 Julie, right? Hold on. Let's go live. It says, am I live? Make sure. Let me just make sure. That's live. All right. All right. John, can you hear me? Christie, can you hear me? By the way, everyone out there listening, welcome, welcome, welcome. This is the first of what? I think six or seven of these we've got coming up. It's my world premiere. Oh, yeah. Giants. Thank you for inviting me. No, awesome. Yes. Yes. We're happy to have you here. As I mentioned, we started at 6 0 5. We just came on early just to say hi and welcome and see who's in the room and get a feel for the audience. Bonus. I like to reward promptness. I like to say give you, you want to reward things you want to see more of. So thank you for showing up and for wanting to meet us. We can hardly wait to hear what's on your minds, what's going on in your lives and your businesses. I hope that you've weathered a really trying end of year tough decisions with friends and family. I hope that your friends and family, your loved ones are thriving. So I'm with you. Really. Great. Great. Make sure, by the way, as I always tell my people on Mondays, use this as your networking event. Unfortunately, because of COVID, right, we're not going to have any person to person networking, but by the end of this, in a couple of minutes, it's going to be probably 90 to 120 people on here. So definitely put in the chat your industry, the city that you're in. Let us know so we know who's out there, who we're talking to. It also helps us sitting here on the panel to be able to maybe guide some of our information towards people in that particular industry. So let us know what industry you're in, okay, where you're from. And that way we can read it and others can read it as well. Also, is this is this chat on is this chat on YouTube or chat on the chats on YouTube? It's on YouTube. Can you see it? I can't I can only okay, let me I'll share with you. So that'd be great. But if I share it, then it may be redundant to them, but that's okay, you can see what I'm looking at. Okay, if I can see yours. Okay, that's great. I can see it and it's not disrupting my screen. But unfortunately, but unfortunately, what's going to happen is it's going to show on the YouTube live that I'm showing this on the side. So I'm just showing that's where I'm looking at the people at. Alright, next time what we'll do is I'll figure it out. Well, I can show you how to pull up on your screen so you can look at it. Yeah, because anything I share is going to be shared on YouTube. Okay, next time show me how to do it. I'll say I have another reason to show up next week. Relay the comments and yeah, I'd love to know who's in the room. So if you're here, can people just sort of introduce themselves and they can introduce themselves, they can type in who they are. I see their names, but they I tell them to type in their industry and also the city where they're from. So let's see, we've got John O'Hara, Christie Rankins, Brandon Coffee, Tamika, Marcus Wolgers. Let's see, Jordan Zipper. What's up, Jordan? I know Jordan. Actually, I work with Jordan on Homestead Air Force Base. Christie, The Truth. Oh, by the way, The Truth Judy says my favorite two, High Judy and Eric. Look at that. We've got transportation out of Georgia. Maria Martinez, Ola, Joshua Pollard, Joel Prophet, Life Insurance out of Louisiana. That's the transporters out of Maryland, property services out of Maryland, North Carolina, D.C., Virginia, that's Jackie, Air Rip Digital. Let's see, who else is in the room? Jackie Coons, Trish. Trish from Florida says hi, Eric and Julie. Patricia here from Quest Power, Power Generation and Industrial Supplies distributor based in Orlando, Florida. Cool. Look at that. Quentin Swift. By the way, for all the new people coming on here, make sure, again, follow their lead, drop off your industry and drop off your city. Okay. If I have a question for something I want to know about people and I want to ask them to drop it in the chat. Can I ask? You can. You certainly can. Definitely. All right. Okay. Here's something that might be fun. I was talking to my team and I would love to know your number. How much federal business, what's your goal? What's your goal for federal business for 2021? Revenue goal? Yeah. What's your revenue goal for your federal business for 2021? Anybody want to be brave? This is your call to be courageous. And I ask this because, did you know that, let me think here, I'm trying to remember the numbers now. I think only three in 10 people have written goals, something like that, and people who actually, so have goals at all. And then those who actually write them down, declare them are much more likely to actually achieve their goals. And people just kind of go, oh, I don't have goals, or I have a goal, but I'm not going to write it down because like maybe I won't make it. So, be bold. Increase your odds of success and declare your goal in the front of the world. That also means when you put it out there, you give somebody else the chance to say, I think I can help you. Isn't that a cool thing? That's a cool thing. No, that's really cool. I like that. That's really neat. So, Judy says, declare your goals. Declare your goals. Who's great. Write it in the chat. Also, don't forget, if you have not already told us what industry you're in and what city you're in. Okay, so just let us know what industry and what city. And then as a bonus for Judy, declare your goals. So, again, we're looking at IT business, federal government database management, consulting out of Dallas. Someone says here, let me scroll down the feeds moving kind of fast now. We had to show up for the YouTube live. The podcast with Judy was awesome. A lot of great advice. Alright, we've got Lloyd out of a landscaping out of West Palm Beach. DevSecOps, hold on, Better Logistics out of New York, DevSecOps, Tampa, Florida, 250,000, 750,000, 750,000. One and a half million, a half a million. Yeah, resulting from Detroit, AirWeb, 2 million, Jackie, 250,000. Let's see. I'm sorry, Jackie, 350,000. Ron Thomas, Armed Security Services, Georgia, Al Howard, 100,000, William, a million. Victoria Singleton says, Judy, Paul says 750,000. Marty, 3 million. Brandon, 10 million. Let's see who else. Someone says amen, Judy. Alright, I'm just starting having to turn me now. 5 million. Someone says reading your book. 1 million janitorial services out of Jacksonville, Florida. 1 million. E bold, Maria says. Alex, IT and support business goal. 1 million. Trish, Florida, 1.5. Two for the stars. You might land on the moon. DJ crime just started out. So 100 K first year, 1 million a second year. Houston, Texas. Alright, by the way, if you like what we're talking about, there's 60 people in the room. We've got 19 likes. Make sure to give us a thumbs up. That's going to help with the YouTube gods and all of the social media conglomerates, right? They're going to help push us to the top and push this information out there. So all the people who are not on today will be able to know that this has been a great time we're having. And again, we're just 4 minutes in already loving it. Already having a good time. Here's why I was asking the nosy question. First of all, I want to reward you for being courageous. Second, I want to encourage you to know that this is safe space. Eric creates a community where we can be open. We can share the hard stuff and share challenges, but also be bold and look at the numbers. You're in good company. You're not alone. You have goals and they're not all that much different from the other folks who are right next to you shoulder to shoulder in the federal arena. And we're all trying to figure it out. Right. So absolutely. No, I remember and I'll tell you a backstory just to kind of give everyone who doesn't know. I actually was consulting helping in a day and they were paying me like as a 1099 contractor, but I was doing all doing a lot of the work. I won't say all the work, but I was doing a lot of the work. And then I wanted to be part of this organization and the organization said to qualify your company has to do at least a quarter of a million a year. So I said, OK, I can no longer be a consultant getting paid like a 1099. I actually have my corporation do projects. And so with that goal of 250,000 in mind, I changed over my plan for how I structured everything. And then I hit it the next year. And then the following to get to the next level is the next tier was a million dollars. And so again, going on with the same mentality mentality, excuse me, I went ahead and I did all the things that take to basically instead of me like advising them and consulting with them. I actually they had them subcontract out me scopes of work and portions of the projects to get my revenues up for my business. And that really boasted me a huge way and allowed me to start having people allow me to start having cash flow come through the business and organization, which made me more attractive to banks and lenders and qualify for SBA loans and whatnot, as opposed to receiving a 1099 check on the side. So I agree with Judy. I concur wholeheartedly when we start to process the stuff in our mind, we make a shift and we look at what we're doing and we start doing things a little bit differently to create the lanes and the pathway so these things can happen. Great, great, great job, Judy. But way to get started. I love it. I love it. Hey, listen, again, if you're just joining us, make sure that you give us a thumbs up that you like this, because again, we're no different than everyone else