria probably go with you on that one. And so the reason why there we go all expense paid to lisbon portugal Alpaca socks there you see and so if x schultz gave alpaca socks to quieson quieson would go. Thanks I guess so the whole point of design thinking is to know your client Know your customer well enough that by the time you deliver the thing they go How did you know Do you know your client well enough to design an experience a product a report? An assessment that can make their eyes light up and go. Oh, yes Yes, like meg ryan. Yes and harry met sally that kind of yes um for those who are old enough to remember so to be able to Know your client well enough micro purchase is your way of giving them the how did you know experience? in microcosm I go back to one of one of my favorite writers and poets Dr. Maya Angelou People will forget what you said People will forget what you did People will never forget how you made them feel And when you give someone that gift that perfectly designed Perfectly written report perfectly designed product or training or prototype You make them feel heard and seen and cared for and understood and that comes From conversations That you have with them the conversation you have When you ask them what's going on with you now If you could do this acquisition differently or Construct that stairwell differently or have them put in that electrical box differently. What would you have wanted to see? How would you have wanted to be treated? What experience would you have want to have had with a contractor who really took care of you? And then listen Really listen Now this doesn't happen in a big hurry It might take you three or four or five it I can't tell you I could go back and look it up how many conversations I had with my wonderful client at citizenship and immigration services it took a lot and I only have that one contract with citizenship and immigration services because ultimately They weren't necessarily the client that I was meant to serve forever Any federal agency where I don't have more business It's only because I didn't invest the time and continue To woo them and get to know them because it's not like you turn on the tap and it gushes You have to build the relationship Every time now Eric you had to build relationships Even if you started out with the couple hundred thousand dollar job eventually you won multi million dollar projects, right? Right, but that didn't happen automatically No, we and again we sometimes you know, my most recent experience we start out with a forty thousand dollar project And and um I built a relationship. I built a rapport in fact it was the The person I was dealing with I thought for a very long time did not like me Why but we were building it when we're building a communication style It was it felt like we were fighting throughout the negotiations of the project What changed? That's so interesting. You know what changed actually is When I made a couple very good points and um It showed that I put the the best interest of the government first and not my own self-interest And I you know, I believe she recognized that Because there was something written incorrectly that I was able to show them that I'm not here trying to get more money Um, the people who and again because the contract officer didn't write the scope Right, it came from someone else. So the person wrote the scope wrote it incorrectly and I proved that by the uh a written statement from the manufacturer and so I I essentially saved Save them from making a really big mistake. And so I guess that changed the perception of me to to Um, the fact that I was providing real value and not just another contractor trying, you know, get a check How so that's interesting So you were able to show them that you knew how to help them follow the rules That what I call the holy trifecta is follow the rules Make it easy make them look good I lean Kent and I teach that all the time And if you're thinking about I'm trying to build a relationship You know, you've heard the old they have to know you like you trust you and the fourth piece of that And I give credit to former head of small business programs at the VA Tom Lenny Do I know you do I like you do I trust you? How can I get to you? that's the contract vehicles piece and Contract vehicle piece might in some cases the answer to that might be micro purchase at first. How can I get to you? how can I try you but Make it easy follow the rules make me look good those three things Always ask those if the relationship if the things aren't going anywhere, which of those things are you not paying attention to? But I can say this Judy that um, I'm finishing that story You know, we be you know, we went from like some division to actually The next time we negotiate a project together That same contract specialist defended me against one of the other government persons and says no Eric and I've already Discussed this and we've already agreed upon a number. So like It was that person protected me and defended me On a next negotiation around negotiations. It doesn't get better than that That's the difference of having a customer and having an advocate Right, you talk about degrees of customer intimacy and one is you They don't even know you exist one is they're aware of you and interested in engaging the third They make a first purchase no matter how small The next one is they come back, right and the next one they refer you to others and advocate for you. So Communication styles are important though And I was wondering whether or not that was another thing in the mix One of the things to keep in mind is how risk averse federal buyers Are they have everything on the line when they choose you? one of my favorite federal acquisition professionals dotty romo who I had met through a client because she was there. She was there contracting Point of contact in one of the parts of the department of justice now. She's working in treasury as a very senior official and She was talking about Yeah, what was it lost lost my train of thought on that one And I will come back to it in a minute But anyway communication styles really important and sometimes The way that you're communicating with somebody just might not be their style So whatever tools that you use whatever systems that you use to understand differences in communication styles and adapt Can be really really important. So one of those I'm gonna put this in the chat right now One of my clients recommended to me A book by chris voss who's a former fbi hostage negotiator And his book is called never split the difference. Yes. I've just finished reading it last night And I really like the different thing different negotiation styles that he talks about including the importance of no Not just someone will say no