 On today's episode, I'd like to welcome Emily Harman. Emily? Thank you, Eric. Happy to be here. Thank you so much for coming on today. You know, what's interesting is that recently I've been trying to get people from the government to understand what a podcast is and how it works. Yeah, you start laughing, right? And I still have government documents and forms that require a fax number. But they don't see a podcast as media relations. Right, right. I know. When I worked for the government in my last job, I did a lot of Facebook lives. That was the first one to do that. I interviewed L.A. Branch, who was the head of contracts for the Navy. I interviewed the head acquisition person for the Navy, Secretary Gertz. We would just sit in my office and chat like we're chatting now on Facebook Live. And then people could answer questions. And those videos are on the Department of Navy Office of Small Business Programs' website. Still today. So people can go back and look at them, yeah. Wow, wow. And what made you do that? I just felt like we should start using technology as a way to reach these companies just because we're doing outreach in areas of big fleet concentration for the Department of the Navy, like San Diego, Norfolk. There could be a company in Minnesota or a company in New Mexico that can't always travel to those events. So why not just bring these guys on live? And people were hesitant at first, but then I got the head attorney for the Navy contracting the Navy acquisition to be on the podcast on the Facebook Live with us. So like look, if the head of contracts, the head of acquisition, and the head attorney are willing to go on Facebook Live and just have a conversation and they're not panicky about it, maybe more will do that. So I hope to see it spread. I don't know. That was a great idea. That was a great idea. Yeah, we've had several people agree to do it, but then they would sit back to legal and legal, shot it down. And so they were like yourself, right? They were willing, ready, and able, but then legal at the last moment said no. Can't happen. I don't get it. In order for contracting, government contracting, and acquisition to really work, you have to have a better mix of government industry communication and the government contracting officers and acquisition personnel need to understand industry and industry needs to understand the government. But I think especially the government needs to understand how their decisions drive industry behavior and impact the price of the contract, things like that. I think everybody, enough people do. I'm hoping that now with, I think, more and more the younger employees are going to go into the government, leave, go into industry, come back into the government. I don't think there's going to be a lot of, well, not everyone's going to do the career path I had, which was to stay in the Navy the whole time. I think people are going to be exiting and entering. That will help. Yeah, no, I definitely agree 100%. That would help because, like you said, the majority of the people that I see today that are retiring have had career lives in the government. And that was the trend at the time. But I could see that being different now, especially with, like I've already heard, like I said, I was in DC before the call last week. And I heard people complaining about Amazon coming in to the area. Oh, yeah. And so Amazon offering those high wage paying jobs. And then the federal agencies are going to have to compete for the workforce with Amazon. Right, definitely. It's going to be challenging. Yeah, and another thing that essentially what you brought up was I was at a podcast conference last week. And all of the major media outlets was there. Like everyone was getting into podcasting. Spotify was there. Google just launched their own podcast, as you know, Player. And these people had huge exhibits and booths. And they spent a lot of money. And they were vested Fox, MSNBC, ESPN. I mean, everyone saw this as the new media form, right? And put a stake in there. And so for the government to not understand that or not be aware of it is just behooves me. No, I think the government should, you know, when we say the government, it's a huge organization. But I think organizations within the government should have their own podcasts. And what a great way of interviewing people and getting the word out and not requiring contractors to travel or go to a conference or take time off of work. They can listen to it whenever they have time. Yes, yes, yes, yes, definitely. So with that said, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? And so how do we get to this point of your expertise in the government? Where'd you start off at? Okay, well, when I was in high school, I was a basketball player, got recruited by the Naval Academy. So I went to the Naval Academy. I was in the sixth class of women to graduate. So that was in 1985, my class graduated. There was about 76, I think, women in the class. And then I went on to become a supply core officer in the Navy, which is kind of like the business end of the Navy. So I was on a ship, stationed on a ship where I was in charge of dispersing, paying people, doing travel claims. And then I was in charge of the ship store and the laundry and the barbershop. So I did things like that. Then I ended up moving into the contracting career field and became a contracting officer for the Navy as a lieutenant in the Navy. And then right after that, I got out. I got out