 What's up guvcon family guvcon giants future giants future Titans future Kings Queens what up my man Dennis yo my man Dennis in the house what's up Dennis I didn't get a chance to call you there now let me tell you man let me I'm working like crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy you know Kimberly hey Kimberly Kimberly we're working on some big things that you're included on so don't worry I got you I got you covered Kimberly we got some big things that working on to include it MJ so nice to see you Kimberly man one day I'm gonna I want to we're gonna we need to set up a zoom call with you and I I am simply Kimmy what's going on Andre 11 life 24 she says oh interesting yeah I am I have to write down what she does I have someone that came to me I know and trust me I've been I like you guys have no idea man we're working on so many things so many people coming at me you know it's a it's a lot it's a lot so what's going on Philly even actually I had someone who's there what's up other I had someone that had some questions for me that they want to jump on live so I'm here let me know whatever you want to do I'm gonna wait a few minutes remember eyes look this thing is only an hour they're gonna shut us off an hour and usually it starts getting good right like 15 minutes in so make sure you ask your questions because it's gonna be harder and I'm looking for this for you Kimberly how Kimberly how's the consulting going by the way if anyone wants to jump in and talk to me ask some questions feel free I'll bring you on don't be a shame I'm looking okay Kimberly oh she said call me Kim all right I'll call Kim so I have someone that she does instructional training design and development and she's helping map out we're actually we have a meeting at 9 a.m. she's helping map out like curriculums and stuff and I told already that we want to bring in some great people and of course you're one of those great people we want to bring on so good stuff who else we got out here Colin I see a minute calling out here I see some new folks by the way you know like I said this thing lasts for an hour and we get to go and we get to talking you know what I've seen which is very interesting for me I took a couple calls last Friday I've been doing some giving back some free calls on Fridays scheduling every 30 minutes and okay yeah Kim listen I told you I was gonna bring you in at some point I I just I got to build this whole system out as you can imagine like things are are going big and and we're doing a lot of good stuff we just set up an actual IT and telecom Facebook group we said we literally set up this new Facebook group sorry got a call came in all right I'm back can you guys hear me am I back on I can't tell I had a call came in interrupted jealous is I'm yeah okay good thank you all right thanks guys you said you're a rookie but you've been watching YouTube nonstop good stuff excellent yeah so we set up okay here good thank you so yeah I mean we literally set up an IT and telecom Facebook group this week and we have a hundred members already in that group and I have two of my Govcon members are gonna curate weekly videos weekly content surrounding IT and telecom we're taking a look at we're pulling down the opportunities coming out because there's so many of them and there's so many people that are it want to get into that space Jake I got you I see you Jake and so literally we have we already have people that are in the group that are on 8a stars that are on a couple of G wax out there and then we have members that are looking to get on vehicles so we you know we're helping to connect people it's similar to like what teaming pro does but there's just no fee involved and I mean right now like I said with the my email list is probably approaching I think we're at we've eclipsed 7,000 on the email list so you know a lot of good things happening out there in the world camp so we definitely we're building this thing out bigger and greater and I'm still learning I'm still learning as we go right so yeah Jake you spoke to me about doing it in Canada as a Canadian look bridge upon Eda what's up fam you can absolutely I mean look anywhere the government is buying services I mean you can do we have people if you look at my YouTube videos I have Vicky he's over in Italy and she's helping companies get win contracts over in Italy so definitely if we if we have troops on the ground if we have facilities in Canada you know where they're actually looking for people over in that region to do a lot of the work I know we're working in Africa as well as I mean we're working all over one of my podcast gas had a worldwide contract worldwide contract so definitely Canada is a possibility I know one of my students actually worked with a Canadian oil and gas company that builds out oil fields. Critty she's actually helping a company out of Canada they do probably three four hundred million a year and they do oil and gas fields they do the like the design of them obviously right now that that industry is taking a toll but yeah they were a Canadian based company so anybody out there has any questions look I don't want this to be one-way street I come out here and look I'm giving you all the information it's so it's funny because when I talk to people and they're following all these these Instagram people who have these you know thousands of followers but they don't know anything about contracting so they can't answer your questions they can't really give you real content it seems like almost every week somebody comes to me and say they paid money to a famous Instagrammer who's claiming to teach government contracts who doesn't actually do government contracting and I don't want that to be you out there I want you guys to have the real information the real stuff so that you can learn if you did not catch my YouTube video on Monday we talked about IDVs take a look at that YouTube video really good I encourage everyone to use their P-tax and in a different way that normally the SBA recommends P-tax I don't want to go into a whole bunch of detail but for the most part P-tax is a free service you pay for which attacks dollars and because you pay for which attacks dollars anyone all of you out there who are small businesses can find a local P-tax and around your area and on that video on Monday that I just posted on YouTube I actually said hey let me show you how to best use your P-tax and I told you go to the P-tax reach out to them and ask them to help you find IDVs that related to your NAX codes so what advice would you give a new debris hauling business in Homestead Florida