and no and no and then it will be now which is also true but to set up the dialogue in a way that you give somebody the opportunity to Answer a question with the word no But that gives them some clarity it gives them the power of saying no to you And it also gives you the chance to receive the word no and not have a complete freak out meltdown Because people are going to say no to we're business owners people are going to say no to us a lot But there's a different way to shape a conversation, which was very cool And I I like that a bunch Yes, craig just ordered it yesterday. Excellent. Excellent. So my so you um, I think we answered the question What's a micro purchase? I'm calling. I like the idea of priming the pump one of the other things Who are my sailors? Are you a sailor eric? I'm not a sailor. No. All right. So those of us who are sailors Recognize something that I talk about in called the the monkeys fist a monkey's fist is a Like a rope that's tied in a little knot in a ball very specific thing And it's something that gets tossed when two ships are trying to Attach to each other or ship is trying to moor you throw this tiny thing on a really light line across and then you attach a heavier line And then a heavier line and then a heavier line because you can't throw one of those big huge Right, well, you can't throw that across and hope that that gets there But you throw that one across and the heavier line. So the micro purchase is like the monkeys fist It's the tiny little thing that makes it possible to have a longer Longer heavier liner or deeper thicker bond between you and your buyer Hmm. I like that. That's something to something to think about. It's that opportunity to build trust and important to keep in mind that order splitting Taking a hundred thousand dollar purchase and breaking it up into 10 $10,000 purchases. No that you shouldn't be doing that. You it there's only so many micro purchases that Should be made of a thing by an office before they should be using a different type of contact different contract vehicle So it's a great place to start But you can't necessarily keep on doing them forever and build a whole pile of them that should have been done That add up to something that should have been done a different way Okay, so that's something it's a great place to start. Okay Oh, thank you, Maria. Maria just put the link in the in the chat. So so Who else has a first contract that they might like to win? What would you like to offer to a federal buyer? That is in an agency where you haven't done business before give us a new challenge Give us a new challenge. Love to hear about that Okay, um loose wanted to know can can we find a contractor and create an agreement? Oh contract or and create an agreement for a micro purchase You don't have to have a fancy agreement if your question is is there some place online where you can download an agreement for micro purchase You don't need one. They You can have an exchange of I did an exchange of emails for mine. This is what we're doing and this is when it is and I think he went back and said I need a little more information on this We just did it by email and it was done And the contracting team looked at it and we were all good to go so I love micro purchase for not only A company that is just looking for their first contract micro purchase is also great for established companies that are looking to Try something new build a first contract with a new federal agency as well So for sure who here would love to win a contract Within the next four weeks for $10,000 just put me in the chat Who would like love to do that? Who would who would want to have $10,000 coming your way? anybody Let's see Colin says i'm working i'm working on the co for usda's office communications based on the forecast list 23 emails follow-ups and zero responses. So Colin first of all good on you for persistence. All right Now The contracting officer is just one of your layers So my question is what contracts what contacts you have with the end user And how or whether the small business specialist is aware of you And is supporting your efforts or has no clue that you're alive So those are the some of the questions I had. So yeah, all right, Colin My question I have for julie is how many phone calls. I didn't see any phone calls. Yeah That's the first thing I saw i'm like How many phone calls i'm gonna give you a secret To success that comes from my call team Now more than ever a technique called double tap is working really well. Here's what double tap is You leave the voicemail and say and check your email I've got details there. You have that email queued up and ready to go So even if and you make your voicemail short So there's a whole other thing about leaving voicemails. In fact, I had this cover This is why I was late logging on. I was a little later than I usually am tonight somebody had sent me a Um an email Say, you know, I attended this conference in huntsville a few months ago This was last october and you did this presentation. I really liked it and please let me know your thoughts If you want to have a phone conversation, let me know and we'll set it up myself phone is I looked at this and it was what time was this this was 526 and I went it's 530 I hit the button and I called her and we just had a 15 minute conversation She was so shocked that I actually called her back now that I know calling this is the place you would like to be But that being said she and I agreed that the phone is the single Most underutilized marketing tool and you know what? It's the thing that scares people I'm gonna say it scares it. That's it's a scary thing So let's talk about scary All right, because in order and this is important because in order to win this micro purchase You are where'd it go? Just a second. I'm going to show you the thing you need most in order to win The micro purchase just a second This is it The number one thing you need to win a micro purchase is your phone This is not something that's going to come ripping out through email. You're going to have to and Collin you're on the long end of this. I'm going to tell you oh voice mails You don't even need a two minute voicemail 60 seconds max maybe 30 seconds and With the voicemails, I'm going to give you a couple of voicemail tips. All right First of all, you have 30 seconds of someone's undivided attention Treat it like gold Be just as enthusiastic and excited like really In your voicemail as though you had reached that person in person All right, give it that amount of loving care. I'm so glad that we're connected So sorry. I missed you Here's what it is that i'm calling about it's calling calling with assessment services that you can use and the best value anywhere Check your email. I've got details