of the Navy as a lieutenant and just so I did seven years active duty and then 13 in the reserves. So while I was in the reserves, I was also employed by the Navy as a civilian. So as a civilian, I did all different kinds of contracting. I did contracting for major weapons systems like airplanes and helicopters. I did contracting for services. And then in 2010, I moved into the office of small business programs at the Naval Air Systems Command. And I held that job for 10 years. And a lot of times in the government, people will tell you, you can't get promoted if you don't move around and have different jobs. But I focused on my children. I was a single parent most of that time. So I was focusing on raising my children. And once they got older and out of the house, I applied for senior executive position. And then that's when I became the director of the Department of the Navy's Office of Small Business Programs. So I was the senior advisor to the secretary of the Navy and across the Navy led all the small business professionals across the Navy and the Marine Corps. The Department of the Navy consists of the Navy and the Marine Corps. And I just retired from that position in May. And once I retired, May 31st, I retired. And June 1st, I published seven episodes of my podcast. It's called Onward. And it features authentic conversations with people that I know, like everyday people, not stars or something. Everyday people that have faced adversity and how they overcame it. And my goal with that podcast is to help people see how they can apply what they learn about in the podcast to their particular situation and face adversity and overcome it. And then I'm also a coach, I coach individuals and I am a consultant with small businesses. Okay, okay, okay. No, that was a great introduction. So going back to when you're a contracting officer, one of the things, I had a conversation with someone and it says a lot of small businesses, when they come and they talk to people at the Osterboos and the director of small business, they don't have a complete understanding of the role of a contracting specialist and a contracting officer. Can you talk a little bit about the role of a 1102 contract specialist? A contracting officer is the one that has to award the contract for the organization. And in order to award the contract, they have to make sure the terms and conditions are clear. They have to make sure the statement of work is clear. And they usually get this stuff, the terms and conditions and the statement of work. From the technical community. And sometimes the technical community, many times the technical community can deliver that information late. And it makes it very challenging on a contracting officer because they have a really heavy workload and they have tight, tight deadlines. So they're not the ones that come up with a requirement. And I think sometimes small businesses think that they should go and meet with the contracting officer and that's not necessarily the best person for them to meet with. Depends. If it's on a contract that they're working on now that's existing and they've got some challenges, they should meet with the contracting officer. But if they're trying to get business with that organization, I would say the contracting officer is not the person with whom they should meet. Okay, now what's a program office? Okay, so a program office, and I can just, to put it in context, I'll help explain it within the Department of the Navy. So, and I'll go to the Naval Air Systems Command which has several different program offices. And when I worked with one, it was the program office that was responsible for the fielding of the H60 helicopters. So they're responsible for getting the contracts awarded to get those helicopters off the production line. And they're also responsible for maintaining the helicopters once they're out in the fleet. So they're running the whole program and a contracting officer. And so they're running a program made of people that are engineers, logisticians. There's a bunch of people that are responsible for their certain aspects of the helicopter. And the contracting officer is part of that program team. Typically, the contracting officer is not supervised by the program manager. They're supervised by a contract's chain of command just because sometimes there can be a conflict of interest. Program manager really wants a contracting officer to bend the rules or do something. Ah, that makes sense. Right, right. Okay, no, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for clearing it up because we hear people change all of these words and terms and we say, okay, the program office and then the contracting folks and we're not, it can be confusing sometimes. Right. And the program office typically has those technical people in the office that are responsible for determining what needs that program office has. They work with, for example, in the Navy, they work with the fleet. They work with the fleet helicopter squadrons. They work with people like that to understand what the threat is and what the needs are and figure out what needs to be bought. The contracting officers don't decide that. Right, they just basically facilitate the buying of that need. Correct, correct. Okay, so you said that you shouldn't be speaking to the contracting officers for new requirements. Who should they be speaking to? Well, I think that they should go to the small business professional for that command. Typically, every