we got a couple purchase trucks but should we buy or rent our first contract wow so Daffy you're at Homestead do do you realize that I did the bulk of my government contracting business out of Homestead at the Air Force Base like our office is literally off of like 284 Street Southwest like we were down there deep in Naranja and like that's we were we were out of a home base in fact my guys still have that office right now off of 284 Street down the street from Homestead Air Force Base and we literally we probably did I don't know $20 million out of there yeah I mean and like said I actually it's funny because I was down to Homestead probably like last month and I saw all the growth and like the new FedEx building that are building out there I was like wow they got a whole FedEx facility out there I heard they're building Amazons coming down Homestead so you guys are going crazy but look I was the incumbent on Homestead Air Force Base back 2008 910 we were the we were kicking butt out there at the base so we like we literally I mean we just we got all the contracts so but yeah definitely now going back to your question if your company is new then you know one of things that people do often yeah yeah yeah no that's where I got my start at Homestead Air Force Base Henry Bergens Henry Bergens I think he's still down there actually Henry Bergens Patricia Biederman Raquel Mingo those are my contract folks man I look I love that base that was that's where I learned contract and one-on-one right there at Homestead Air Force Base so we did a lot of work in fact in fact general banger was the like the commanding general at Homestead Air Force Base and if you go to Applebee's that's by Southland Mall you see a picture up there with general banger and the jets and in the background are like airplane hangers and like we did those hangers like I built those airplane hangers that are hanging up in that picture in Applebee's right there in Southland Mall with the general so next time you go go to Applebee's you look at a back wall you'll see a picture with air jets and like generals up there and when you see the things in the background I built those though I got a lot of history down at Homestead actually but going back to your question what what's yeah you gotta go see it now right yeah in fact like a lot of people know me at Applebee's but it's I don't know what COVID I don't know how things are I don't know who's working anymore but I used to like we used to work at the base and then we would all meet like Applebee's afterwards but going back to your question is it better to rent or to actually buy vehicles so it's funny that you know one thing that I could tell everyone out there who's listening is we all have similar issues just at different levels so for example this the same situation you're going with that you're starting with I have friends that are at the 20 30 million dollar level that are actually facing the some of the same challenges that you're asking about and what what they did in what we actually recently talked about with regard to that is doing a lease to own sometimes what happens is it like if you were to for example when you bid a job and you put in there a lease of the equipment right that's a justifiable cost and if you were to do a lease to own purchase after whatever the useful life is two or three years on that piece of equipment they probably will let you buy it outright for a nominal fee right and so then you would obtain that equipment but again you've got a lease contract that you can build out on your job on the contract that you have and then you can buy out that piece of equipment at the end of its useful life if you choose to but if you were to rent the equipment or lease the equipment then that's a justifiable expense when you are bidding the contract and so at that point you know I've heard it both ways at that point you could decide whether or not you want to buy it or whether or not you want to continue leasing it because oftentimes I've had people say wait look equipment right it actually depreciates but not depreciates just on paper but at some point you've got a lot of repairs and maintenance cost it goes into equipment and so it may not be worth it it just just depends on the type of equipment right that you purchase I know that again if you've had a lot of contracts then it makes to me what makes sense for you to start buying out some of that equipment but if you have one or two contracts then I wouldn't recommend that you do that just because the maintenance of some stuff like my friends had boom lifts and things and the maintenance the downtime imagine if you're in a job working and equipment goes down and now I mean you're already behind you're like you're trying to catch up on the job if you had a rental they come and switch it out like the same day and again they do have people that come out and service it but just you know I know I didn't quite answer the question it just depends on a lot of factors out there just really depends on a lot of factors out there but yeah I would say in the beginning I would personally just lease the equipment until I had like a steady flow of contracts where they could justify me actually owning the equipment outright and I know it's hard because look I've had I remember some years I've had hundred to three hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment rentals and like man I could have bought that equipment for that but then you don't look at the convenience of delivery ordering payment terms like all those other factors that you don't have to worry about even like your insurance for the equipment like all that kind of stuff that's just intangibles it's hard enough to run a business it's hard enough to manage employees it's hard enough to get the job done and then on top of that to try to like store some equipment somewhere keep it out of the weather you know like haul it back and forth that just adds another complexity I would say if you focus on your actual business more you'd be much I think I think that it would you be much more successful until you you short some things up so what else we got what else do we have out there what's up pink calmata someone says I've been seeing a lot of office oh wait hold on I think Colin had a question let me go back to Colin's question Colin says looking at government contracts and course development online training do you have any advice on this type actually so course development online training there's a lot of stuff out there regarding course of online training in fact Colin I just posted a video today that talks about