Missed you today. I'm going to call you back thursday at two talk to you soon And call and you make a note on your calendar and you call them back on thursday at two You pay attention to what time zone they're in so it's two o'clock their time And you call them and you call them back when you said you were going to call them And you're probably not going to reach them. You're going to leave another message but it's going to be You're going to think about three or four different things that represent the best value That your company provides what sets you apart. Why are you memorable? Why do they really want to talk to you? Gee, we're the construction company that has the best emr rating on the east coast far none The whatever it is that you do thread one of those things into the voicemail and do the double tap and leave The next call date and time By the time you get around to leaving four or five of those and don't be shy don't go. Oh, well, I called three weeks ago You have to find what I call the sweet spot between apathy and pestilence and it's different for everybody and so You're calling public servants. I'm going to say that again. You're calling public servants Our public servants are paid to serve Paid to serve us as taxpayers and to work with it. Their success depends on how well they work with us as vendors And so at the very least if you leave an enthusiastic Focused message related to a specific acquisition a specific requirement And you persist at the very least they will eventually call you back odds are good And pass you on to somebody else After you left the Combination of 23 emails and messages not sent 23 routine email newsletters You can also enlist The help of the small business specialist You don't want to be just hitting on one person the contracting officer. Sometimes they don't buy what you do Sometimes they don't need what you do right now Sometimes you've just left early Hi, it's joe again. Would you please call me? This is the 14th message. Goodbye. Really? Have something to offer have something to say with the follow-up email have something interesting that you know They would value based on their responsibilities So after you've gone around and as well you also want to have contacted the end user Depending on what it is that you offer the contracting officer has the power to award the contract They may not be the one that's involved in Specifying exactly what it is the end user needs of the end users in love with you Then and to set the contracting officer. We really need to talk to call and he's got the thing the training We need for our thing in july return his call. Please we need to do business with collin That's a whole different game I call it. I hope that helped a little bit Yeah, absolutely scripted out scripts are not your enemy now. This is this is a hard thing for me to say because I squandered my undergraduate career as a competitive debater and I have to I was also really terrible at it And the thing that I never really understood why it was Andy Taylor and steve coglin won all the big trophies Was because they understood something it took me 25 years or longer to really figure out That if you want to win their minds you have to connect through the heart Now it's why Really great public speakers. They're like, oh, you have to start off with a joke. I'm going. Oh, just shoot me But if you're connecting with somebody At at the heart level at the gut level that they're more a little they're a little more open Who are you? What do you what do you care about? Right? And and so You really want to be able to Understand what these folks need what they're all about and As a debater the rules in the debating competitions were absolutely that you were forbidden to read your speech You could refer briefly to notes So I really struggle with anything that's reading from a script. I can give a script a really good cold read if I have to But the downside is that you're when you're staggering and making it up as you go along sometimes You the the two minute voicemail that goes on and on and on and on because you forgot exactly what you're going to say That's not your friend a really clean script 30 seconds delivered well and with enthusiasm. That's memorable. That's a service To the person that you're connecting with that actually shows you've invested time in creating a succinct message that will be memorable Enthusiastic and is about something they're going to care about So that is actually marketing as an act of service Love it. That was good. So I hope that helps. Yeah, and and sometimes Um, you know, one of the things that we developed for our for our clients in one of our programs And this is only available through our program We have a federal email wizard that let lets you kind of pick and pull little phrases to put together A really succinct email that has all the elements in it that you'd want That's one of those things that we do just for our clients Uh, but you can do those things the time you invest is let's just like a marketing checklist But it will make it easier By the way, let's kind of reset the room. Uh with 703. We're talking about mighty micro purchases Judy's asked several Questions and people to respond inside the chat stating which agency would you like to win a micro purchase from? Okay, what thing a value service assessment could you provide that's under a problem? Can you solve for less than $10,000 less than $10,000? What problem do you solve for less than $10,000 and which federal agency would you like to offer it to? And if you're not sure how to do it We'll improv it right here and solve the problem for you and and again You know we we've been as you can see like we worked with callin We've talked to Several other people on here and we're answering your questions trying to help For the for the most part not solve your particular situation, but at least address it open the door We can start open the door and get you to the get you to the on ramp right on the micro purchase super So again, this is your time 77 people on here watching and again, there should be a lot more questions There should be a lot more comments People let us know what you're struggling with what your issues are. I'm listen again. I tell you this truly does not have to be here Okay, she is spending time with us Investing her time. She could be doing she could be sailing. She could be skiing She could be your ramp and climbing. What else do you do? What are the crazy things you do? I fly airplanes. She flies airplanes. What else? I'm a ramen indoor rock climbing instructor on scuba diver She could be out there risking her life, but instead she's spending her time with us But you can also spend some time with me So maria would you as we're sort of grinding past the seven drops some