government organization has a small business professional and they should really try to get in to meet the technical personnel because it's their responsibility to do their market research, to figure out what kinds of companies are out there that can provide what I'm trying to buy and what kinds of companies are they? Are they small businesses? Are they large? They're supposed to be scanning the market. They're supposed to be scanning the market to determine if I want to put in my request for proposal, a delivery date of two days from the date of order, if that's realistic or not, they should be talking to different companies and understand what's typical for delivering a product like that. The contracting officer is not necessarily the one that is developing those requirements. So, talking to a contracting officer once the request for proposal is on the street is a good idea because then it's not the time to talk to the technical personnel. The RFP's on the street and if you have some questions on the terms and conditions, things like that, that's when you should talk. But if you're just marketing your company to that organization, it's my opinion that you shouldn't go talk to the contracting officer. Okay, okay, no, that makes a lot of sense. What's the difference between NAV-Air, NAV-C, and NAV-FAC? Okay, well, the department of the Navy has 10 different buying commands. You just named three of them. NAV-Air is the Naval Air Systems Command. And it gets confusing because NAV-Air buys all the airplanes for the Navy and the Marine Corps. It's Naval Aviation, which is Navy and Marine Corps. And when I used to work at NAV-Air, people would come and meet with me and they would want to be selling like paving the runways. Well, that would be NAV-FAC. That's the Naval Facilities Engineering Command because NAV-Air buys the airplanes, but they're not authorized to award construction contracts. So they're not authorized to award the contract for a runway paving or runway lights. And then the Naval-C Systems Command, that's the biggest command within the department of the Navy, that's for all the ships. Repairing, they have program offices that were responsible for ships, undersea warfare, submarines, that kind of stuff. And if you go to the Department of Navy Office of Small Business Programs website, you can see a little bit of information on each of those commands. And I highly recommend that small businesses do their homework before they go and meet with the commands. I'll give you an example of a company not doing their homework. Once they came to meet with me, and they said, well, this is when I was at Pax River, and they said, do you guys still do testing on this base? That's a big part of what is done at Pax River, testing the aircraft. You can find that out by looking up in the sky, and seeing your aircraft flying around, or by just doing your homework on the internet before you come. That kind of company is not, a company like that that's not prepared is not a company that you want in front of the technical program managers. They want you to understand their needs, and as best you can by having done your homework before you go in and see them. And when a company asks a question like that and gets in front of a technical person, it doesn't just mean that to that technical person, it doesn't just mean that that small business didn't do their homework. It can send a signal that all small businesses are like that. That's risky. That's a very powerful statement, right? Yeah, and you would know best, right? Because you were the ones advocating for small businesses. Right, and we really wanna help connect the small businesses with the program managers, but we did, but we weren't going to do it if the companies weren't prepared, because it's just bad news for not just that small business, but for every small business. Doing your networking, understanding the culture of that command, going to events in that area, like in Patuxent River, Maryland, for example, which is where Naval Air Systems Command headquarters is. There's tons of events, so networking and outreach events. So you can go and talk to other companies that do business with that command and learn the culture. For example, at Nav Air, you don't wanna walk in in shorts and a t-shirt and a wrinkled shirt. They wear suits there. At other commands, it might be different, but you want to understand your customer or the customer that you're going after. Wow, wow. And that would be the same for any command. Wherever you live, especially if it's by a base or by a government office, I'm sure that there's outreach events. You can check with the local chamber, go on the internet and figure it out. Okay, okay, okay, no, that's great. What about, and I see this, what about people that are outside of the DMV, the Beltway area? Should we be trying to come to that area to meet with, go to events and meet with small business directors? What do you think about that? I think it depends on what it is. First, the very first thing companies need to do is figure out which organizations within the government buy what they're selling. And I would recommend going to the PTAX, the Procurement Technical Assistance Centers to help with figuring that out. However, you can also go to the Federal Data Procurement System, FPDSNG, and anybody has access to that and you can go online and there's an easy search. So people can look and try to figure out, by NAICS code or product service code, is someone in the