online training and course development there was a large contract issued let me pull it up there was actually a large contract this is funny I'm gonna take my phone down because I got to show Colin here let me see how do I switch my screen oh there it is all right Colin look I actually literally posted this on Twitter today this company wants a hundred eighty two million dollar contact score to develop training systems for the Navy okay so you may want to and look I literally I posted it 13 hours ago on my Twitter so there's a lot of activity right now going on surrounding course development and training that's a big area I I actually anticipated it would grow because of COVID so back in like March I put a video out some of the emerging some of the emerging areas and so course development training LMS was like number one am I in terms of what we're talking about the SBA is putting out contracts for this this particular company I recommended that people reach out to them since they were just awarded that the hundred eighty two million dollar task order I said look reach out to them because they don't already have their subs they don't have the people in place yet so again in the video what I talked about was and by the way if you guys missed today's video it was really good because there's the video talked about there's there's GSA is having a event coming up at the end of the month regarding trucking contracts and a lot of people out there in the trucking so the trucking schedules they are having their time they're having an event at the end of the month regarding trucking they're having a challenge with regard to machine learning and artificial intelligence and then I talked about this particular opportunity for training and learning management so a lot of good stuff happening out there remember they've got they've got to dump a whole lot of money in a short period of time and so now it's it's like do or die so again if you don't get in now you're gonna end up waiting for the next fiscal year cycle to get in I can tell you that literally today I received a phone call from one of my contracting officers one of my projects got fully funded already so they expect to issue me the contract on Friday so the government I mean the money is flowing people the money is flowing like like really it's flowing I literally got that phone call today I actually missed the phone call which is I was making a video for you guys and so I had my phone on solid and I missed a phone call but I did get the message so we'll talk to them tomorrow but absolutely you want to I mean and that's great Daffy Mac that you've been following and listening for two weeks now it's really good because if you have an opportunity to get it now as a subcontractor on one of these vehicles now was the time and Colin going back to that the video that I posted today and everybody else was listening what I said was and I have a video on that and YouTube where I say look when someone wins a contract first obviously you're very excited to win a contract but then the next phase is fear right you're now like okay I've got to actually perform this work and get it done so they're excited because they won but then they're also like okay now we got to figure out how to get this contract done so now was a time when they have to start shoring up their teaming partners their sub contractors they got to put all those things in place in order to be ready for when the government starts issuing task orders and that's what I want to tell everyone out there it's like it's it's great and it's exciting and even for myself like when I got the call today and he was like hey Eric you know we got the funding we're gonna issue contract Friday I called my project manager and was like yo get your stuff together like we just got we're gonna get the award Friday call the subs get your paperwork together get make sure they're everybody's insurance is up to date make sure they've got all their stuff for their badging make sure they got the scopes of work make sure we start looking at our submittal so then alright Kim thank you for joining us tonight appreciate you as always okay talk to you some yeah and so the thing is you want to you want to absolutely the companies the bigger companies are thinking the same thing like they are ready like they're like they have to go to like from go from celebration mode to go mode like with the drop of a hat so definitely the excitement's gonna wear off really soon and they're gonna need partners and this the time to reach out to them congratulate them and say hey guys look congratulations on your award I do blah blah blah blah but before you do that make sure you pull down what the scope of services was so that you can add value to that particular opportunity okay so definitely you want to make sure you do that out there what else what else we got out here people man I got a bunch of shy people out here nobody wants to talk nobody wants to have no questions nobody wants to jump on I know I told my man I had a guy on my private IG was asking me questions I said look come on here because I like I just it's really hard for me honestly look I'll tell you I just it's really tough for me to pull away from what I'm doing like making content making videos showing up the course working with people it just makes it really tough for me to actually take a phone call and you know it's it's just it's really difficult to do that because you know what I say is for me the the one hour time that I'm on the phone with someone I could spend working on content that reaches thousands of people and that's really the way that I look at my time now it's just you know when I'm on the phone with people I gotta be very cut you know respectful I gotta be I mean I gotta be very cautious of respect but my like my own time right because there's content out there that needs to get put out there I've got a lot of stuff in my brain that's still not posted publicly on YouTube so I want to just get all of this chunk out of my brain put it out there into the world and start taking in new information and unfortunately I keep meeting new people I keep having new people coming to my spear I'm learning a lot so it seems like I'm never able to get all this stuff out let's look at Cal Mita says Eric I'm already been on janitorial service contract for the VA thanks to you okay good stuff spooky I'm 20 bidding on my first contract that's worth about 500 thousand I don't see a question there look guys bidding on contracts for me is I mean it's just a bit right so it's not I'm happy I'm happy that people are bidding on contracts but