other notes and locks in the chat One of the things that i'm doing i've got a webinar coming up federal data diving how to bring home the gold um So one of the things that we talked about was the importance of competitive analysis knowing who else is doing business with your Competitors i'm going to be talking about where that information is how to find it and how to work with it In a webinar that's coming up on 422 on april 22nd Thursday april 22nd and so this is a complimentary webinar. I only give this once a year federal data diving You're welcome to that one and the I have a whole webinar with all the details on mighty micro purchase soul source Superpower, it's a class that you can get right now on Govology It's one of my partners and if you're working with your procurement technical assistance center A lot of them have an agreement their clients can access the govology webinars for free So, you know, don't pay money for something Er you talk about the contracting officer that you didn't put your interest first Don't pay money to govology unless you have to that which means I don't get paid But I don't think I don't I want you to get the best value and save your money for something you need like, you know, doing business with Eric And so Do you know it doesn't matter if you have a small staff at paul? No, it does not you they have to know that you can do the work Competently at a fair and reasonable price. So that's one of the other reasons they're going to want to meet you They're going to look you in the eyeballs and go. I get ant paul. I want some ant paul She's the one or he's the one who can solve my problem for me exactly right Some things are harder NYC realtors I struggle with getting contracts as a residential real estate broker if the government's not buying residential real estate You know, sometimes the federal government isn't your client Now they buy everything but you've got to be willing to go the distance and figure out where's the sweet spot What problem do you solve for them? Sometimes sure they may need to rent residential properties Maybe they would need residential properties for example in disaster recovery But they're going to need to know who you are long before hurricane. What's it goes barreling through town? Great Julie, thank you so much for saying that the Experiences that you've had and the things you've learned are helpful. Julie says this advice works I read your book schedule a call from my friend the chief of procurement for five to seven minutes He did a zoom meeting pulled her bid and caught a missing document and she's able to fix it. Yeah Beautiful Look at that. You're helping solve problems for people This is great It's fine. I didn't even read that. I don't even know we saw that it Yeah So extra facilities maintenance and are installing acrylic plexiglass guards for any agency in colorado Okay, any agency in colorado is not your client We keep telling you we keep telling everyone Look at the data. You don't work for anyone. That's right. You don't work for everyone I'm going to drop it in here HTTPS call. Okay fpds pds.gov is your friend so here you can look up individual contracts There and the other thing you need to do if you want to know who buys what you do run do not walk to What's right now is beta sam.gov? It's going to be sam.gov. You're going to go to the contract data section Go to the information center the learning center on beta sam and learn how to create ad hoc reports This is a lot of stuff. So I'm going to drop this in the chat as well. So go to you have to log on beta.sam.gov To the learning center and then watch the videos Video lessons on how How to create and use ad hoc reports. This is going anybody who has Lusted in their heart after having one of these big name data subscription services If only I had insert name of stuff Right, but it's $30,000. It's $8,000. It's $5,000. I'm now going to save you $30,000 Go and take half a day of your life All right, and learn how to use ad hoc reports Is what you learn in being able to find your buyer Focus on the individual federal humans. There are fields for created by approved by modified by Learn what's in the data because you get detective style clues For the people who are buying who are making approvals for what you do and that's the start One contact and building out the players at all five layers Which is why I say that federal business can be as close as the palm of your hand If you do that homework and start with that data and understand who are your players at all five layers By the way, we just did players and layers a few weeks back. So we'll drop that in the chat If you could drop the govcon personas guide into the chat again If you've ever wondered who are those people and what do I ask them? What do they care about? I have 22 pages of complementary goodness in How you can understand who they are and know what to do and say and ask connect with me on linkedin Just say govcon giants in linkedin. So I'll know where we met And and ask your question connect with me on linkedin 2.1 million federal employees are on linkedin It's a great source. Those of you who are struggling with who's my end user who needs what I do How can I get in front of them if you think about the typical job titles for people whose problems you solve every day the job titles of the people who are your current customers and then look for people with that similar job title in federal agencies That are located near you that starts to build out your own players and layers that could unlock those micro purchases for you And this is a great time of year to have the conversations now Because people get all excited about oh, it's the fourth quarter of the fiscal year I think I want to get me some micro purchases They're not going to dump money on strangers who are just ambulance chasing in the last four Weeks of the fiscal year. They still want to get to know you out for now In the we've just launched the second half of the federal fiscal year go make some friends If you don't have get time to get to know your federal buyer They sure as heck do not have time to get to know you Well, again, if you don't make those relationships today, I know you'll be standing in september october. So on the sideline On the sidelines by the way Inside of our free course we the first thing is does the government buy what I sell we walk you through fpds We walk you through looking up agencies. It's free. We walk you through that So I you know, there's there's really there's no reason to have confusion in this It's more of you not doing the work and like you said take out a half a day. Take out a few hours Watch the video Do the activity we used to have to go and get on a plane and run all over the country to find this stuff out 20 years