government even buying what I sell and which organization is it? And then I would recommend going where they are. For example, if you're looking to do business with the Department of Navy, know that they have two big small business outreach events, one in May, it's called Sierra Space and the other one in August in San Diego and that's called Gold Coast. So every government organization has specific outreach events like that. So as a small business, you can't go to all of them. It costs money. You've got to really target what you can go after. And I would look at the Department of Navy Office of Small Business Programs, Facebook site, because we have a lot of videos where I used to do Facebook lives. Hopefully we can get more organizations doing that and that saves time and effort for people in terms of not having to travel but being able to get the information that way. Now, if you're trying to market to a particular customer, you've narrowed down your niche, you've figured out who sells what you buy, I think then it's good to go in and meet with them in person. Okay, okay, okay. And then, so when we go and meet with them, what should we bring? I would bring your capability statement. And here's a tip. If you're a company that does, let's just say program management, you also do IT, you also do logistics and you're meeting with a technical customer that's interested in IT, I would have that capability statement tailored for that customer. Why address program management and logistics to the customer if you're going after an IT opportunity? Some people don't do that, they don't take the time to tailor it. Do not lead with the kind of small business you are. I really don't care if you're a service disabled veteran owned small business, a woman owned small business, a hubs owned small business. What I care about is that you have a product or a service that can meet my needs. Then if you tell me you're a hub zone, that makes me think of different contracting authorities that I would have if I was a government employee to be able to get to you. But first, you have to make the government employee want to think about, want to think that they need to get to you. And they're not gonna think most technical people and even contracting officers are not gonna say, well, I'm not meeting my hub zone goal. So yeah, your hub zone, come on in and let me meet with you. No, they want to know that you can do the work. Of course, of course, that makes a lot of sense. But I tell you, so many people would come up to me and tell me their socioeconomic category and talk about goals. And we could be meeting all of our goals in the federal government. And small businesses could be failing. So if we're measuring ourselves, our success in the small business program just on whether or not we're meeting our goals, but not on if the mission's being met, then that's a problem. That's a problem, no, that's a huge problem. And that's the idea behind what we do here, right? With the podcast and with the channel, is we want to educate them. We want to prepare them. So that, you know, one of the things I tell people, do not, if you are in front of someone and they're telling you about your SAM and your capability statement, you're not prepared. You're not prepared. They should not have to tell you to get registered in SAM. They should not have to tell you how to fix your capability statement. You're one opportunity in front of someone, you're gonna blow it or waste it with stuff that you could have went online and learn about for free. Uh-huh. For free is a good point. We're called your local PTAC. There's a lot of people out there that want to charge you for stuff that you can get for free. No, no, and we're, yeah, we're a big advocate of that. So, interesting. Now, when you were a contracting officer, how did you go from contracting officer to the director of office, small business programs for Naval Air Sea systems? Like, the Naval Air Systems Command? Yeah, for Naval Air Systems Command. Yeah. Basically, I was a GS-15 at the time and the head of contracts asked me to move to the small business office. And I actually, if I have, to be honest, I think that they were hoping that I would fly under the radar and not really advocate for small business. See that, and that's why I asked that question because I think it would take a special kind of person to want to do that role. Well, I didn't want it. It was not on my top 100 list of jobs that I wanted. I did not want the job. I was terrified. I'm an introvert. Public speaking, I was terrified of that. I just didn't want it. The small business program at the time did not have a good reputation. It was all about goals. No one really cared about small business. Just go to the large primes and get the job done. Things have really changed a lot and I did not fly under the radar. I really pushed small business but not in terms of meeting a goal but for finding the companies that could help meet our needs and the requirements of the program managers and help them meet cost schedule and performance and do a good job and maybe save some money from what those large primes did. So that's some advice I have to people is don't not take a job because you're scared or worried because it ended up being the best job I ever had. I loved that job and then I stayed in it for 10 years and then I got the job as the director for the Department of the Navy and that gave me the courage to speak. I love going and speaking at events. I have lots of