really you know what one of the things that I would encourage everyone out there to do is go back and look at the video that I posted on Monday and I'll tell you why because the video that I posted on Monday says how do you get prepared for a contract a lot of people you know that and I get it look first of all bidding is great I'm gonna tell you why so there's a lot of advantages to bidding a contract one thing when you bid is you learn you cannot get feedback from the contracting officer or the organization unless you bid so definitely I would highly encourage you to bid a project and the really the downside the risk is very minimal because at the end of the day let's say you win the contract you don't have the money you can't do it it's fine and a lot of people don't want to hear that lobby say no you're wasting the government's time it's like look if you I've seen a numerous countless people when get contracts they don't have the funding they don't have the ability to do it and they don't really get beat up or polarized too hard so it's not the end of the world so I don't by beating themselves up and like really having a lot of anxiety inside about bidding the contract 20 years old but a half-minute contract go for it I mean like that's the way to learn because what's gonna happen is if you bid a contract and you don't get it you have the ability to request a debrief and then when you request a debrief you can find out why you didn't get that contract I really think that look at 20 years old I mean you have enough intelligence I don't think you need any more intelligence than you have today in fact I think at 20 years old the good thing about that person is that being young means you don't have a lot of preconceived notions you don't have as many fears as us as people that are older but you are able to be still innocent and I like innocence like I like that innocence because how many times have we all heard a lot of people say if I had known what how much work it was gonna be when I got to where I'm at like I probably wouldn't have started this you know and so but being innocent and naive you try stuff out and you don't really know what you get into and then you're like you know what I could kind of do this and also keep in mind spooky look my man Wesley he's 16 years old and he's doing $10,000 a month in contracts so my man Wesley got you beat so don't be scared he's got he got you beat Colin wants to jump on hold on let me let me let Colin uh done done done Eric how you doing what's going man good good good I definitely agree with you I think it's interesting because a lot of people don't try you know but what I was gonna ask you was this because this is kind of like my dad told me everything I knew because he owned his own engineering business for about like 30 years and when you when you bid a contract and what he always taught me was only spend 25% of the budget to get the job done and keep the rest and I wanted me to ask you how do you apply that theory like let's say you win a $4 million contract okay okay so you win a $4 million contract and would you say you would keep about like let's say 2 million of that's 50% of your business put it back in the business and only spend up to 1.5 to get the job complete because you still have to make a profit right and your business has to run and then you gotta weather rainy days no that's no you can't make that much profit okay now man that's too much profit well I guess maybe it's different with with with government I'm not sure no you can't yeah you can't make that kind of profit they won't let you I mean the government one of the things about government and this is a good question Colin one of the things about government is there's very few things that we're going to be able to offer them but they haven't already purchased at some point okay but they know these numbers like you can't really trick the government no I don't mean trick but what I'm saying is like if there's a market where there's 50% profit mm-hmm everyone's gonna run to that market and then it's gonna go to 10% profit true so maybe there's no such market that exists that you can make 50% profit now the caveat to that is the really really big big boys they they're killing it because at that level there's only a few players that can that have the resources to be able to do multi-billion dollar contracts right so for example if you're sitting the satellites and you're launching sitting things at an actual space station there's not 30 players okay there's five players so they're probably making 50% profit okay but either what you're I think I would see even if let's say SpaceX let's say they make 50% profit mm-hmm I see another competitor like want to come in and like did you see that make you the profit like yo we put a start launching satellites like I would they would show up their R&D division to start like getting 50% type profit contracts okay so so what you're saying Eric is because my understanding was if you have a four million dollar contract so you're saying you're spending most of that to fulfill the government money so you're so you're probably very slim our profit is on four million dollars is probably gonna be 12% okay I see it's not bad though I'm four million I mean I mean look there again there's certain sectors look if you do staffing mm-hmm you have to do GSA approved labor rates like all this like all this stuff is so they're they're telling you how much you can make okay like you don't even get a chance to choose how much you make but you say it's not a lot but again if you do it over and over and over yeah you're right you're right and so we have people like for example if you watched a couple days ago not a couple days a couple chats ago when I did live when who came on with us Lori when Lori came on I'm a very staffing so yes imagine Lori Sykes no sales no sales I'm sorry that's okay well she actually has a different last name she changed it because she got married and separated so we we what happens is when you do staffing right and then like for example in my last pocket I guess Renette Myers when they do staffing imagine I have a hundred employees working at the FAA or a hundred employees working that DLD or something like that and you're making twenty thousand dollars ahead 15,000 percent times a hundred people it adds up okay I see your point okay I see you don't have to you don't have to make 50% you know that you like I mean if you have 50 and again one of my guests that's coming up now Heather Heather who does staffing she actually did all the unemployment phone calls right when we would hit COVID hit