ago this stuff the only way that the 30 years ago the only way you could get this stuff You could tell who the data geeks were because the federal procurement data system published a report once a year In hard copy with two sets of profiles and it profiles by agency and profiles by I want to say nakes code And they had the same construction paper cover And with a big huge heavy staple But it was a different color of ink and paper every year the people who are data geeks Had these things on their shelf and they were sticky and dog-eared and looked like trash Those were the data geeks in the days before there was fpds online I know because I had a whole shelf of them. That's how old I am And so things have gotten so much easier But this creates what I call opportunity illusion right Tell us you would think that with all this data all this stuff available online It would be easier than ever to win contracts, right? I that's what I would think Not so much. This is because people look at all of this stuff all big-eyed and and they're asking What can I bid? Right, right everything changes. It's just it's eye crossing Everything changes when you stop asking what can I bid and look at that data through the lens of who is my buyer And how can I get to know them? Before the next requirement comes out That changes everything so But even even I think one of the things that julie that you keep saying and that's why I'm allowing you to say it because sometimes again, you know, and I'm Me saying the same things over and over again, maybe they've heard it so many times So I like for someone different to come on and say it because maybe like here from you like, okay It makes sense now, right and and and you know What I'm seeing in the chats and the people coming on is we keep saying name your specific Agency and people are saying all agencies You know all departments. Oh, you know, and it just doesn't exist the whole navy Air force the government or the dod or the air force There's a specific federal human who signed that contract with your competitor Yesterday afternoon. Who are they? And they should have known who you are right exactly and we and Again go back and watch the previous videos where we discussed that right we julie's been on I think four times already We discuss These things we gave actual examples. So there's no reason why anyone on here You know, you don't have access to that information and go back and learn this So at least that you can speak intelligently when you come on and when you're talking to these people That's probably why a lot of times we have fears right because we have not studied We are not learning the information So that doesn't give us the confidence to be able to talk to our federal human on the other side Yeah, you gotta know and we spend a lot of time this is one of the things we do with In the back half of the federal business intensive is my eight week program And in the first four weeks, we're understanding the federal sales game We're doing the data pull We're creating the sales plan and then it's overwhelming. You're going, okay Now here's everything in just my niche and boy is this a crap ton of stuff. I'm going, okay breathe Now you're going to pick work up one set of five federal humans Who are those who is the small business specialist? Where did they come from? Where did they work? Where did they go to school? What vendors Are they going to know That have been awarded contracts there. Who's the contracting officer and the contracting specialist? Who have they chosen To meet their needs Why would they be in love with those people? All right, who are your end users What are they afraid of why might they have what they what what what they might what might they like about the people who are already in there Who are the individual vendors That they like What are those people who are the people that they're going to be talking to who's the stakeholder who has Who's going to fall on his sword or fall on her sword if Things don't go well. They're the one you're going to get in trouble and be on the front page of the Front page of the internet if stuff goes badly Figure out who are those individual people then What would a micro engagement not a micro purchase but micro engagement look like for them what might interest them in returning your call What does the big goal look like for them? And then what would be the milestones on the way to their goal not your goal, but their goal and what would What would those tiny experiences look like? on the road To That big goal for success if you know them well enough Then you're going to start to give them the experience that every time eric calls every time sylvia calls Every time jeffrey calls every time callin calls. They'll know. Oh something great is going to happen Collin always knows just what I need calling always says something great for me Even if it's just a cheery word He knows I like those far side cartoons Whatever that is you're taking them a little closer to their goal And they know that it's a win They get that tiny little dopamine hit. Oh sylvia called Oh lani called I've got to call her back Her messages are always great So you want to give them that experience every time you give can you offer jeffrey an example of an end user? Sure a jeffrey Do you know what interest through jeffrey is in because I can give you an idea of who end users are for you jeffrey I don't know and so We'll take a quick peek if I can but So your end user might be your facility manager. It might be It might be help center supervisor So What else might it be? Let's see. It depends. It really depends on your industry, but they're the person who's Stuck with the consequences of the supplies. It might be the nurse It might be The training supervisor. It might be the administrative assistant who's who didn't get all of the All of the office supplies they needed It's the end users of the people whose business cards you have every day who buy or use what you do That's they're they're your actual customers. Sylvie says I want fema sylvia. You don't want fema fema is not your buyer You're what you want someone who is in maybe a fema region or district and The fema itself has a coordinating role. Sometimes they don't buy sometimes they do It may be that if you're providing a product or a service. It's needed for disaster response You might actually have to be doing business with the general services administration You may be that the general services administration customer service director in a specific region needs to know who you are because they're putting together groups of vendors that they Have a blanket purchase agreement all set up for When a disaster happens It may be that the national guard In a specific state has a role in incident response And