in the world. We know who controls all the social media, Google, Amazon, all the powers that be the only way they know that this is great content is because people are saying it's great content. So and also make sure to let us know your industry that you're in, right? Your industry that you're in and also the city that you're from. And then for Judy, she wants you to put on your goal of how much sales that you'd like to do this year, what's your goal? All right. And our topic, are you ready to declare our topic and kind of frame it up because I just can hardly wait to answer people's questions. And so let's get to it because for me, this is a win if every single person who's here feels they got something valuable for their time. Our time is the single most precious resource we have. It is finite. And so if you are giving us that most valuable thing, your time, I want to make sure that you feel you have come away with at least one thing that will make a difference for you and in your business or and or for somebody you know, this year, something actionable. For me, that's the win. And that's my goal is that everyone here comes away with something useful. And if you haven't asked a question that gets you something useful, that's on you. But we're here to answer those and make sure you get something useful. Okay. Everybody good? Thumbs up. Thumbs up. Pretty good with that. Yes. Yep. Thumbs up. All right. Put thumbs up for Judy. There's a little lag because it's live. There's a little delay. Yeah, it's like TV, you know, you come from TV. So Judy, real quick, why don't you I know we're gonna do the eight minute thing about the advice for the administration. But before we do that, for all of the folks out here who don't know you, which I'm very surprised if they don't know you. But just in case there's some newcomers that've never heard of you before, they've been living under a rock for 20 years and maybe they're new to the government. Or maybe they're just new to government contracting space out here. So we want to give them a shot and and introduce who you are and tell them about yourself. Sure. Well, I've been my name's Judy Brad. I'm CEO of Summit Insight. For the I'm in my 33rd year being a subject matter expert in federal contracting and my particular sweet spot is really helping government contractors find and connect with the federal buyers you are meant to serve. And that makes all the difference. And so I write, speak, teach and consult for I work directly with companies that have got experience in the federal market already are looking to take it to the next level. Running my business means that I can also participate as a on a forum like this speak for procurement technical assistance centers for govology and other places where folks who might never ever work with me can still come away with something of value. And so I've worked with companies in lots of products, lots of services. I've done business with six different federal governments on five continents. But the thing I love to do is to work with companies that are serious but growing their federal business and help help you open the doors to your business and get the rocks out of the way so you can meet those goals. There's usually two or three things that could make all the difference. And so that's why I'm here when I'm not doing government contracting. I'm a private pilot with an instrument ticket. I'm a scuba diver and I've helped over a thousand people go up a wall. I'm a professional rock climbing instructor. So Julie is a very interesting hobbies. They're both dangerous and interesting. But I do like because she draws a lot of parallels between government contracting and her outside hobbies. So I will let her we'll go into some of that and later events. But again, just want to kind of give you a rundown of Judy a little bit who she was and who she is. And also we're going to start when we're going to start the conversation. But I know sometimes people have to come and they have to go. So I want to get some of the housekeeping stuff out the way. Now, Judy was kind enough to come prepared and have some other events that people can take place in that are free events coming up to increase your learning to increase your training to increase your education in this space. And so I want to share those at the top of the hour just because we'll have an end in chat for folks out there. And then that way if you've got to run off, you still have the information and you're not left like, hey, you know, I just I didn't stay till the end. So I missed that line. Is that OK? Is that fair, Judy? We do that. Yes. And you're also going to put drop those links in the show notes. I'm going to drop the show watching this live. Absolutely. And in the meantime, if you've got questions, any question at all about your journey in federal contracting, drop those in the chat and we'll queue them up. So don't wait whatever you've got on. Let's see if we can just drop the questions and we'll pull from the top and do that as well. So yeah, please share the links there. So if people got to go, there's two different things coming up. Can I talk about them while you? Yes, go ahead. Go ahead and talk about while we drop them. Go ahead. One of the it's twenty twenty one. We have a new administration. That means problems, challenges, changes, stuff. What's happening? I don't have a crystal ball. Actually, I do. But it's not a terribly useful crystal ball, even if I had one to show you. But I have really super smart friends, two of the smartest, most savvy forecasters in the federal arena. That's Lisa Shea Mundt and Amber Hart, the co-founders of the Pulse of Government Contracting. They are my guests this coming Thursday from two to three p.m. on Thursday, the 28th of January, and they're going to be talking about there they are. Yep, Amber and Lisa. And so they're going to be. I got you back. Hey, they're going to be talking about rules and changes and forecasts and opportunities and ways that you can stay on top of those things. The webinar is free. You are welcome to come. They're the link. If you want to put the registration, can you drop that in the chat as well? It's in there. Okay, great. And so that's free. Please register. Seating is limited. Show up early. I've got 100 seats. So the first 100 get to be there. But the other thing is this. If you take away nothing else and just and if you agree with me, just put the word yes in the chat. There's no such thing as doing business with government. There's no such thing as doing business with government. There's only doing business with people. There's a real federal human who puts everything on the line when they choose you. If you if you agree with me, put yes in the chat right now. Judy, repeat it, please. There's no such thing as doing business with government. There's only doing business with people. Everything changes. When you stop asking the question, what can I bid and start asking, who's my buyer? And how can I get to know them? If you agree with me, put yes in the chat. What are you seeing in the chat, Eric? We got any yeses? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. And so if one of the big fears that we have, this is a really primal fear we have as human beings, is just picking up the phone. What might happen? And I remember being face to face with exactly that problem. And you're just dealing with another human. But people get all nervous. How do I talk to a contracting officer? What do I say? Can I say this? What do I ask? Imagine being able to practice that in real time with a former federal contracting officer, somebody who sat in the chair who's been in charge of billions and billions of contracts and talk with thousands of vendors. I'm giving you that opportunity. And it's also free. On the first Wednesday of the month, we're hosting a series called Come Together for GovCon, Conversations with Contracting Officers. And so the link is also, Eric is putting that link in the chat. This session is free. And so when you register, bring your question. We take a look and we pick about a half a dozen of them and our contracting officers will Randolph, CEO of Think Acquisition and Kevin Hoey, a former Marine Corps colonel who has also gone on to work another 15 years in his retirement career with a very large prime. They are our two contracting officers and together we're going to let you ask your questions live and get conversation practice, which we all need because it makes it easier. So those are my two gifts to you to make it easier. I love it. Thank you, Julie. Thank you. That's awesome. Now, before we got started today and we're we're at 90, there's 94 people in the room that are listening to us right now. So congratulations on that. You were saying that someone asked you to speak eight minutes on advice that you would give the new administration. And you were able to do that. I would advice I would have for government contractors about the new administration. OK, 2021, what to do and what to watch for Govcons. Just some thoughts. All right. And if you would like me to reprise that, if that sounds like an impossible task, I did manage to do it. And so and I can tell you a little bit about what we covered. I mean, listen, I can give you 12 minutes. OK, well, first of all, anybody else want to know? Anybody else kind of curious about what that could be? You want to know, guys? I'm sure they're curious. I'm sure they're curious. All right, let me just by the way, just so you know. So people are narrow. Let me just read back some types of