things I can speak about. It gave me the courage to start my own podcast. It gave me the courage to talk to people, to do better job at networking. As an introvert, that wasn't my strong suit. So it was the best thing that ever happened to me, that job. Wow, that's great, that's a great story. Yeah, tell us a bunch of podcasts since you said you start the podcast. Tell us more about your podcast and why did you even start a podcast? Well, I've been divorced a few times. So I started blogging about divorce and then I thought to myself, I really don't want my, I'd like to start a podcast and I don't necessarily want it to be about divorce and I don't want it to be, if you go on the web, on the internet a lot of people are just complaining about divorce and I really don't want it to be a lot of whining. I want it to be how people move forward. So it's kind of trying to come up with names and just came up with the name Onward and the Onward podcast features authentic conversations with people about how they faced adversity and move forward and how they handled it. And there's a lot of themes coming. So on June 1st, I published seven episodes. I think I've got 22 published so far. I published one a week on Mondays and I've interviewed lots of different people and the main thing I want to do is interview people that are just everyday people like you and me, not somebody that someone could say, well, sure they overcame that. Look at all the resources and money they have. Now these are just everyday people and I really enjoy the podcast and learning about how people face challenges and overcame them. And I think that people who listen to it can, my goal is that they can apply what they're hearing about here in these inspirational stories to some challenges they're facing in life. Do you, does any of your time that you've worked in contracting as any of that fall along the lines of your podcast, is any of that helped you or shaped you, your thoughts and ideas for the podcast? Oh no. And the reason why I ask that is because and working with small businesses, you've done it for what, 12 years. I don't know if you've seen any success stories of small businesses that you've helped maybe overcome adversity or anything like that that you maybe inspired you to want to do that. No, it wasn't necessarily, it wasn't necessarily the small business piece of it that inspired me to do it. It was more just, I've always been a coach and a mentor to people and it was more that just the personal stories that people have. People who want to be on my podcast can reach out to me or they can go to my website EmilyHarmon.com and just click the be a guest button. And I really, I haven't turned anybody down. Sometimes I've had to talk to them about the twist that we need to put on the podcast because sometimes people do think that my podcast is about small business and they wanna be selling something and I have to tell them that my podcast is about overcoming adversity and if you wanna talk about how you, for example, how you overcame some adversity as a small business owner and then say by the way, here's my website and what I sell, that's fine. But I really wanna talk and I'll give you an example or some ideas of some of the people that I've interviewed. I've interviewed my son who's in recovery from alcoholism for two and a half years and he's doing really well. So we had a mother-son discussion about addiction and recovery. I've interviewed my daughter about anxiety. I've interviewed a classmate of mine who's an admiral who fell and heard his back 18 months ago and was told he'd never get out of his wheelchair and now he's walking with a walker and another guy who is a contracting officer actually at Naveir who was injured in a football accident when he was 15, he's now 40. He was told he'd be a quadriplegic for the rest of his life. He's walking. And so I've interviewed people about suicide, depression, a teen mother, a woman who had twins when she was 16 and how she ended up even though she didn't finish high school, how she ended up graduating from college. I then interviewed immigrants. So it's just a whole bunch of different stories but the theme is the same. Get help. All these people say you gotta get help, keep that positive attitude. Just take a little step forward each day. So. Well, no thanks for sharing. Like I told you earlier in the beginning, you're the first person that I've interviewed that actually had a podcast. And it's interesting to come from such a distinguished role to having a podcast. I think that for me, I was intrigued by it. So I definitely wanted to at least get some of that and during the conversation, you know, everyone. I mean, I could have retired and gone to work for a company or made a lot of money or gone and been a consultant. And I am a consultant but the kinds of things I wanna help companies with are, you know, when they have a challenge with the government customer and they're not really sure how to approach it. I can be a coach kind of like that to them. I'm not gonna go and be one of those consultants that goes and introduces a company around to different senior people. I'm not going to do that. But helping companies figure out how to navigate things. You know, being a sounding board for them about how to approach tough situations. And I think that that kind of ties to my podcast, right? You know, other tough situations is something that I wanna do. And sometimes as a company owner, you're really alone and it's nice