they the national guard may be the people that you need to know They're the player that's involved in buying what you do So you've really got to know how buying happens in the case of a disaster response And how somebody buys what you do and if you have a thing, but you have no distribution network You can't get it to them. That's not really helpful So they've got to know that you can that you have access and you can get them what they need so Great question Airmasters is cob county department of health. Right jesse says southwest region base Services food service at luke air force base. That's so interesting jesse And so if you wanted to provide Food service sometimes people want to provide catering sometimes you if you want to be the food service contractor That's different from I was on I was lurking on a clubhouse Dialogue and I instead of wandering around like the know-it-all thinking why aren't these people talking to me? I know everything. I just sat back and listened. I was waiting for somebody to get their covid shot and the things we do and This particular person had a truck a food truck service And so they people were coming out of the military base and they had their food truck there And people love their food So when the chance got came up to be the concessionaire to supply food for the bowling alley and they bid on it Well, everybody knew who their food what their food was and they got they got that contract in part because they had built The the reputation through the the food service through the food truck. So I'm paul. Thanks for signing up for the webinar. Um, so people need to know who you are they need to have Maybe again tricky times to be providing any food service at all These days, but it may be that you have a single event. They want catered or something like that Take a look and see who they're doing business with now if they have Big franchise service company and you are small franchise company. Maybe they've got a special event thing coming Maybe talk to the small business specialist as well See whether or not there's a portion of the work that could be set aside for small business If there's enough small businesses that could scrap it out for that piece So you got to figure out what they need. We have a student provides catered food to the to the detainees There's opportunities because where they're at there. There's no food. There's there's no way to cook There's no way to cook or prepare meals so they cater the food out to all the detainees interesting Interesting, but people don't you know again, but that again that Um, that doesn't come for the air force base, right? So that that would come through like customs of board patrol Oh, right customs of border protection and you've still got to know who they are and again They're they too have a mandate to do business with local businesses It's a reason why being in the local area makes a big difference sometimes your differentiators Your 200 yards outside the chain link fence at the tuxet river naval air station local local local It that can be a best value your best value doesn't have to be technical or complicated or proprietary process It can't be but it doesn't have to be and um a T. Gissage Goodman says as a former core. I would recommend all contractors understand the end user concept. Thank you so much person Goodman That's uh, it's so important Contracting officers representative is it kind of at the intersection between the end there the end users representative into the contracting side They're right at that crossover in in our diagram. Exactly, right Jesse is so glad we were able to help you a little bit I hope that everyone here has got a way to take home $10,000 sometime over the next couple of months I want you I would love to see some thumbs up. Have you if you're listening here. I don't know how many people are left Give me one thumb up for every $10,000 you think you can win as a result of being on here So we'd love to see if you even if it's one thumb up Then you can you can imagine winning at least $10,000 using our advice and ideas from today So let me see all the thumbs up for all the $10,000 contracts You think why you're giving thumbs up make sure to like this video because we're still about 20 people short on likes Judy, um, the last question. I think this is a great question for you from evan Yep, uh, just tuned in want to know I can kind of canadian get american contracts if they register their company in an american state Evan you do the under the trade agreements your company can be based purely in canada And you are allowed to if you meet the if you meet the other buyer buyer requirements You can be awarded a contract without being set up in the united state the trade agreements permit that You could find out more from your trade commissioner service There's a website which I know because I built it when I worked for the canadian embassy, which I don't know whether you knew And I knew that that's why sell sell to us gov So that that's a softball for me. I will also tell you that Um, although the law doesn't require you to have a us subsidiary or a us office or a us business card That is also if you have a us representative or a us partner us phone number And not a post office box, but maybe it's uh, uh, maybe it's a regis office or whatever it is You're going to raise your bottom lower your buyer's perception of risk if you are set up as a local company You have to be very clear about what it is that you offer if it's made in canada if it's compliant with the trade agreements If you have people that if you have people that are coming to the united states that your people Are not going to be turned back at the border. They are there. They have proper Credentials to be doing work in the united states. So many things are done online now. So if you're offering a service Um, if you build the relationship odds are good that uh, odds are good probably even better than two years ago That if you build the relationship, you might be able to do that data cross border data transfer tricky Um overseas meaning outside of the united states or foreign citizens handling Some kinds of classified data. That's an issue. So a lot of it depends on who you are But the answer is absolutely that you and your company if you're based in canada Um can do business with the federal government the first 5 000 clients I helped were among those that I helped win over 200 billion dollars of Of work under the trade agreements So if you're not working with your trade commissioner service, evan you should be and so i'm just going to drop a um a link in the in the chat there or you know, just Um connect with me on linkedin. All right, and i'll make sure you get the link to your trade commissioners. Yeah, actually I'll do that anyway. All