she put a hundred and fifty people out there and again if you're if you're paying I don't know 15 bucks an hour and they're paying you 20 bucks an hour you make a five bucks an hour per person times 150 people that's a lot yeah it was enough to put her on the Inc. 500 list number 27 that's true that's true I was only asking her country this is this is not in the state this is in the whole country whole country gotcha okay that should say in the whole country she was the Inc. 500 war number 27 in the country of the United States of America she beat out a lot of really smart savvy people I mean just I think sometimes we don't even like consider that like she beat out a lot yeah a lot like like that's like Uber type success right no it is that's like Airbnb Uber like those guys when they were at their high growth were at those levels so just okay okay no you're right you're right you know I think a lot of people take that mentality want to get rich off of one job or two jobs and I just there's to me there's no reason because the government's gonna give you steady opportunities and the truth is once you build that relationship which is the hardest part right once you like that's the hardest part but it is also for me the reason why I prefer that is because now right well people are out bidding jobs I get phone calls for jobs so I just the thing is you know I my my strategy is I spend all my time developing relationships nurturing relationships zero time bidding and then after a certain period of time those things all pay off and now I'm only negotiating contracts and not bidding anything and Eric one thing I'll learn from you is that you don't do the work no more that's the one thing I was I don't think that any of us should be doing the work to be honest with you no no no no like you're in a business development right now like all you do is talk to people that's you know but I think that again going back anyone out there who's really trying to build a business I think that they should be in a business development phase even when even when I was you know had my employees on my staff I still had to be the face of the company I could not actually go out there and be on the job sites I had to hire superintendents project managers I had to hire I'd have people manage those people right those teams and that's how you build a real business because a lot of times what we think of as business and again I'm talking about you know black and brown people minorities particularly we are always looking at the mom-and-pop shops and we're looking at stuff where we have to be in there running a business like a bicycle shop or something like that you that's not scalable if you ever join any organizations that talk about building up business business they don't even call that business honestly right the sole provider it's like you can't even follow you got like it's funny because Marie and I talked about that today like you you have to follow schedule C on your tax returns because you don't have a business so I understand no I do because I don't do the work anymore either you know I just I just negotiate but you've got to be the face of the company and you got it yes that's the only way you can grow and scale your business and I think probably a lot of stuff that your dad put in you is what gave you that confidence to do it well I watched him growing up you know he had his own engineering business he grew it to like a hundred mil because we're in Africa so it was a little easier you know back then it was back in the 80s but I watched him after about five years he just stopped working and just deli kind of like what you're doing yeah and just said okay that's it so everything I'm doing I've learned from him and then when I figured out I wanted to pivot into the government sector I actually found your video on YouTube about a year ago and this when I met you I was like I remember him and I'm a father whoever since so I'm trying bro I'm there because right now I do private sector stuff you know but so easier it is it may be easier in your particular space but for some of us out there who have bigger contracts yeah it's harder it's harder right yeah it just depends on the market you're in you know construction man like like I know I know you hear my you hear the people in the group that talk about yeah a contract yeah you know that's that's just tough man that's a tough and I don't want anybody to go through what I've gone through and suffer those hardships it's just it's really tough to tell people to put out 30 40 50 thousand dollars and not get it back and and then just keep pushing and be smiling and happy all the time bubbly that's just you know you went through it too though you went you know I did and again like but but look and again look I I also paid child support when I was in high school I mean going out of high school right in the college so you know I don't encourage you to do that either I mean but their experiences they shape us they make us you know so I'm not I don't regret any bit I'm actually thankful for it I think I'm better off because of it it's major who you are yeah yeah and look and I don't think I'm insulated from happening that in the future like I think at some the next level I'm gonna get beat up again but now what I try to tell everybody is it's not about the end goal right like a lot of people think it's the end goal and this goes more to mindset stoicism like if you see Tom Brady play he doesn't get too overly excited when he scores touchdowns or when you know whereas other quarterbacks you celebrate and dance in end zone flipping around Tom Brady they sit back and they're looking back at their books right and him and coach Bill checker like figuring out the next strategy right and that's and that's stoicism and I and and what I like to tell people is everything that I've read everything of success book that I've ever read it's talks about that it says you know if you have a goal and you hit the goal right you're gonna be excited right but that's gonna be fleeting right if same thing if you buy a car you buy a watch you buy jewelry all that stuff is fleeting Oprah talks about it if it was only the the money if it was only the end goal was that was the end of the game why are celebrities still out here working every day why are they still like if it's only about money they have enough money to stop they have enough everything to stop because it's about the journey and even my friends call it like my buddies that all everyone has a lot of money you know the stories that we talk about the most is the ones where we struggle yeah it's it's like