relationships. Yes, yes, yes. Solve human problems. Marie reposted. There's no such thing as doing business government. There's doing business with people. Some folks have already registered for the link. Conversations came. Don't be shy about your skills. So. People. Yes, yes, yes. Just registered. So there you go. So all right. In just a few minutes, I think it's time. Now, do you know the only qualification, two qualifications to actually be a pundit? And I am for the longest time when I am a terrible pundit. I'm not even going to try. There's only two things you really need. One is curiosity enough to guess at the future. And. Complete willingness to be absolutely wrong. Because did you know whether who comes back and tells you your forecast was terrible. Everybody wants to hear what you have to say about the forecast and it's a forecast. You're not promising. It's going to rain tomorrow. So. And so I thought, all right, I got a little bit more relaxed about it. I thought, all right, I encourage you to be your own pundit. Put together. Do your own detective work and make a guess. You do it in your business every day. What do you think is going to happen? So here's what I'll talk about some new administration essentials, some hot twenty twenty one topics, some key elements you must follow and stay on top of if you're in government contracting and I'll go back. I'm taking my notes, guys. By the way, I'm taking my notes. All right. Hey, we can all learn. There's we cannot. I don't think anyone has mastered this art. So we can all learn from each other from the experience of those that came before us and those that are doing it now. So I've got my notebook out. I hope everyone has their notes ready to go. I'm taking my notes. OK, so what we're going to cover and so I'm just going to talk. I'm not going to do slides. So I'm just going to look at my notes and. It's our future cannot depend on the government alone. The ultimate solutions lie in the attitudes and the actions of the American people. And that is from our new president, Joe Biden. Governing, running this country. These are things where government contractors play a tremendous role. Those of you who watched the inauguration and you watched the people on the dais and you watched the people who spoke. Contractors who were chosen by the Office of the Office of the Architect of the Capitol provided the scaffolding built and rebuilt the stands put flags and lighting on the mall set up the company from New Jersey put the fireworks together. We as government contractors helped usher in that that change to we're part of what makes these things happen. How cool is that? So remember that you as we as a community were represented right there on that stage, whether it was your company specifically or not, as for a new administration, relax, just relax. Here's why. Everybody's trying to figure it out. New priorities take time. And so in a new administration, things to watch, just watch, read, skim over 30 executive orders have been signed skim them. See what those tell you about priorities that might affect things that either open or might be slowing down in the areas of your specialty in the missions of the agencies where you do business, skim them. There's 30. You can see pretty quickly which of these might matter to you. Watch incoming appointees. Who are they going to be? I just just saw Washington post Janet Yellen appointed Treasury proposed Treasury Secretary. Look at these things. The backgrounds of your appointees may tell you some things about who they are and what their priorities might be. You can guess, you don't have to publish your prognostications, but you can think about if that person's there and they've done these things before, the president probably chose them for a reason. You want to follow budgets and agency forecasts. We are so lucky. These things are published. So Office of Management and Budget has a website. Every single federal agency publishes their procurement forecasts online. Take a look. Those get updated regularly and you're certainly going to see some changes. Remember as well, lots of the federal spend was approved last year was approved months ago. So some of those projects are school. Many of those projects are still going to carry on. So if you haven't looked at your agency's forecast recently, go back, go focus on the people involved in making those decisions and administering those programs as well as gee, what's the money? When can I expect the solicitation to come out? Look at the people shift. I want to encourage you to flip your vision from asking what can I bid to who's my buyer and how can I get to know them? So look at the cast of characters that are showing up in budgets and agency forecast. Look for the people. Look at spend and trend. You can look at the last two, three years of spend and see is it going up or going down? Do I need to pivot? Do I need to look at where opportunities are unfolding? If the spend in my niche is going down, get ahead of that. Those are numbers you can look at. Be aware of rules that affect your business. For example, those of you who are in the eight a program, you've had a special extension that give you an extra year in the program. You need to know about that. There's new rules coming out all the time that you've got to be aware of so that you can stay on top of them so that you can remain compliant so that you can apply for things or be aware of provisions that open opportunities for you. And you need to be aware of tools that can help you win. All right. So all those things. But I challenge you to ask yourself the question, who are my federal humans? Who are the players at all the layers involved in making decisions as well as consuming or using products and services that I have? And what's happening for those individual federal humans right now? When you look them up on LinkedIn, I want to use a question for the chat. How many and I'll be able to tell right away who you've been listening to. How many current federal employees do you think are on LinkedIn now? Put the number in the chat. How many? What's your best guess? Eric, what are the numbers? Oh, no. Remember, there's a delay. Repeat the question. How many current federal employees are on LinkedIn? Have profiles on LinkedIn today? Okay. All right. I need to get the number in the chat. How many federal employees do you believe they're on LinkedIn today? Federal employees. Yep. Right. How many? Judy, can we have a hand? How many federal employees are there? I'm not going to tell you that. Ah, come on, Judy. I'm going to Google it the same as somebody else. Somebody else Google that then. If I get distracted and open to me when I get lost. That's okay. Don't get distracted. We don't want Judy to get distracted on the stage. Thank you. I'm infinitely distractible. So someone says a thousand. Someone has says 750,000. Someone says all. Come on, Joshua. Can't say all. You got to give me a number. Someone says 500,000. Okay. Keep guessing. I'm going to close the close the guesses in about another 10 seconds. 30,000. Someone says a million, eight, seven, six. Any more guesses? Five, four. Come on. Three hundred and eighty thousand. Two point one million federal employees are on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is not just a personnel sourcing tool. If you are in the federal arena and you are not tapping LinkedIn to learn about your individual federal humans, you better believe your competitors are. They're on there when you're thinking when you're finding those names in the procurement forecasts. Nearly all federal agencies actively encourage interchange with industry, actively encourage federal employees to have contact with the public, just about all of them. And so they all have policies about how their employees can be on social media. But LinkedIn is a big platform. You can see what your where your federal humans have been working, how long they've been in the job that they're in. Now, Eric, do you think that somebody who's been in a job, if somebody's been in a job, a specific position for six months. Now, they've been in other positions. Let's say they've been in government for maybe eight years and they're six months into a new job. What might that person, what's going to be important for them? Of course, it's in a job six months. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're in a job just six months or just you're still learning, right? What kind of keep your boss happy? You know, what else is happening for you? Well, you're trying to get to know everyone that you're working with, your kind of parts, your co-workers. Yeah. Well, I would think that if I was in a job six months, like most people, they're probably still uncomfortable and they're uneasy about, you know, like stepping out and being too bold. Sure. Everybody put it in the chat. If you've been in a job, think of it. Think of your you've been in a job or put yourself in the shoes of your federal, your federal counterpart. They've been in a job six months. What's happening for that person? Put it in the chat. Eric said, gee, you are still learning, right? You want to make your boss happy. You're getting to know people, right? You're afraid to be bold. You're really risk averse. Right. How how how comfortably you think somebody is six months in a job? How excited are they going to be about trying a brand new supplier that they've never worked with before? Maybe not so much. Now, it doesn't mean that if somebody's been in a job six months, they want to talk to you. Does that mean you want to be gentle yourself? Probably. What else? What else do they want? There's something else that you've been in the job six months. What's coming up in the chat? You've been in a job six months. What's what's important to you? Make a good impression. There you go. Let's go with say more about that. Make a good impression. What else? Prove yourself. Yes. Right. You want to be on track to be successful. You want some early wins. Right. I love the the advice of Canadian astronaut, shuttle astronaut Colonel Chris Hadfield from his book An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. He says, be a zero. Now, that sounds unusual, doesn't it? Don't we all want to be stars? No, you certainly don't want to be dragging down the whole team, but you don't want to be barreling in there, upsetting things because you're trying to be the very, very top of the heap. You want to contribute to the flow. Be a zero. It's really interesting advice. And so when you can take a look and see how long has somebody been in the job, what a valuable piece of information because if you know they're newer in the job thinking about what could make that a winning conversation for them. What might they care about? What could you bring them? Maybe it's a link or an idea or even a really tried and true supplier that might not be your might compliment what you do. But this is somebody that you've done the research so you can tell that somebody who's been in the agency six months might not know that here are the four suppliers that that agency always buys a particular thing from. This person might not know that you say, Hey, did you know I see you're doing business with these four folks? Whatever it is. So think about how you can be genuinely useful to that person based on who they are, how long they've been in the job. Find some things to talk about. So I come back to that. Who are your federal humans? How are they doing? What could be important to these individual people? So those are some new administration things to watch to recap executive orders, appointees, budgets and forecast, spend and trend, rules that affect your business, tools that can help you win. Want some hot topics? Absolutely. OK. Anybody here been just really frustrated by low price, technically acceptable LPTA in decision making? Anybody put me in the chat. If LPTA has been driving you crazy and making you poor. Anybody put me in the chat? The good news is there have been real fence put around where federal agencies can use LPTA. Check out that rule. It's very new. It's come out within the last 10 days. So if LPTA has been hurting you, get to know the new rules. It does not mean you get to print it out, roll it up into a battering ram and smash your way into your contracting your officer's office and say, don't do this to me anymore. What you can say is, hey, I just want to follow proper protocol. What's yours? I see there's new rules. What do you think of those? Is it? What? How's your agency dealing with this? Tell me what's happening. I want to learn. OK, so limitations on LPTA. That's certainly a win for a lot of contractors who have been really suffering on being pushed to the bottom of the barrel on pricing when you have so much more to bring than just a number. Right. Pandemic continues. Pandemic response by lots of federal agencies also continues. Those of you who have your big goal for the year is 250,000, 100,000, 750,000. I want you to remember that if a federal agency has a requirement related to pandemic response, right now a federal agency can purchase up to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of goods or services from your company by doing something as simple as making three phone calls. And taking your quote, did you know that? Crickets do that. Crickets. Yeah. So anybody. So here if you have a product or a service that could help a federal agency respond to pandemic serving citizens, sharing information, putting up temporary office space, health information, tracking, PPE, put COVID in the chat. Let's see how many. Who's on who's on who's on our pandemic response task force right on here on this team? We have some people in here. We have some folks in here. Right. What it is that you can offer to pandemic response. Put the put the word in the chat. What do you do right in the chat, which you can offer to pandemic response. Put that in the chat. Yeah. Put your pandemic strike force offer right in there. What do you do? So those of you who have products and services that can respond. If a federal buyer likes you, this can be a relationship sale. So don't just be waiting to go quote on something you see online. Look at who buys what you do and go make friends, especially in your neighborhood. Tell them, Judy, tell them. Preach. What's the worst thing that can happen if you call them up? What's the worst thing that can happen? They don't answer. Worst case. Worst case when you reach them. Can you expect to reach on the first try? Probably not have at least three great voicemails ready and lead lead. Now I'm going to take a page out of the book of my wonderful friend, former contracting officer and CEO of Think Acquisition Will Randolph. And he said, everything changes by how you use four words. This is what Will shared. I went, yes, I said, Will, can I share this with other people? He said, yes. When you say, how can I help you? You're not solving a problem for someone. You're creating more work for them. Everything changes when you say, how I can help you. So lead with show your let your research show. I see that you need. You've been buying 18000 cartons of PPE. I have I can get this to you faster and less and at a better price or whatever it is. So lead with how your research shows you can help. You already know this that and make your voicemail cheerful. Make your voicemail energetic, short and cheerful and expect to call back again. Try different times of day, but be persistent and cheerful because you know that your research has shown that these are the people you are meant to serve. So dedicate yourself to wooing them. Julie, can we? You know, I'm a slow kid. I want to go back over these things again in case somebody missed it. Tell us about the four words. Sure. Instead of asking, how can I help you? You're asking somebody to do their your work for them. Say, how I can help you. How can I help you? How I can help you. Got it. Got it. Someone said what's the name of the book that you just mentioned? Let's see. The name of the book I just mean I mentioned my friend Will Randolph and his company think acquisition. Right. OK. It's not a book. He is one of my top gun coaches. If you sign up for Julie's free event, the one with the contact and officers will run off of you there. Yeah. And you can also look him up on LinkedIn. Yes, he has something called Williams Whiteboard usually on Wednesdays. And so he's done over 50 of them now. And he is awesome. He's also on what's the name of the clubhouse? He is on Clubhouse. I've seen him on there. So and I think you are too, Eric. Yep. I've seen him on. It's a good place. Hot topics, LPTA that may that may be shrinking in in influence, yay, pandemic response. Next, telework and virtual outreach. We are going to have lots more virtual events and virtual calls. That love is the playing field, especially for people who are outside of what they think of as the Washington, DC catchment area. Federal agencies have had to broaden their outreach. And I think that's going to continue because they've had such great experiences meeting companies they might not all ever have met before. And so I think you're going to continue to see virtual outreach as a continuing part of federal agencies work. If you have not yet participated in federal agencies, virtual outreach, then find out when the next one is contact the small business specialists there about, hey, what have you seen as good advice for participating effectively? Get advice. The small business specialists love to give you advice because 80 percent of the calls they get are, hi, I'm a service disabled veteran on a day women business in a hub zone. What do y'all do? Can you imagine? It's horrible. So when you show up with an actual question about a specific opportunity, when you're asking for advice, say, hey, would you take a look at my capability statement and offer me some advice on how I could make it better? What are they going to do? They're going to read it. OK, so telework is going to continue. But remember that your federal federal employees, I'm getting two kinds of responses from people who talk about the effect of federal employees working remotely. One group of people are saying you can't get a whole of them. It's impossible. You can't get through it all. The other group of people are going, I can't believe it. I've never found it so easy. It's like I'm the only human being they've talked to who isn't three years old and looking for Cheerios for the last 10 days. So we have someone I heard that said they set up meetings for the last three weeks of LinkedIn based off LinkedIn contacts. Bravo. See, we're not just making it up. MTP. Yeah, excellent. So eight A two things to watch the those of you who are in the eight A program informed about the procedures for accessing and knowing whether or not you are eligible for a one year extension that nine year for some of you has become 10 years of program eligibility. And as well, watch what happens in the new administration's declared intention to shift the proposed goal for eight A companies from five percent to 15 percent by 2025. Bold