right, that's easy Yeah, connect with judy. I mean again that that was like she said a softball layup Because that's where judy's first got our start in the world government contracting. So, um I knew that and those who've read her book probably know it as well. So What else all right, um Let's see All right, please get in your next book. Do you recommend connecting with construction gcs who turn down smaller micro opportunities? That would make me happy Aligning with the company already has been introduced to the end user And this look is for eric for evan about trade commissioner service. There you go Having to close a large capital to start out. Thanks. Evan says he's 15 years old I'm 15. Okay. I'm still okay. I'm 15. Well, all right then How cool is that you start somewhere? See judy, we bring all kind of people on here Isn't that truly awesome? Isn't that awesome? I think that's pretty amazing. We're already for we're preparing the next generation Wow, add it is you. Thank you so much. I'm so glad that you've appreciated the the webinar If you're here and your Your company has is established in the federal market You're looking for a private program that can teach you the data give you a sales plan and Get you launched and building that relationship network in at least three places where you're confident you can win work Our federal business intensive may be a good fit for you And so you can certainly book an appointment. See whether you fit if you want to have All of our team working for you getting your prospects all set up and getting you ready to roll I can certainly drop that link in the chat if you think that you might be a candidate for and you want to go and See whether it might be a fit for you. So we've got our Fast track to federal contracts call and I'll just drop that link in there and you can apply for Apply for a conversation and we can see whether or not you were a fit to work together I always forget to do that But you have people who are at some really advanced stages of contracting and are ready for something different Then they've been trying and so this is a private program. So it's not a group. It's not a class It's not a database. It's eight weeks of hard work if you are up for eight weeks of hard work if you have at least At least five million in revenue if you've got at least five people in your company involved in different aspects of federal sales and business development You've been in business at least five years triple fives You're you could be my people Find out but hats off to you, eric for all that you have invested to create Great resources great programs things that are cost effective that are approachable I really appreciate it from our conversation Understanding your passion for giving back and making it easy or just like I want to make it easy For for people who we we both want to make sure that people don't have to go through the hard stuff We went there you'll find your own hard stuff But nobody should have to go through the hoops and the pains and the if that we went through to learn what we've learned And so my hat is off to you for investing so much to help so many people and i'm i'm Honored to be able to share a complimentary part of that to keep people making good decisions and on the road to success Thank you. No we again I like you said i've spent so much time and energy And i've struggled so so many years that You know, I just wanted to share with people the things that i've learned Experiences i've had and hope that they can take away a couple nuggets from it. So again, but you said something which is really Critical is that it is work and you have to be willing to invest the time the effort into it. I see so many of you Um who watch five minutes of a video seven minutes of a video and then you say hey, I figured it out I've learned everything And you don't even stay till the end so So many folks that even like you said if uh, you know, you buy the programs you don't do the work You got to do the work. You have to watch the content. You have to apply it. You have If you have a fear you have to let us know what are your fears so we can help you overcome them because again You can't do half of the activity and expect to get the whole result I'm just you know I'm observing and I see again. I see I see a lot of familiar faces. I see a lot of new people as well, which i'm happy Um, because I do personally try and respond to all my comments on youtube Um, duty and that's a real tough one there, but I do appreciate you by the way evan says you didn't drop that link So I did I just dropped it back in again. Okay. It's right there on the chat. You see I I will do that I'll send it to you on the chat as well. So but you somehow my delay My my uh, you see the messages sooner than I received them. Oh, okay I'll drop it in. I'll make sure it's there. All right Absolutely. Look at all those nice thumbs up. I'm liking them I'm liking them. No, this is great. This is great. Um, Judy, let's go ahead and give them. Let's get you know what I'd like to do, Judy What's up? Let's give someone. Let's give them a homework assignment Okay, um, I here's the um, the assignment that I would like to propose for homework assignment And where should they post it? Eric should do you have a guv con giants linkedin group? We do have a linkedin group on guv con giants. Yes Okay, that might be a place to drop it. So my um My homework would be to design A the perfect micro purchase offer What can you do for $9,999? What's your perfect micro purchase offer that is Irresistible the irresistible micro purchase offer What would it be and who would it be for? All right, so which so let's talk about the buyer the situation and what the offer is and why they would like it And Eric if you forward me the contenders I will send a free copy of my book to the best micro purchase pitch All right, so design the perfect micro purchase offer the buyer the situation You're the irresistible micro purchase offer and that what you can do for less than $10,000 And why why they would want it what what problem you solve make make the pitch What problem can you solve for less than $10,000 and who do you solve it for Now we're making it up as I go along here. So it's not the most succinct challenge. All right What are you what problem do you solve? Who do you solve it for really specific to the office the command? I just we do this for do do no In the air in the Air Force Academy staffing office in in Colorado Springs, Colorado We have a system for screening Screening applicants for the food service industry. All right be real specific Okay, and where would you submit that? Um, so, um, Eric, where should they send it? Just, um, I'm pulling up a link now. Okay Thanks, I'm dropping. You already have the book