when even when you hear artists talk about they're like yeah you remember you ride a bicycle remember you can't like it the people talk about when they struggle that's the stories that we laugh about and joke about that's the stuff that's like that's what brought you together that's when you're like in that like for example if you're a military guy you're in that you're in a hole together right like that's the stuff that you remember right it's like yo remember we shared a hot dog yep that's the stuff and so I the point of it is I tell people look enjoy the whole journey have fun throughout don't take it so serious don't put yourself under so much pressure because just like the analogy I gave you that company just 182 million on contract Colin I bet you if you go to office somebody scared at shit right now somebody is like taking a crap in their pants and saying oh my gosh I can't believe we won this I literally got like this they're gonna jump this on my lap and I gotta forgot to get this thing done let me ask you a question here and this is if you had to do everything all over again different would you do anything different than what you did with this because you said I mean we know your story you know when you started out they work out you know and that was a different time you know we're not time's not a little different but if you had to start to change anything of your journey would you know if I had to change anything of my journey I think whatever I would change is you know I actually I had some opportunities and I don't think I remember ever talking about this but I had some opportunities early on when I was consulting with some companies the SBA guy who really taught me all this a day stuff and how to do government contracts Jeffrey Campbell shout out to Jeffrey Campbell he taught me everything I know he's still out here they there was a company in DC college that won a hundred million dollar contract right and I was like two or three years in but I was you know I was the man and I was really helping the companies consult with them and you know they suspected that the small business they were partnering with a joint venture with a large company for this hundred million dollar vehicle and they suspected they were gonna fail like the big company's gonna take advantage of the guy because he was like a one-man army and like so so a lot of the rules that you guys see in place they were put in place because people before you screwed up so when they have like the self-performance closets and things like that I was around when they didn't have there was no self-performance like like you could be a pass through a hundred percent like not a hundred but you know whatever it's a big number so a lot of these rules were put in place because people did these things so well you know one of the things I would say I really thought at the time I'm like you know that these guys are gonna take care of me they're gonna do right by me and that we're gonna you know stick together and go off and be success and I didn't I passed on the opportunity to work with this company on a hundred million dollar vehicle very early on in my guckhunt journey if I had to change anything I would have definitely taken advantage of opportunity I would have moved to DC jumped in on a hundred million dollar opportunity at like 25 years old right and I think I would probably be doing a billion a dollar today I think I think if I had done a hundred million dollar contract you know 10-12 years ago I mean I think today be likely that I think I'd be at the billions you would right anyway you know I'm saying like this you're already at a hundred million so that there's no that you just don't go enough I mean down it's like I mean again once you you know and that's the other thing about that I've learned to whatever financial level that you've already obtained it's so much easier to get right back to there so for people what people don't a lot of people are so afraid to like fall down or start over whatever the case may be but really like even when I fell and I like like I fell down to zero I mean I got back in months like it was less like a year I was right back in it so get if I were to fall today like I mean I would be back you know making the same money I've made like within eight months I mean because I already know how to do it like you get me so that's why so when I look at that call and that mentality it's like if I had done a hundred million dollar contract back then right in 2009 what is that 11 years ago now or 2010 I would already be working with a Fortune 100 company helping them do the business development you know I'm saying and helping them bring in like billions of dollars but on the flip side I don't know if I would be helping you guys I've always searched out for ways to help people and even back a long time ago part of always been my goals to help hundreds of people thousands of people to make a lot of money so that's always been a goal that I've had written down where I've always want to help you know create millionaires and so that's what I see myself is doing and that's why I see my passion and like that's the way I see my journey and and that's why I have a lot of fun working at this but that's okay I can tell you I started my business over three times because I refused to fail I failed the first two times yeah but I said you know what I'm gonna keep going by the way everyone and if anyone can hear me on the GovCon Giants Group on LinkedIn I posted an RFP from DC they're good about paying and it's the mayor and it's in construction so if you guys are interested yeah please look at it because they have a lot of construction jobs coming up so just get on them and you know hopefully you'll get it okay all right Colin thank you all right thank you please all right all right Marie I think we had someone else that wanted to jump on I think we have somebody else so much as I didn't feel I learned no I agree yeah no I mean look you know I mean it's true they they asked hold on wait wait wait wait wait wait wait someone says do you have to be in the 80 program certified as a minority disadvantaged business absolutely not you know this 80 program question man I get asked 8a so much I don't know who is putting this stuff I heard about 8a like I just don't know I talked I mean I you know I love 8a but 80% and you don't even know what to do with 8a look first of all you got to get ready to have a business I'll tell you the same thing that I said to my Monday group there's there's 20 people on here maybe a couple hundred people gonna listen to it and out of that 90% of you aren't