 Hey, YC, thank you for so much for submitting your question today. YC says I have an opportunity to work with a company that wants to get into government contracts. They qualify for a few set-asides, but I qualify for more, including services-able advantage business, women-owned small business, economically disadvantaged women-owned small business. Since I have my company set up and we'll be working as an independent contractor with them, it'll be a better idea to work with them as a GovCon consultant and use my set-asides to help open more doors. All right. Well, you know, what I always tell people is this. And I'm going to say I love you before I make this statement. Set-asides do not get you contracts. And I know we want to believe that set-asides get us contracts. I know we want to believe it. Set-asides do not get you contracts. Being a good company, being a reputable company, having relationships, having past performance, having manpower, having team members, having meeting the qualifications, being able to demonstrate that you have the ability to do the activities, being able to demonstrate that you have the financial capacity to be able to take on a project of that magnitude. Those are the things that get you contracts. Now, if this partner of yours has all of those things and the only thing that you have is set-aside, then I think that they should take the lead. Now, you may run into an opportunity or situation where your set-aside does help give you an advantage over someone else who does not have a set-aside. And in that case, if that's the situation and the government allows you to be the prime, or the government allows you to take the lead and use your partner as a team member, as a prime subcontract relationship, then yeah, I think then I would do it. However, what I find is that I like to lead the strongest company, not with a set-aside, not with a certification, sorry. I like to lead with my strengths. I want to lead with all of the things that we mentioned before, right? And then let the government know that, hey, I happen to be service-assabled, woman-owned, small business, whatever the case may say. And when you lead with your strengths and you lead with your capacity, your capabilities, the government tends to be more favorable towards you. They tend to treat you with respect and dignity that you deserve. Because as a successful business owner who's spent years laboring, struggling, to build their businesses, who've invested resources, maybe even risk family, risk relationships, to build up an organization to the size that it is, doing the things that they've done over all of these years, they deserve respect. And rightfully so, the government on top of all of this is risk averse, meaning they don't like risk. And when I say risk averse, and I say they don't like risk, I don't mean like, oh, we'll take a little bit of risk. I mean like, we don't want any risk. And so what's going to happen is like so many people out here who lead with their certifications, we find that people don't care. And then we get offended. And there's no reason to get offended if the people don't care. Because it doesn't mean anything. Your certification doesn't mean anything. I know. You hate to hear it. Let's take a moment of silence and let you think about it. Your certification, I'm sorry to tell you. And I know there's people out here that push certifications. I know, I know. And don't get me wrong. I use them all the time. I use A&As. I use Veteran Own. I use HubZone. I use GSA. I use all certifications. But I don't lead with them. I lead with my experience. I lead with the talent of our team. I lead with all of our history. I lead with our bonding capacity. I lead with our project manager's resumes. I lead with my superintendent's resumes. I lead with my quality control plan. I lead with my accident prevention plan. I lead with my health and safety plan. I tell the government how I'm going to protect them in the case of a situation that happens of any type of occurrence that may happen. I let the government know and I rest assured that I know the protocol. And if a fire were to happen, I know who to call. I know where to go. And not just me. My team members will know that as well because I train them because we have training protocol, right? And because we have active policy and procedures towards safety, something that when we show up to job site, we have a daily site meeting, right? Some of our guys stretch in preparation so they're not hurt on the job. We are going to protect you, Mr. and Mrs. Government, and make sure that we don't endanger the lives of any of the individuals at this facility. We're going to ensure that we're responsible for this contract from end to end and that any of our workers or any of the staff members or any of the people that we hire subcontracts that come onto this facility and they bring a hazardous substance. We're going to make sure that the hazardous substance that you've made aware of it, we're going to go through and make sure that you have its documented. We know this type of hazardous substance that's being brought in here because in the event or in the case that something were to spill and there was a fire that broke out, you would know how to properly treat that fire because that hazardous substance that created that fire, you are aware of it. And the person that has the certifications that has no safety plan, no environmental protection plan, no health plan, no COVID-19 screening protocol, that person, well, they're just going to leave you the chance. They're going to bring on the guy in the pickup truck. He's going to put the gas in a plastic container because he doesn't know that fuel does not go in plastic containers when it comes on military bases. It has to go in a metal container. But that guy or the girl, they don't know that because they're a certification and they're not trying to learn that because they're a certification. But don't worry, they're women on small business. They're service disabled small business. But when that fire breaks out and that gas that plastic gas can't explode and it's next to a 30 million dollar jet, you're going to think to yourself, did I really just save $10,000 in this contract? Did I really just save 20,000 going to the small guy? Because now you've got a 50 million dollar jet on fire mistake because this little contract, right, to strike the plane, the parking lot next to the plane. Yeah, it's not a lot of money, but it's extremely important. And I know that Mr. and Mrs. Contractor. I know that because I've been out here hundreds of times. In fact, you keep your planes right over here by the West Hangar, Hangar Sea. Do you know what Hangar Sea I did? I was the guy who put all the signs of Hangar Sea. In fact, let me give you a scenario. I remember being at Hangar Sea. Do you know that the red stripes that they have on the ground in Hangar Sea that says do not pass can shoot? Yeah, I painted those stripes. You paint them? I sure did. So guess what? I know what it takes to get out here on the base. I know what it takes to have my man. I've had, you know what, another thing. I've had men that were arrested before. Yeah. And you know what? I was truly embarrassed for them. I was embarrassed because I was given information by a contracting officer and actually a user of the facility that the doors that we were working on, the alarm was turned off. And when I came to find out that that alarm was not turned off. And so when we were doing our job and replacing the doors as per our contract, and we gave the proper notice to the facility in the building, and we asked the building manager and its host alarms were turned off. And of course, believing that everyone had done their property diligence and had done all the work, I get a phone call that my guys were being arrested. So I had to turn back around. By the way, did you happen to notice our facility is only a mile off base? So if there's any problems, I'm only one mile away from this location. Not. And so we were able to turn around, come back and resolve the situation immediately. You know those security forces guys on basis, you know how trigger a finger, they're happy. They're so happy because they have nothing to do. They're so happy to lay people down. But we were able to get out there. I showed them a copy of the contract. We were able to reach the building manager because I had my protocol sheet that I carry around with me. Yeah, the one that I turned on my proposal that I carry my daily log. So I had my protocol sheet. So I knew exactly the three guys that were working. I know what time they got there. I know where they were at. And I know the job that they're doing on my daily reports. Yeah, the same ones that I will send you each and every week as I work on this project. So if you're thinking about making a decision between someone who's done this dozens of times, hundreds of times and someone who has a certification, I don't want to tell you how to make up your mind with the thing, but just want to give you some things to think about and let you make the best decision for the government. Thank you so much for taking this time to spend with me. I hope I was able to shed some light on the difference between my company and the company next door. Good luck.