Brian Oh, geez Um, you might I can send you the work right. He doesn't have a sign copy Well, it's true, but if you have the book, I bet you don't have the workbook Oh There you go. All right Thanks, Eric So all right, so I would love to know have we achieved our mission Our mission was to show you how you can win your first purchaser your next one with a new federal agency Just, uh, what do we want them to drop in the chat if we've done our job? If we've done our job um Give us a smiley face smiley face. Let us see the smiley faces if we have done the job Your time was worthwhile, you know the way to win more business Through micro purchases. Let's see the smiley faces. Yeah, give us a smiley face And I'm not going to sing James Taylor's song because I've learned that Consultants should never sing on the internet unless they are professional singers Not a good plan All right there Brian if you don't have the workbook you can play the game. That's right Brian you should play the game anyways good good Especially you in particular because you're the one that was very interested in what julie did Let's see that's my thank you so much Thank you chris. Thank you mandua Ah, thanks, julie. Let me know when we should talk if please use the link and Book a conversation if you think you are ready for your company to work with mine. I've got openings for the right people if your company is a fit with mine then don't be shy I totally get it and if you're not that's okay. You've got eric services. You got ptax You've got all kinds of help part of why I do this is so I have a chance to maybe meet you You might be my person You're not going to know unless you fill out the application um, you can drop over to my website. It's just grow fed biz.com and Check it out because you know your website matters. I know perfectly well that one of my favorite clients and this This was wonderful. We all want to have this experience and it's rare. He had Booked a call through the automatic booking thing on my website. I showed up when I was supposed to show up we for a half an hour conversation At the 20 minute mark. He said I'm ready. Send me a contract and going really In my dreams this never happens. This was awesome and they're just a marvelous marvelous company They're a group of the founders of former marine. They're based in north carolina They've got a group of about 10 people and they're working in the intelligence community And we're just having a blast They it was just the most I'm working with exceptional companies this year and one of the things I've discovered is I no longer do my program I love you, but for a solo printer. I've got another partner who delivers a shorter version of this program for solo the Way that I teach is designed. It's great value if you've got at least three people Between three and ten people in a company. You're all involved in different facets Of federal business development. Somebody might be the proposal writer Two or three people might be involved in making the sales calls You've got this at least one person from the c-suite often the cfo is right in there and That whole group comes together and whether somebody is new to federal sales Or they've got lots and lots of experiences brings together Everybody on the same page. They're sharing stories. They're working together off the same plan And one of the things that business owners tell me Is they're concerned that you know, they're experienced people. They already know this stuff and going bring them You would be surprised at the end of it the people who Almost appreciate it most deeply are the ones who have been selling in the federal market for decades. They go, oh I never realized that that's what i'm doing This is why that never worked Oh, yet you reminded me of the stuff that I really shouldn't have forgotten And the people who are most grateful are the ones with the most experience. It's incredibly gratifying. It is magical So whether you've got a lot of experience if you've got a team with a wide range of experience Bring them together Uh for for eight weeks because of an unforgettable powerful experience that puts you To work right away. You're earning while you're learning Love it. Love it. Judy. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure always a pleasure You continue to learn greatness listen If you oh, I see a lot. I see a lot of smiley faces. Judy looks like we did our job today Yeah Fantastic. All right, silver nor keep working at it. We've got listen again We have all kind of programs like Judy said from free resources up to some very minimal investment resources Yep And you and you support people all the way you do not drop people off in the database and abandon them You get support and you get to be with other peeps you get to be with people who are where you are And that's so that makes such a big difference No, you're with people who have been where you are and who've got your back. Eric You've got a really powerful program. Thank you. I encourage anyone who hasn't seen check out if Eric gives you this much for free Imagine how he delivers for you when you say I'm ready. I'm ready for more. Right. No, that's a good point. Thank you No, it's true. It's true. I appreciate it. All right guys. Listen. Thank you so much for coming on tonight We went a little bit past our time, but again, I enjoy it. I enjoy I really do I really look forward to these these conversations Again, Judy's one of my heroes from many many many years ago before she ever knew I existed. So I really do have a great time I would there's no other place I'd rather be so I want to be here with you with Judy having these conversations so I'm happy that they did I'm happy that they did the verses last night With earth went on fire and I sleep brothers because otherwise I would have to push this back But that was last night. So tonight I'm here with you. Thank you guys. Thanks, Judy We'll keep chatting actually. I think we have a few more left. We got one more to go And my I'm going to send you what you sent me Yep I'll send you what you sent me. We actually have a couple more. I thought we had one I thought we had one too. All right. Well, we'll just we'll just We'll work it out. We'll get it worked out. All right Keep asking questions. Let us know what else you want to know about And so we'll be here for you. All right And if you're watching the replay make sure you sign up for the webinar Make sure you sign for all the resources. We'll continue to drop that it'll be In the show notes of this particular youtube channel So you have to open up the actual notes to follow the link So I always put the links inside the show notes. All right for those of you that asked Thank you, Judy. I'll see you next time. Thanks, Eric. See you next time. Bye. Bye