goal. It's not going to it's not a law. It's not regulation, but this is a declared intention of the incoming administration to improve opportunities for minority owned companies. So watch for that. See what happens. Those of you who are in I.T. and doing business with DoD, you should already be tracking cyber maturity maturation certification. C.M.M.C. If you are thinking about doing business with DoD, if you're in I.T. Become informed about that. Armed Forces Communication Armed Forces Communications Electronics Association, A.F.C.E.A. AFSIA, if you're not an AFSIA member, become one. It's one of the many sources of great education on C.M.M.C. You can Google C.M.M.C. and find two dozen webinars about it. Some have been recorded, some are coming up. Get smart if you haven't. And if you haven't got a plan to become compliant, pay attention. We've had some people on the show that talked about C.M.M.C. And so that was probably about a year ago, so we'll bring them back on and we'll have some more conversations about C.M.M.C. A year ago, they were just kind of figuring out it was... Yeah, they were still like... They're still trying to figure out who's got the power to certify and blah, blah, blah. But I had a conversation with the business owner last week and oh, she was on it. She was saying all the right things, oh, you've so got this. Great. I don't have to worry about you. You've got it. We also have... We have someone that's in our group that actually does C.M.M.C. as well. So... Super. Who's that? Let everybody know. I can't think of the name right now. Okay. It's just me. But I'll figure it out. You've got resources. I was thinking about the person that... Yeah, we have a resource that we could turn to. Great. Great, great, great. Okay. Something else. The... Jason Solutions. It's the name of the company. Jason Solutions. Sorry. Great. Sorry. I'll put it in there. As well, there's a new... It's speaking of executive orders. There's been a... The prohibition on diversity and inclusion and training has been rescinded. So those of you who are in the training and development, management training, and organizational development field and it had to put your good work on ice, come in from the cold. Your training is once again welcome and encouraged in federal agencies. So if I can't believe that anybody might have missed that. But if part of your work had been frozen out by the previous administration in topics and training related to diversity and inclusion, come on back. Call your people again. Get reacquainted. Say, tell me what's happening in your agency. Hi, was your term I contract back on? Be gentle. Be gentle. How are you doing? What's happening with you? How can we support you? Okay. We're having too much fun talking about federal contracting. That's no such thing. There we go. And new contract vehicles, Polaris, Cport, NXG, CIOS P4. Think of these contract vehicles. Think of them as bridges between buyers and sellers or think about it as the easy button. It's up to you to figure out how does your buyer like to do business? Not, oh, they can use a GSA schedule. Yeah, so what? If your buyer doesn't like to use a GSA schedule, then the fact that you've got one doesn't matter. Other things that it is your responsibility to research and come to the party knowing is looking at past federal contract data awards to see how does your buyer actually purchase services and products like yours? If you have not committed to mastering federal past contract data, stuff that comes out of the backside of beta.sam.gov in the contract data section, commit to learning how to do that. I'm not going to teach it to you. And in fact, every time I learn just enough about it to be dangerous, I go back to my teacher, Eileen Kent, who's also my business partner and service delivery partner, but go to at a minimum. If you're going contract award data, how do we run, do not walk to the educational video section in the library section of beta.sam.gov. There's about a 20 minute video. It'll show you how to extract your contract data. And there's other resources that can teach you how to do it, all right? And so learn how to do that. Commit to mastering that. All right, so new administration do's and don'ts conversations, all right? If you're thinking about having conversations with your federal buyers, people you already know. Julie, can we do a reset real quick? Yeah. There's now 130 people in the room. Hi. Yeah. All right, we are here having a conversation with the infamous Julie Bratt. By the way, I'm going to do an infomercial because Julie's one of my favorite people out here in the GovCon space. And so this is her book, Government Contracts Made Easier. This is actually the second edition of the book. So I have not had a chance to read this one. The first one I have all tabbed up like to death. That's the first one which I'm packing. Mine has tabs. You know what the best, the second best thing about writing a book is signing them for people. Best thing about writing a book is when somebody comes back to you just like you just said you did it's tabbed and it's highlighted and it's doggiered and someone says this made a difference for me. That is the best thing. There you go. You signed mine. Yeah, I did. So I have my signed copy. That's the best thing. So definitely. And there's a workbook as well. That book is an Amazon number one bestseller. But I just published the workbook Companions. You can get both of those on Amazon right now. And when you actually go on and you look at my books, actually you know what happened, Julie? I learned the other day. Yours is recommended with mine. Yay! Somebody knows for friends. When everyone's looking at the GovCon launch book and you look at the recommended books below, your book pops up next to my name. I guess, again, they hear us talking. They know what's going on in the world. Awesome stuff. So they see us in space. So a couple of people said, hey, got it, bought the book. They already owned your book. Christine, yep, got it, bought it. So thanks, Eric. Thanks, Julie. Good stuff. Sure. By the way, for those new people that just came in as well, if you have not had a chance, put in here the city that you're from and the industry that you're in. And then the third thing we want to put in here is your revenue goals for 2021. So your industry, your city, and your revenue goal for 2021 for all the new people that just joined in on the chat that haven't yet shared that information with us. Remember, Julie, tell them about the goals and why they want to put that out there publicly. I will, hang on a sec. I'm gonna find the numbers because it's such a... Staggering. It is. There it is, a Harvard Business Goal Setting Study. Here it is. There we are. So where did it go? And if you like the chat, make sure you give us a thumbs up. Yeah. There we go, here it is. All right. So a Harvard Business Study found that only 3% of graduates from those who had their goals written down, 3% of those who had their goals written down ended up earning 10 times as much as the other 97% put together. So just by only 3% of people write down their goals. But if you write down your goals, research shows you're 10 times more likely to achieve them than if you don't write them down. Would you like to be 10 times more likely to achieve your goal? I would. If you are, then write it down. Put it in the chat now. What's your goal, your revenue goal for 2021? Let me tell you, and I have a testimony for that. Everything that I've done on YouTube, I wrote it down. All of my goals for YouTube, subscribers, viewers, I mean, I wrote these things down. And you know what? When I want to hit 1,000, I wrote it down. When I want to hit 5,000, and when I want to hit 10,000, I wrote down those numbers. So again, there's a lot to be said about that. And the same thing, again, I shared the story earlier on in my business when I was writing down those goals. And even when I got in trouble, and even when I was taken advantage of in the commercial sector by some bad actors and players, someone reminded me to come back to the federal arena, set my goals, and I did a reset, came back, and two contracts later, it pulled me out of the hole. So, you know, I'm a testimony to that in multiple ways across the board. So definitely write it down, put it out there to the world, because again, like she said, you're 10 times more likely to hit it. And how many people, 3%, only 3% of people write down their goals? Only 3% of people write down their goals, but those 3% who do are 10 times more successful or 10 times more than those who don't. All right, write it down. And again, don't just write it down publicly here, put it here. I mean, I have in my phone on Evernote, I have all of my things listed personally, professionally, health goals, wealth goals, everything. I remember writing down how many apartments I want to buy, how many units, all these things. So again, you have how many streams of income I wanted and various things. So everyone put it down. Brandon, I want to see your goals. Demetrius Walker, I want to see your goals. Ronnie, I want to see your goals. Hey, Lelani, I want to see your goals. MTP, I want to see you. Maria Martinez, where are you at? Let me see. Nikki, I'm going to hold your accountable. YC Lawson, I'm holding accountable. Mr. Chill, I see you. Who else out there? Let me call up my people, Julie. Make sure. John O'Hara, all right? I'm watching, eyes on you. Joshua Pollard, still waiting for you to come on board. John James, I see you. Quentin Swift, I'm watching. I love