 don't really have a specific niche or anything like that yeah what do you recommend on it either finding one or where to kind of start I always tell people it's so funny I really this is this the question that people ask all the time my figure like I just I talked to in fact I was speaking with someone today Christina and I told her and I said look I can't talk to people for on the phone one-on-ones because these questions get asked keep repeating myself over and over and over again so this is a great question because hopefully other people will hear it and then you know I can answer it one time when you're starting off remember this okay we are going to be doing primarily business development what I do is business development okay I am not meeting with the government and I don't I'm not the technical expert okay the people that you're talking to the government are not the technical when you're doing BD you're not speaking to the government's technical experts so makes sense yeah okay so what I mean by that is regardless of the industry construction IT professional services you're not going to be speaking on behalf of that specific technical aspect of it yeah I'm gonna be speaking on the government contracting side of things right it correct so your job would be to learn which is what you're doing the government contracting side you're gonna learn the rules you're gonna learn who you should be talking to what you should be saying right that kind of stuff so you're gonna be learning the right people to call and what to say and then you're gonna be the ones helping set up the meetings and facilitate those interactions so that when it's time to talk technical you bring your team to the government's team that talks a technical jargon but up until that time nothing you're doing is technical if you just heard what JR said he found a source of right for janitorial he's looking for a company to match with janitorial company he doesn't say he has the expertise on any of that stuff true no no yeah that's right so you don't have to have that expertise and the whole point of the story is that meaning it doesn't matter the industry when you're coming as a consultant it matters the best company that you can work with so so the best person that you can partner with who has all the things that you need to help you be successful to help them be successful meaning this they have people on a team that can support proposal writing because we're gonna have to do that they're gonna need people in a team that know how to estimate the job because you're gonna have to do that right they're gonna have people in a team that are willing to make the commitment to meet with the government agents because you're gonna have to do that and in the course I have a list like a checklist of things that you want them to be responsible for and so you'll see that in the consultant agreement we have already made the notes trust me I'm going through it I show you my screen right now so in the consulting agreement we say like they have to agree to certain things as well because for you to be successful like if you set up a meeting with a government agent and they don't make time to go to the meeting waste time right so you have to say to them hey look I'm gonna get help I'm gonna go out in front and lead right with you know our best foot for it but once I get to the point where we set up a meeting like when I call you guys to come to this week like you have to show up because you guys are the technical experts right you can only you can sell your company and what you you know what you have your experience in your past performance blah blah blah blah blah all that stuff gotcha all right another quote with that mindset let's look at okay the best possible company okay let's not look at industry again for consultant let's look at the best possible company that you have access to that can check those boxes okay you're gonna ask something else go ahead I'm sorry I cut you off no no no no you're good so with that in mind do I who want to stick with companies that stay in the same state as me and also contracts that are in the same state or does it does that not really matter of course I would want to find like you know a client that would be able to travel to wherever the job might be you don't have to work starting off you don't have to work with clients that are in the same state my client is in Rhode Island I'm in Florida remember everything now is virtual true but I do recall you saying in the course that you still want to be able to when you set up a meeting you still want to go there yeah when we do meetings to the agencies we go in person okay so when we meet with a girl and again I fly up to meet with them you know I like I was just in Rhode Island last week two weeks ago whatever I think you know last week whatever I think last week or two weeks ago I was up in Rhode Island the entire week so it's not you know I was up there for a week I met what the team we talked you know we went around we look at some of our projects and all that kind of stuff but my last couple of meetings with the government have all been like zoom meetings okay even tomorrow we have a zoom industry day of zoom so really nowadays I don't you know I don't know if the government will allow you to have one-on-one meetings face-to-face right now I got so that doesn't matter to me I'm not that to me is not okay so don't limit yourself to where you would find a client and also don't limit yourself to where you would even find a project for that no because the client right and again let's go back to making the client a priority the the client is gonna tell you the area that they cover gotcha okay they're gonna be the ones to set that parameter not you okay and really and again you know I was telling someone today the same thing is really what you want to do is if you had your your pick of the litter I would pick the one that had the most revenue the most past performance right the one that had the biggest team okay and that was the most capable actually doing the stuff that the government asked for so I would say for example right go back to my video we talked about IDVs so okay like I would come I would pre-qualify anyone I decide to do business with and make sure like let's say whatever let's say it I will now or no let's talk about what JR dispension the janitorial stuff right so let's say he's look at this janitorial project for whatever three buildings some millions of dollars I would make sure like let's say if I was working with a janitorial company can they meet these requirements if they can't meet them you don't want to represent them make sense yeah like you said you want to work with the best you want to work with the best you can't what are you gonna what are you gonna do have them go on get 50,000 on contract now I see what you mean that I'm being honest with you like if you're gonna spend your time and effort don't do that I got you know why even because I remember in the course and I'm happy actually put it there's actually a part where you kind of show people how to make you know their first couple thousand dollars right I put that yeah because of Maria did that yeah earn your first 5k thank you Maria because Maria said Eric you gotta come back down to earth bring you back down to earth I'm like on Mars somewhere Maria for other shout out to me if she's the goat right she brings her