to have somebody that you can talk to that's been there, that can help you understand, you know, what might be going on behind the scenes or how the customer might be thinking. No, no, no, no. And again, there's value to that, right? I mean, I can tell you I know the situation now with someone that I met with that they were on a team with a large business. They put together the package as a team. They won the contract. And then the large business was acquired by another large business. And then they said that they didn't want to honor the contract anymore. And, you know, that kind of stuff. So I get that. I mean, there's definitely a need for someone advocating for this person saying, hey, you know, we came in this together. We went after the project together. Successfully awarded the project. And now they're failing to honor their part. And so I could see. Yeah, government contracting is not for the week of, you know, the week of heart. You've got to have persistence. You've got to just keep on going. So I'm kind of contemplating starting a mastermind of small business owners that, you know, where we can work through issues together on that. You know, more minds together rather than just one is helpful. And sometimes the issues are issues that one company faces is an issue that another company might face. And I know in a mastermind group may not want to share all the particulars or there's some things you might want to meet just one on one with me about, but I do think a mastermind group might help. So that's something I'm thinking of starting. Okay. We can talk about it after the call. Okay. Okay. Now, going back to, we're gonna go back, circle back around to the small business world. Something that you worked on with small business acquisition, apology and strategic initiatives. Can you give us some examples of what type of initiatives? Well, when I was in the, there's an issue with small business data and it's very challenging to like, I could tell you when I worked at this one at the Naval Air Systems Command, for example, there's several different buying commands under Nav Air. And I could tell you like, how much money the command in New Jersey spent with small business. And I could tell you how much money the command in Orlando spent with small business, but I couldn't tie it to a belly button. I couldn't tell you how much the program manager for H60 helicopters is spending with small business versus large. I couldn't tell you in engineering, are they using small businesses when they contract out? I couldn't have the data that way. And we ended up figuring out how to do that at Nav Air. And that really changed behavior because when you're saying, we could be using small business more, when you make the data transparent and visible, then it really makes people want to pay attention more to small business. Now that's a fine line I was walking because small business should really be about finding companies that are capable of doing the work and not just about goals, but you still gotta make the data visible. And I saw that in, for example, in human resources, we had goals to hire, the commands had goals to hire and a certain number of wounded lawyers or individuals with disabilities. And that was a law just like the service disabled veteran and small business goal is a law. And people were paying a lot more attention to that. And I think the reason they could get the people to pay more attention to that is because you could track the data by a belly button, the person that was doing it. So when we got the small business data that way, that really helped. So just making the data more visible and transparent to change behavior is something that I thought, that I did, not just me, but my team of people. And the other thing that we did within the Department of the Navy is we required every one of the 10 buying commands to have a small business strategy that is signed by the commander of that command, not signed by the small business professional or the contracts professional, signed by the commander because small business is the commander's responsibility, small business utilization and providing opportunities. And so right before I left, the year before I left the Navy small business job, I got permission to have those strategies made public. So they had to write them for two years. We went around and talked to them about how they could approve their strategies, things they could do differently. And then the last year we said they need to be published on a forward-facing website, which is again, helping with transparency. And I would tell industry, you should be able to know what the initiatives are of the command that you're going to market to for including small business and hold them accountable for it. Ask them about it. Make sure that the people have read that strategy and they know what's out there. So I think those are the two main things on that and starting to do those Facebook Live videos. Those are things that I'm really proud of. I heard you mentioned before you were trying to, you were talking about breaking up larger contracts into smaller pieces. Yes, we tried to do that. That's very challenging, but definitely that's something that we look at when we do our market research. And there's a balance there because there's only so many contracting officers. So let's just say that the wheels for the joint strike fighter or made the tires are made by a small business. Do we want to contract with a small business for that