accountability. This is so exciting. Paul Perez, all right? Who else out here? Tammy, Marty Blackshire, Karen, I already know you on board. Victoria Singleton, let's see. Who else out there? Who else out there? All right. OK, Julie, keep dropping value bombs. They're loving it. All good. Value bombs, you got it. We're all about that. So do we have questions? Because I can certainly go talk a little bit about how to win your meeting with your buyer and the two kinds of wins you need to succeed. Any questions before you continue? I want to ask your questions. Drop some questions. We've been talking now 54 minutes. And again, I don't see any questions in here. This is two ways, not one way conversation. Definitely ask your questions. Again, if you're playing on hitting $750,000, OK? Now that you've written it down, I'm sure you've got to figure out what are the steps and what are the activities that you to do to get there. Because it's not just going to be $1,750,000 contract. If it has that breakout, those of you who declared a goal, then where's that come from? Because remember, I want everybody to realize that your federal buyer can award a contract worth up to, if it's pandemic response, up to $20,000. If it's not pandemic response, up to $10,000. Anybody here not want a contract worth $10,000? Anybody go, eh, nah, I don't want that. It's not worth, or it's not. So that stuff comes from relationships. We'll take it. We'll take it. Lelani, won't we take a $10,000 contract? Randy Ward, will we not take a $10,000 contract? Maria Martinez, will we not take a $10,000 contract? OK, so we'll take it. We'll take 10. We'll take 20. However, the government wants to slice it up. In fact, we've got people right now that are recently. I think Maria wasn't your first contract. No, Maria, I think her first contract was about $30,000. But that's OK. She did some 10s and 12s in there that the Coast Guard said they couldn't find anyone that was interested because they were too small. Isn't that sad? Yeah, yes, it is. Yes, it is. All right, questions, questions, questions. Well, let's ask some questions. Come on, engage 131 people out there. No one engage, engage, ask the questions. Don't be shy. You've got questions about what's coming up for the year. And so I can talk a little bit about how to get in front of your federal buyer, what it takes. Because I've done research and of all the things that people say and all those goals that you get, what's the number one thing? All right, I'll put this out there. So get your keyboards ready, folks. This goal that you declared, what's the number one obstacle that stands between you and that goal? Write it down. What's the number one goal? Eric, lean on your peeps. Hold on. Number one. Yep. Someone had a question for you. They said, when you spoke earlier about online meetings, we're referring to industry days or a combination of various online meetings. All of the above, particularly industry days. But there's going to be, if you want to develop relationships with your federal humans, a video called one on one is gold. And your next win is if they want to have another one and invite a friend. That's your next win. Because those meetings are not going to take place in person for a while yet. So and your small business specialist can be helpful to you by helping you understand what's the online platform that this agency uses most. What are the big mistakes people make? How can I avoid those? Your small business specialist has a lot they can offer you. If you come asking something besides, hi, why wasn't stuff set aside for me? Or, hi, got any business for me? These are not useful questions. Brandon, listen to Judy. Listen to Judy Brandon. Hey, we have a question here from Paul. He says, I'm working on my capability statement now. Do I begin contacting the agencies that have posted previous contracts two years old to current, engaged, or interest, or is that a waste of time? Ask the question again really slowly. It says, do I begin contacting the agencies that have posted previous contracts from two years ago, to the current time now? So from 2018, I'd say 2020, to gaze or interest, or is that a waste of time? Is Brandon who's asking? Paul. Paul. So Paul, I'm going to come back to where we began. There's no such thing as selling to the government. So an agency doesn't buy things. A human being buys things. But I like your thinking. Your thinking is right. Absolutely. Go back to the last time, last couple of years. Look at the purchases over the last 24 months that someone, some federal human, some federal humans, made, find out who's that person. Maybe one of the big complaints I get from people is, oh, they're not there anymore. Oh, those contracting officers, they move around. Hey, this is good. They went somewhere else. Not only can they tell you about where they are, they can tell you about where they were. And maybe they'll really even dish about where they were. And they might be able to introduce you to the person who's in the chair now. So two for one. This is a good thing. Real quick story on that. That was so spot on. I was chasing the Navy. I was chasing the Navy. You were chasing someone in the Navy. I was chasing the Navy. That's a big ship to swim after. It's a big ship to swim. Exactly. So actually, I was chasing NAVFAC, Mid-Atlant, the contract. And so the person who was the ostaboo for them, they're a person that was below the ostaboo, right? She moved. I had made contact with her. She agreed to set up a meeting with the actual person in charge. And so during that time, she moved, like they said, contact officers move around, she moved and she went to another facility, which was in the same area. So one was a submarine base. The other was a naval base. Well, guess who became in charge of that facility? She did. So when I realized that, and again, she was new to position. She didn't take my calls. And then six months later, after she got into position, we set up a meeting and she says, Eric, I remember you. She says, did you ever get a meeting with the submarine base? Mike Daniel Garry was this guy's name. And I said, no, I never had, let me call him and tell him he needs to meet with you. So I got two for one, just like Julie just said, two for one, I got the naval base and the submarine base, met with both of the heads of the contract dig. And guess what? Picked up an IDIQ over here and picked up $6 million in contracts over there. And that was last year, no, the year before last, in 2019. Fantastic. So she's correct. And exactly what she said, that yes, the people move around, but they could give you the information of the previous person and where they're at. So you get two for one. I love it, Julie. You be personal. Keep preaching. Keep preaching. Be a detective. Be a detective. You see people on your favorite detective show and they're sitting around in the bar room or the squad room or the bedroom and they're trading intelligence. Be as relentless as your favorite detective and tracking down. What are detectives tracking down? Leads, leads. That's what you're doing as a business owner. You're tracking down leads. You're trying to say, what's the story here? Past federal contract data, Paul is one of those clues, one of those leads that can open the door to understanding what happened, who's the players and lets you help to shape the future. So yes, absolutely. And especially because the really hard time to have a conversation is, oh, I just saw solicitation for this thing and it's perfect for my company. It's set aside for just the kind of business we are and there's 30 days to go. How do I, who do I talk to? That ship has sailed, boys and girls. If they've set that aside for a company like yours and you didn't know about it, they have to, the rules say they have to know at least two companies who are capable of doing the work at a fair and reasonable price. How, now you're talking about one of the most risk averse humans on the planet. How many contractors do you think they know? More than two and one of them isn't you. This is bad news. Back out say, oh wow, it's very unlikely that this particular federal human is never gonna buy this thing again. Odds are pretty good that they're gonna buy more of that some other day or they know other friends who do buy more of that. So it's a lead, back out, say, hey, I noticed that you're about, look and see what else they buy. I noticed that you bought empty-skilling dollars worth of exactly what I do over the last 10 years. Wow, you must know a whole lot about what your agency likes and doesn't like. I'd love to get to know you. I'm not beating down your door about this thing. Gonna stay out of your way. Just wanna follow proper protocol. What's yours? What's a good way for us to get to know each other? By the way, I've done that as well. I may tell you guys, Julie is telling you some real stuff here. I feel like I've done everything as she says and it worked like a charm. I did that. I saw this agency, it was prison, oh, Federal Prison's Bureau couldn't reach to us to be called the contracting officer. They said, everything that we were talking about is in the project. I said, I'm not interested in talking about that project. I wanna talk to them about who I am and what I am. Okay, this is the person's name, I'm afraid she gave it to me. Talk to the small business specialist. Like all across the country. And then she says, hey, we love A&A companies, we love small businesses, but I wanna see how you bid projects. I wanna know that you're competent, that you could bid open