so you know we but and listen that's great experience because I'll tell you this because of Maria doing that were you want to call last night yeah a little bit I was I had to go to work so like I was there and I wasn't there all right so let me know let me just let me just show you how that worked out so because Maria got those smaller contracts we were able to well or she was able to parlay that into another contract small contracts with another one of our students okay and then when another student got a potential soul source contract they use Maria's pet little jobs as past performance to give them the credibility they need to get that other soul source oh wow that's awesome so it it it became a benefit it from it okay I see so it did so it did work out so it was so it did end up being a good thing and that's why like I do have a video where I did say to someone I think she's still on here American Elevators where I said listen okay I know that I always talk big numbers but no 30 40 thousand contracts are not bad you know we're gonna be proud of every contract that we get so I had I retracted it I don't want people to think that 30,000 contract is a bad thing no I said so I do have a video where I said that okay no yeah that's true but my my thing is I just like the I like your ambition I like the mindset of instead of if you're gonna go the consultant route why start off small when you can start off big because you do have a student in the course that you did an interview where I yeah her first her first contract was worth 50 million her first yeah her first client wanted to build a contract right exactly so I don't even came to think of but whatever listen look what I would do okay and this is what I tell everyone if I were gonna do a consultant right I would go and where you at oh you're about you're exactly yeah yep South West Florida Naples man we have okay this is what I would do all right this is Maria's jewel all right we go call it we go call it we go call us the Maria game plan right awesome so and Jody did it and it worked really well so he found so it's the same thing that JR is doing which is you find a kind you find an opportunity coming up and then you use that to find a consultant client because now when you call someone to represent them you said hey we have a five million dollar terminal opportunity on our table I would love to represent you as a your business development person to help put together all of the paperwork and everything to get you qualified for this opportunity people don't get calls like that every day that's true that's what you have to do now we did by the way Maria and I did that a month ago there was a big contract coming up for NASA for a Cape Canaveral right down the street from us right okay and we call Maria called or email ten eight a's and she got four callbacks we had two or three meetings and we ended up getting someone just like that and we're working with the guy today in fact Maria's country she just picked up was with that a day we met last month so we've already sold sorts of that guy within a month okay awesome all right I think I was I think you just answered the question I was gonna say how would you find out how much an opportunity is worth though no okay cuz I figure like what I feel as source or go listen look at soul source look I mean look at sources look at source of sauce and RFI because no one is looking at that I'm telling you you guys listening to me this is the biggest the big I'm telling you look at that stuff just like what JR said no one is looking at this stuff make sure like that no one has a radar I can show you like I pull one down today okay hold on my fact I might just walk y'all over here I pull one down the day my partner and we had one come out for the Navy where I'm working at in fact the set which she's not on here she doesn't usually get on IG but she sent it to me it's for the Rhode Island area 240 million dollars right and I'm already the prime GC on that base like my 11 million dollars in Congress I picked up the last two months came on that those two bases and they just put out a source of software 240 million and I said to my guy he's like oh this is perfect for us we meet all of the criteria so we're responding we have another guy that's part of our team that's responding so it's gonna be two of us responding that we know each other okay I wrote it down look at soul source and RFI source aside source aside oh sorry about that ass source aside so look at source aside and RFI listen but that's what you're gonna use to take to your new potential client okay go back and listen what Jared just said he just said he's in San Fred three buildings sanitizing look at that no we'll do but again see he's looking at places that are close to him so that's why I just wanted to know like would I make you listen look at stuff at Tando and Agnes for space oh yeah I know I've seen some on the east coast and Broward you have what's the place in Alabama where they've done this yeah all rocket to come out of Huntsville they're putting stuff on a home still a day and but Tando is huge my guy just picked up 10 million over at Tando before the fiscal year ended in soul source I got you again I'm not saying um I'm afraid to leave this state of Florida because I don't mind traveling of course you know I'm still young what not I don't mind going out to the West Coast where they'd be Nevada just in case okay yeah but you don't know how far you're gonna go far stay here stay right I mean listen Tando when I we went to a conference earlier this year beginning of the year and we literally they said because of all the hurricanes last several years Tando Air Force Base Agnes Air Force Base they had so much work that the Army Corps of Engineers had to have five different Army Corps of Engineers to give out the amount of work because one group could not handle putting together the amount of proposals and requests and solicitations to handle all the work they were given out wow that's awesome so they divided the work between five different Army Corps of Engineers locations for the stuff here in Florida and the Panhandle okay you don't have to go nowhere look I'm gonna throw Maria under the bus Maria went to DC Maria went to DC hooked up one of our podcast guests and another guy and he told her he could give her millions of dollars of work at Tando Air Force Base Maria he told her he could give her the work construction so it's out there it's out there it's out there okay it's out there's a lot of stuff coming out a lot of stuff coming out so awesome all right all right you got it man thank you again all right be good thanks for coming on anytime all right later hello everyone Eric coffee here and I know what you're thinking Eric how do I get more and that's why we created govcon edu.com so visit us over at govcon edu.com that's the platform that I've created where I've curated more than a dozen plus courses on wide-ranging topics from staffing janitorial IT we're discussing how to become a prime subcontractor how to get involved how to do simplified acquisition what is a debriefing what does it look like I've taken all of my best of the best work that I've done and we put it into a collection of courses that are now being hosted over on the platform govcon edu.com so sign up today for one low cross subscription base and you can get access to it more than a dozen plus courses