tire? We want to contract with Lockheed for the whole airplane. So there's different considerations that you have to make when breaking things out because we don't, I say we, I'm still acting like I'm in the government. I'm not, the government doesn't have enough contracting officers to break everything down. Really, as far as, for example, a small business professional or a small business would like to see. But we do look at that. We're not supposed to be bundling. And I think that's really tough now with category management. Now, people keep talking about category management. How do you describe category management? Well, it started out with the term strategic sourcing. Now it's category management. It's looking at the thing, the government is a huge buyer. So looking at what, and I think it's led by GSA, the General Services Administration, but looking at what the government is buying. We're buying program management services. We're buying desks, we're buying furniture. We're buying computers. Why is each organization negotiating contracts for those? Why don't we have one bigger contract? Maybe that has multiple companies under it, like GSA, Oasis or something like that. Okay. Some people would tell you that category management is good for small business. They would say that we're still meet, the government, even with category management is still meeting the small business goals. I would say yes. The government might be still meeting the small business goals, but you might be meeting those goals with fewer small businesses. So I think it's not just about meeting the goal, but it's about who has the opportunity to compete on those contracts. And if you're not aware of category management and you're not on that Oasis contract and the task order is being placed, then you're out of luck. So the government might be meeting the small business goals, but I think that there are fewer, I haven't looked at the data lately, but the number of small businesses getting government contracts is going down. I read that in the 809 panel's report, et cetera. So it said that the dollar mile is going up, but the number of companies is going down. Right. I did interview Dave Drapkin, the head of the Section 809 panel and Elliot Branch who was on that panel and those interviews are on, that interview is on the Navy website. They have a YouTube channel. So we interviewed him right when the reports came out. Yeah. So we'll make sure we link to that at the end of this show, but yeah. Okay. Let me know. Okay. You know, they recommended getting rid of small business set asides in certain areas. I don't think that's too popular with Congress. So I don't see that happening. No, I think it was rejected already. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was rejected. A lot of people stood it up against that. I remember receiving some of the letters to go to Congress or in regards to that as well. Interesting. I mean, maybe someone can make the argument that that is the best thing to do for efficiency or something, but the federal government isn't always efficient. It's not always about efficiency. It's also, we have socio and economic concerns as well. So there has to be a balance of everything. Right, right, right, right. Makes sense, makes sense. Now, you were part of SES. Can you tell us about SES and what that is for those who are kind of clueless? Well, the senior executive community is, I think it was established, I should know, like in the 1970s, but it's basically people that serve in senior leadership positions within the department of the Navy and work closely with political appointees. So for example, every time a new president comes in, there's a new secretary of the Navy and a new undersecretary of the Navy. My boss was the undersecretary of the Navy. So I was the consistency with respect to small business and I would work with the career civilians. I was a career civilian, not a political appointee. So we're like the consistency there. And so I was the equivalent of, if you know military ranks, I was the equivalent of a two-star flag officer, like a two-star admiral. There's different levels of senior executive. So that's what I was, senior leader. Senior leader. So SES helps provide that consistency during the transition times. Okay, no, we never thought about that. That was a great idea. Yeah, it's not just that, we're just basically the senior leaders within, within the department of the Navy or within the government. Okay. How do you believe we can increase participation now? Doing, I mean, I know that what you did at the Navy where you made things more transparent. Are there any other ideas that you have that maybe we're not necessarily implemented that you think that we can use to increase small business participation? I think that there needs to be more sharing good news stories. A lot of time when people, the government and industry talk about small business, it's all, it's a lot about meeting a goal. What really gets to people is a story. I did a training on that within at the DOD Small Business Conference. I think that's available online. I can try to find it, but the video is not that great. It's hard, they didn't, they did it on iPhone. It's kind of hard to watch, but basically we were talking about the importance of good news story. Stories resonate with people. You, if you're trying to sell something, you're selling a story. You're not, you're selling a story about your company or you're selling a good news story that can