market stuff. So if you respond to one of our upcoming projects, let me know and I will be on the lookout for your proposal to your goal. Jordan says, how are the new Buy American requirements changing? I haven't heard anything about that. I just heard about it when I was barely conscious at six o'clock this morning. I do not know. And so let's all read it and be informed. I'll make a note of that one, Jordan. Okay, it could go anyway, so I'm not even gonna try to guess. I remember having to get very involved in helping folks understand that and deal with it last time. And so remember that Buy American in meeting something different depending on how it's applied. So read the rules and you're gonna probably see a whole lot in various industry associations and the law firms for sure. So if you've got an association that you're a member of, check that out and see what they can tell you. If you have one or more pet law firms whose circulars you read, go there, they love to share what they're learning and I'll need to pay attention myself. Same here, I agree. I'm actually working separate right now on a project for the Navy that Buy American, but again, it's like five ways in which you can accomplish that Buy American Act. So it's not for all of those people who are just listening and thinking, it means Buy American, no. Mine says it's considered Buy American if the price is triple the price of a foreign product's price, it's less than, you know, there's all these clauses in hoop law. So it's not just a straight, there's no black and white answer to that question. So we're past the top there, Eric. Isn't this where we generally open up for more Q and A? We are, I'm taking the questions. Okay, good. They're putting them in, I'm reading them off to you as we go. What else we got? Hit me. Inside the DMA, how are they purchasing professional services? I don't know who DMA is. Do you know DMA? I'm not gonna try and guess. Defense Management Agency, what's a DMA? I don't know, dudes, you gotta type who DMA is. You can't expect us to know the accurate now. Who else has got a question? All right, Ray says, is there something similar or better than S-based subnet for subs looking for primes? Yes. Don't expect to find a prime contractor by looking at a list on a database, all right? Those of you who have filled out profile after profile after profile and gone to matchmaking and met with the big primes and you're frustrated and you're really torqued off because nothing happens. If you keep doing what you've always done, you're gonna get what you always did. Here's the difference, okay? Here's the typical exchange. Hi, I'm an avian service disabled woman owned veteran owned business in a Hobson. Here's my capability statement. Oh, good. Have you registered on our part of? No, how do I do that? Oh, it's over here. Oh, good. I registered on your part of. Thank you very much. We'll be in touch. All right, let's try again. I've just been over to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia and they say they're gonna die if they don't have our stuff. Want to talk? That's seductive. Come bringing business. Come bringing, not sorry. Hey, I saw the solicitation on Sam.gov going, really? How long do you think that prime has already been tracking that thing? Julie, no one in this group says that. Good. No one listened to this says through those things that you mentioned. Oh, good. Oh, good. They don't talk like that. Oh, well, they're your peeps. They would never. Yeah, they don't talk like that. They don't lead with their certifications. No, no, no, no. Of course not. They don't lead that. They don't say, hey, I'm a woman-owned business. How can you help me? No, no. And so what you do need to, if you bring a specific opportunity and say how it is that you can help the prime because you've been in to their target agency where you know they hold a contract or want to hold a contract and want to do business and you talk about your customer intimacy you talk about you don't have to unfold your whole database but you can say, I've spoken to the program manager and three course and five end users here. We've had four or five meetings and we've been involved in shaping the specification for this thing that's coming out in two years. We think we have something that can give you a competitive edge to winning this bigger thing. We'd love to talk to you if you're interested. And by the way, we're a service disabled, I wouldn't want to know if that's for an owned business and I hope so. I can tell you that when I was working on base and new big companies would come on base, they were always looking for subs that had familiarity with working inside the facilities that knew the people in the facilities that had, they were always, if you were already on base working and active, they want to talk to you. They would come to, and again, the Corps of Engineers and they say, who's already the electrical guys, the fencing guys, the floor guys, because they already knew that you were comfortable being inside the offices and the spaces with the commanders and the people, and they trusted you already. So there was, they knew that by hiring you, there was no risk or very little risk, minimal risk at all. And so again, that's one way that my podcast guest shared today, how he let in, right? It's his value proposition as a sub. Hey, I've worked in this facility 20 years. I know the people in the offices, they know me, okay? When you go inside these offices, there are things in there that, again, this guy's gonna complain about the smoke, this guy's gonna complain about the dust, this person, right? It shows your intelligence, it shows that you know, okay, you have more intelligence or more of the surrounding areas and environment that they're gonna deal with than they have. And so they want that. Julie, I love it. It says, saw a subcontractor conference last week with a bunch of questions concerning GSA forcing lower prices after validation of a contract. Have you seen that? No, I have not. GSA forcing lower prices after the validation of a contract. After the validation of a contract? That's an interesting term. So I am not an expert on how GSA contracts are negotiated and managed. I would say that one of your other experts in your ecosystem would be a great person. Fair enough. I'm sorry, I can't help you with that one. Okay. Other questions? I'm looking. I'm curious if you're here and you put in a number, what's the big obstacle that stands between you and achieving your number? I'd like to know because I'd love to give you, push that rock out of your road a little bit. So what's your number one obstacle? So it's interesting, this person that just came on Labor and D-Club says someone told me that the CEOs aren't really interested in talking to us. Oh, I love that. Are you looking for a comment on that? I'm just reading you, since you can't read, I'm reading out to you in case you wanna offer up your, and I know you said something earlier, but maybe they just came on board so people are coming and going. Well, I wanna give everybody, write this down. I'm gonna give you a, what you call it, a value bomb. All right, write it down. Federal Acquisition Regulation, 15, that's 15.201. FAR 15.201. FAR 15.201, I'm gonna go and get it, I'm gonna read it to you. So important, here we go. So FAR 15.201 is called Exchanges with Industry Before Receipt of Proposals. Exchanges of Information Among All Interested Parties from the earliest identification of a requirement through receipt of proposals are encouraged. 15.201. 15.201, FAR 15.201. You are not allowed to print out FAR 15.201, roll it into a stick and whack your way into the contracting officer's office. This would be manifestly unhelpful. You will just scare the pants off them. This is not a good thing. It is designed to give you courage, realize that if somebody doesn't wanna talk to you, they might be having a bad day. They might have a solicitation on the street and they do not want to screw up, not even a tiny little bit because they don't want anything to be protested. So you gotta know what else is going on for that federal human right now. You wanna talk to them if they're all kind of, that may be because they really wanna keep you safe and they wanna keep everybody else safe. So you gotta know what's going on with your federal human, okay? And remember, there's lots of people to talk to. It's very rare. There's only one person in the whole federal government who you could possibly talk to. No, there's more people to go call some other people. Sometimes that person will come around, right? But they are encouraged to talk to you. Now, they wanna talk to you, but not always when you wanna talk to them. So you've just gotta understand a little bit about what's going on in their world. Be polite, be persistent. Be absolutely determined to get through to them. Show because you know how you can help them because you've done the research. You know that other, oh, you know all the other five awful companies are doing business with right now who you know are doing a terrible job because they're not you. So you know how you're different. You know how you're better. If somebody's doing business with your competitor, you probably have a good idea of at least three things that aren't so good about the level of service or value that a federal buyer is getting from somebody who's not you. That leaves you some opening for conversation. Good stuff. They need you. Federal agencies and federal buyer and federal contractors need each other. You need each other