even ready to receive a contract you're not even ready you don't have that you don't have all the things in place to receive a contract if I were to give you a contract today you couldn't do it and so you know what I always tell everybody show up your business show up your organization show up your team show up your your credit you know it's like show up your suppliers show yourself up you know make sure you get yourself together because all this talk about 8a 8a is not gonna show up your business 8a is not gonna show up your finances 8a is not gonna show 8a is not gonna show up all the things your organization that are not right they're not gonna show up your books they're not gonna show up your your CPA and that stuff they're not 8a is not going to help you show up your organizational deficiencies it's not gonna do that for you so the thing is why do people like sweat this whole 8a thing I just I really don't get it Jake says if you were start today what industry would you get into for government contracts if smart I'll be you thank you been a business since 05 now with an 8a now it's the time to get a correct now if you've been in business that long you have a business you know how to run a business you know how to get jobs got your stuff together so excellent good good good question good question you don't want to be 8 until you're absolutely ready to milk it exactly thank you thank you for that if I were started today what industry I get into I would get into probably staffing I probably staffing I didn't I did not know about staffing at the time when I learned about government contracting I would definitely get into staffing like I said there's so many there's so many people that have come on my podcast that talk about staffing and I've seen how quickly they grow and also what I've learned and I you know it's funny I should have knew this early on in my career because one of my guys who was like the first contract that I ever worked on with someone was a friend of mine and the contract was a hundred million dollar IDIQ and they put me in as a partner on this 100 million dollar IDIQ and we didn't have the money to do it but we did qualify that's why I like IDVs if you don't know what IDV is go back and watch my Monday video on YouTube but I didn't but we were you don't have to actually have a hundred million dollars to qualify for a hundred million dollar contract so we qualify for a hundred million dollar contract and we couldn't even do it but we still qualify and we're on the vehicle and they would give us task orders for millions of dollars and we didn't have the money we have the bonding internet stuff but it was fine we learned a lot but that that person he actually had a friend of his that was doing staffing IT staffing back when we were doing construction and I remember him because he said his friend was buying like hundred thousand dollar sports cars and crashing them every couple of months and that I should have realized back then he was making a lot of money because I couldn't crash hundred thousand cars every other month like I didn't have that kind of money to do that and this guy was and he had an IT staffing company and all he was doing was placing people on jobs for IT for the government and like I was just telling Colin you know if you if the person makes a hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year right and the government pays you a hundred and seventy five thousand you're making forty five thousand dollars per head for the people that you place I mean you can make a hundred fifty thousand dollars a year and those people work at that government desk for five six seven eight nine years whatever case may be like IT help desk correct yeah so for me that that particular model is less risky so for example with construction I can lose money I mean I've been you know you've got a construction project for eight hundred thousand dollars and let's say for example just like what happened with COVID the cost of your materials let's say a bit of eight hundred thousand dollar construction project my materials are five hundred thousand dollars my labor is 200 I'm gonna make a hundred grand all right if my materials go up because of COVID because now everyone needs those same materials if my materials increase from five hundred thousand to six hundred thousand I lose my profit on construction and that's a risk that we take in that industry I'm staffing that you don't you don't lose right there's no losing you you price it for that that whatever that rage rate is and you get paid over and above that amount you don't get paid less for what you pay that person does that make sense so that's why you know I would I would I would actually look at staffing and again they're staffing in everything so again they're staffing for you said a high IT help desk but there's also staffing like I said someone was doing the unemployment phone calls right they're staffing for that when the SBA had yield support there's their staffing for that there's IT staffing there's people that do staffing for social media staffing for podcasts like they're staffing for everything they the government buys nurses and doctors and therapists and orthodontists their staffing is every type of job every type of position there's staffing so that's what I that's what I would look at best book you recommend actually so we just finished putting up books I guess you know I have different books that I recommend Maria can you put in the group the Amazon page where we actually have a book we just it's funny you ask that question about books but we actually just finished our Amazon page where we have all the recommended books by our guest and so you can check out the Amazon shop it just it's really hard to recommend a book without knowing the context so it just depends on what you want to learn and where you're at in your organization so for example there's books that we recommend for mindset there's books that we recommend for building organization there's books that I recommend for growing there's books that we recommend for for example like it just just different activities right it just depends on what subject that you want to spend time on but Maria just dropped a link in the chat that tells you our Amazon page with all of our book recommendations on it and we literally just like finish that today Bridget says my being dead horse trying to obtain hold on trying to contact with the suppliers are not readily available because of COVID-19 sounds like you answered your own question if you can't get supplies then how are you going to fulfill that contract I wonder if