happen to this person if they try your product. Telling somebody that they're gonna meet some statutory goal isn't a story. It doesn't, yeah. So you gotta get to people's hearts if you wanna change behavior. And I think small businesses can do a better job of telling the story about how they're helping support in the military world, the warfighter. What is it that they're doing that's contributing to mission accomplishment? Okay, let's, you know, we have a platform here with government science. Let's assume that we could get that message out to the small business community. Who should they be telling that story to? And what format? It needs to go to the government. It needs to go to program managers. So, you know, you've gotta get the people that the targeted audience to listen to podcasts, I guess. I like that. I like that. By the way, I didn't set that up guys. I didn't set that up at all. I, you know, I'm just wondering because again, you know, when you do have a platform, there is a sense of responsibility. But at the same time, people do actually listen and, you know, take the advice that's given. So if we say give them very specific activities that they can do, I think people would do it. One of the things that I did hear you mention before was you said sometimes the story from the small business may be a good story, but I mean, I'd be the whole story. I think I heard you say that before on the podcast. Oh, you heard me say that before on the podcast. Yeah, I mean, I've had companies want me to publish their good news story or talk about it. But then if you go to the government, the government has a different take on that. So there's always two or three sides to a story. And if a small business was coming to me as the director of small business and wanted me to share their good news story with people, I would first go and, you know, make sure that the technical customer agreed that it was a good news story. Okay, okay. Yeah, and so I think when small businesses approach technical people, when they're talking about how what they can do is solve a customer's need, they need to, they could also explain how they've done it in the past and that customer's challenge and how they solve it. I like that, that's great, that's a great idea. I know we're running short on time. Have there been any books or resources that you've used throughout your career that's helped you? Oh wow, I could show you my whole bookcase. I can see yours. Yeah, I saw yours at the beginning before you moved over. Yeah, I love reading books. I learn a lot from reading books. I used to lead with a friend of mine, a book club called Read to Lead, and we would read a leadership book a month and discuss it and it was really fun. I think Good to Great is a good book. I just read, I like to read a lot of self-help books to figure out how to be more efficient. And lately I've just been listening to podcasts, like I like the Ultimate Entrepreneur with J.A. Abraham, I like Pat Flynn's podcast. So that's another way. Yeah, I try to when I work out, I try to be efficient. So if I'm listening to a podcast, I'm also working out. There's only so much time in a day, so. Yeah, okay, okay. You know, obviously you have the stage, you have a platform. What is something that you wanna tell small businesses that you think can really help them be better prepared, be ready to do business with the government? What's some final words you'd like to tell small businesses out there? Final words, it's a shame that I have to keep repeating it, and maybe I just have to keep repeating it because there's always new companies coming in all the time, and that's the thing I think is, sometimes I feel like I'm repeating it, but it's probably not falling on, it doesn't hit everyone's ears. So I feel like I'm repeating it, but to mainly do your homework, narrow down your niche, you can't go after the whole government. The whole government's huge. You've gotta pick the one or two customers that you wanna target and put your effort into that. Starting out as a subcontractor is a good idea. It's not a bad idea. It gets your foot in the door. You get your employees in with that customer. You get to get your feet wet and figure out how the government works. And it takes time. Things don't happen quickly within the government. Be patient. No, that's true. We know that from first hand experience. We know from first experience. Well, Emily, thank you so much. We appreciate your time and working through some of the technical issues that we had today. That's okay. We work through it. No, thank you, definitely. And this has been a great experience for me, sharing your story. And then at the same time, seeing you move on to the next chapter, there are a lot of people that are looking now and they've been inquiring with me about how to move on to the next chapter and it seems like you've found that way. So we thank you for coming out today. If you have people that want my help and how I did it, I mean, for six months or so, I was kind of doing two jobs, right? Because the day I retired to publish seven episodes, that's a lot of work. I was taking an online class. I was doing both jobs. I was trying to figure out how to edit a podcast, all the things that you've got to learn when you're first starting up. I really enjoy it. Right, right. No, no, no, no. No, it's a lot of fun. It's a labor of love. Thank you so much. I'm gonna go ahead and we'll talk soon, okay? Yep. And I'm really sorry about the technical issues.