for innovation. You need each other for ideas. They need you to show that they shopped. They need your products and services to serve citizens and deliver their missions and do their jobs. They need you. So they need to talk to you. They need to have products and services that meet their requirements. So they need to talk to you but you need to figure out when. One of the things I wanna say this and my experience on Clubhouse, two appearances that I made taught me something that some folks said to me, which was they're getting a lot of mixed information. One thing that folks, if you listen to me and everything that Judy is saying, I mean, she's essentially echoing a lot of stuff that I've said over the last three years in her own manner, which is great, but there's no mixed messaging here because ultimately, like she said, you're dealing with humans, you're dealing with people. And so if anyone's telling you anything different, it seems to be- They're not your friends. There you go. That's right. There's no, there's really, there's, you know, you can't buy your way into this. There's no- Federal contracting is a relationship game. It's hard to find really a way of winning business that truly, truly isn't at the end of the game. You think about all of the business you have ever won. The vast majority of it happens because somebody ultimately trusts you. And so every other place you've won business, that's where it comes from. That's where your next Federal contract is going to come from even faster when you dedicate yourself this year, 2021, to getting to know your Federal humans, make it happen, engage. Engagement is what come together. Our conversations with contracting officers on first Wednesdays is all about. We've got, one of the things I do with my program, Eric, can I talk about that? Sure, no, actually, I was going to close up in about three minutes anyway, so- No worries. We'll talk about it another time. And so- Yeah. I'd love to know folks have got, folks have got some other questions, things that if there's one thing that you could, yeah, help us promise for a next time, I would say, if there's one topic or issue that would make all the difference if we could cover when we get together, is it next week? No, we're two weeks. Week after next. Yep, week after next. We'll be back in two weeks, everyone. All right, great. We'll be back in two weeks. What's the number one thing that we can, we should cover for you, if we could solve it, it would make a difference for you, other than dump a pot of money over your head. That one I can't do. I can, but you can't pick it up. I'm going to take it back when it's over. You're not allowed to touch it, okay? So the person said, DMA was Defense Media Activity. Oh, yes, okay. But dude, you got to say that. Yes. I don't remember his question anymore, but it's Defense Media Activity. Something I, how do they buy it? How do you get in there? Something like that. Let me just scroll back and find out. What other questions should we put on our list that will make a difference for you if we can answer them? My biggest obstacle, Stephanie, solo engineering consulting firm. Okay. Have not had much like marketing the primes. Biggest challenge, not having enough time. Daily routine. Okay. Obstacle number one, being able to fund the contract before invoicing the government. There are tons of places to get, we'll talk about, you can talk about tons of places. Systematic process for every day. Oh yeah. Big obstacle. Good. Finding products in Arizona that fit my profile. Products, you're finding products or finding people who buy products like what you do. You hear that, Brian? Finding people who buy products. Why would you do that? Okay. Not finding products in Arizona. I don't know why you changed your name to Free Bernie, Amster. And I know him very well. There you go. All right. He had to put his name afterwards so I could read it because I didn't know who it was. Right. Right. You had these crazy names on YouTube. So as we get ready for signing off, we still got a bunch of people. I would like to know just yes or no, did you learn at least one thing that can help your business this year? So as we sign off, just did we deliver? Give us a thumbs up and a yes. And a thumbs up and a yes if we gave you at least one thing that was valuable. I want to see at least 50 thumbs up and yeses, folks. You hear that? Julie wants a thumbs up and a yes if we gave you something today that was valuable. If you believe in us, clap your hands. Or clap or you know, whatever you can do. Click your ruby numbers, whatever it takes. But give us the, if we, if we provided at least one useful idea, inspiration, piece of information. B. Jackson, I don't know who Canetra is. I don't see a Canetra and I don't know who questions are. B. Jackson, I'm sorry. I don't know who Canetra is. There is no Canetra on my list. Okay. And I don't see any questions asked by anyone by that name. Why don't you just reprint the questions? So. What are we getting for thumbs up or yeses? We got thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up. Yes, yes. Do we do the job? I took notes. Yes, thumbs up, bunch of thumbs up. I'm going to share this with you. And B. Jackson, if you want to put her question, copy and paste it, I don't know who Canetra because again, I'm only reading the names from what I see of the actual names. And connect with me on LinkedIn. You see that? Yeah. So look at that. I'm just looking here. Jisak. Share it again. Uh-oh. So we have 139 people on still. 105 likes so far. Bunch of thumbs up diamonds. They're loving it. Okay. That is awesome. Hey, Queen Chaka, sorry you missed it. This is great. Yeah, far point two, 15.201. Awesome sauce folks. You know, connect with me on LinkedIn. If it turns out that I'm a good fit for you. Great. Please drop the, if you are new to this, please, please, please. Would you drop the link to the procurement technical assistant centers in the chat area? Absolutely. Yeah, we always, I mean, that goes, every email that we send out at the bottom, our email at the very bottom, if you have not already reached out to PTAC, reach out to your local PTAC, please. Your procurement technical assistant center has courses, content, counseling. I'm dropping it right now. I'm dropping it now. And services and they are free or very low cost. There are a hundred of them across the country. One is in a city near you run, do not walk. If you have not tapped their resources, a number of the questions you're asking about, like how do I organize my time? How do I set priorities? How do I find who buys what I do in my neighborhood? The PTAC that is in your state exists to serve you, your tax dollars and mine have paid for those services. So tap those services. Julie, we're going to, someone just mentioned for all the new people we're going to drop in, the links of the two events. Can you talk about them really quickly before we sign off for two events, the links? Two different things. First one. This coming Thursday on 128, that's Thursday the 28th of January between two and three PM Eastern. The ultimate federal 2021 forecast event, Amber Hart and Lisa Shea-Munt, the co-founders of the Pulse of Government Contracting will be presenting a forecast of opportunities, rules, regulations. Is that, yeah, I'm looking to put the red, can you put the registration link? The link is, oh, okay, I got you. Let me do that. Could you put that in so people can see the screen so they'll know where to register? Because that's going to help the information. I dropped the link in the chat, but let me. The link that I gave you. Yeah, I dropped it in the chat so they have it. Okay. So they already have that link, but I'll share the screen. Yeah, that'd be great. All right, here is the actual registration link. All right. If you have it in the chat, this is what the page looks like. So this is a complimentary webinar, two to three PM. You'll have two of the smartest people in government contracting telling you what's coming and offering you tools and ideas for how to keep up. Okay, please come with seating is limited. We'd love to have you. And the other thing to keep in mind is if you need to have conversations with contracting officers, then come together, join us. Come together as conversations with contracting officers. It's the first Wednesday of the month and then that is going to be Wednesday, February 10th. And so join my guests, former contracting officers, Will Randolph, who is a former senior Navy contracting officer and also ran billions of dollars in acquisition for Department of Homeland Security. He is now CEO of Think Acquisition and you can find him on LinkedIn on Williams Whiteboard. Watch some of his episodes. Imagine how great it would be to be able to talk with him live. That will happen on Wednesday, February 10th. And he'll also be joined by my other guests, my other top gun coach. And that is Kevin Hoey, former Marine Corps Colonel who then went on to another 15 years as business development director for a large prime contractor. That all happens at two PM on Wednesday, February 10th. Sign up and get notified of the February, March and April. These are all conversations with contracting officers about how to get through, how to get them to return your calls, what to say, how to build relationships. That's all free and that's all coming up. Julie, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Back after this, see you in two weeks. See you in two weeks. Thank you guys. Thanks everyone for being on here. Thank you. Thank you so.