Jay Bryant Howard government contracted to grow her staffing company she's a billionaire I don't know Jay Bryant Howard but but yeah I could I could see that I can absolutely because the government like you can do 10 million or 20 million dollars a year and staffing just as a subcontractor without ever having to get become a prime contractor look the big companies want to you know they're looking for people that can take on these responsibilities so you know we have a student of ours that picked up a contract for janitorial staff I mean it's like staffing it's staffing you can staff janitorial you can staff anything but BGA I'm not sure I don't know that person Jay Bryant Howard what else you know IG gonna kick me off in like six minutes but no we're I mean we're I don't have a video particularly on staffing but I do have podcast guests so my podcast guests do staffing so you can you can follow the you can follow that and I'm actually hold on I'm glad you asked that question I have it here I think so oh here I will show you so here govconjines.com for slash podcast and you can see all my podcast guests and here you can sort and click on it and then like I said you can see types of industries are in the businesses they're in and these are really good episodes right you can learn a lot from what successful people do I always tell folks out there especially all of you on IG just be careful don't be a victim there's a lot of scammers I have a lot pretending that they actually win contracts they don't win check fact check people right go to FPDS let's just you know if someone you know talks about their winning contract opportunities look them up you know type in their company name and type in go to gov tribe type in their company name space gov tribe and and check them out because there's just a lot of fakes and phonies out here that are you know that are doing that kind of stuff so I just want to encourage you that learn look learn from these people all these people are just extremely successful in their own right and they've done this for years some of them 20 years 25 years look learn from them you can't you can't go wrong they share their story it's been about an hour hour and a half on time for me and like I said they're there they're they're actually you know they're making it happen this is there this is the real deal this is this is these are the people that I learned from these are people that I get inspiration from a lot of folks talk about mentors you know make these people your mentors you know the other thing that I found which is really interesting is that if you find someone that's on my podcast that's been on my one of my guests reach out to them a lot of my guests are super humble super down to earth people and in fact I talked to this is funny Maria someone I spoke to on one of my Friday calls said they reached out to Chris Dambach Chris Dambach grew out his landscaping business from like cutting grass by himself to now doing cemeteries he's doing millions of dollars a year and landscape and cemeteries and sprinklers and things like that for hospitals and so like someone of one of my people who follows me on YouTube and they reached out to Chris Dambach and they said he set up a zoom call with them and literally he spent like 35 minutes on the phone with them giving them advice for how to start their business I just think that's incredible that shows a lot of humanity and it's it's goes against the what we see the culture on the news that talks about how we're all divided how we're all separated I just like to debunk some of that stuff out there and show that again we got people that don't necessarily look like us got people that don't necessarily come from the same place that we come to but they're willing to give out a hand because we are in the same space they remember what it was like when they got started and so they're willing to give back and I've just found a lot of people out there are a lot more generous and free with their time than you would expect and a lot of us we just don't try right the first thing we do is saying you know this person would never actually they won't talk to me right because they don't look like me how do you know that how do you know what that person's personal journey was like with their experience of like you are already eliminating the possibility from anything happening because you didn't even try like you fail for not trying that's like like they said you can't hit if you can't have an at bat right and not take a swing like you got a swing you got a swing at the ball so again look these people are out here they're doing incredible things out there development real estate I mean every like everything imaginable and in fact in fact one of my podcast guests just jumped on right now in the chat you know and everything like the last couple chats I've had my guests have jumped on and one of my guests she just jumped on the chat I'm not even gonna call her out but I see her on here and she worked for one of the largest defense contractors in the United States of America and she's on here right now with you guys and you don't even know it you don't even know like you don't even you don't even know who y'all around you guys are in the hands of good company great people excellent people smart they've been doing this for a long time she's done billions of dollars capture management that's my only clue I give you but I mean it's people right here on the chat with you right that are doing all the things that you want to do and and so you can learn from them you can learn from their stories you can learn from their journeys you can learn from experiences you don't actually have to make the same mistakes that I've made some of the same mistakes that other people have made out here this is your chance or opportunity spend the time like everyone's complaining about having downtime this is the time to again invest in yourself it cost you nothing was it cost you to listen to a podcast was it cost you to to listen to a YouTube video cost you nothing right like Maria want to call her out you know but it cost you nothing out there yes I do have a teaching program visit our site gopkinscience.com and you'll find it on there or you can also reach out to Maria and Maria called you out Jennifer I I didn't want to call you out but you know so she did it to you but yeah we have one of you know it's it's it's incredible I love being and surrounded by really great people smart people that again they're way smarter than me out here I love being in their company because I am like I said I'm truly I'm on my own journey as well