 We are live Hey, Julie, how are you today? I am awesome. I am so excited the days are getting longer Spring is getting closer and life just keeps getting better. How about you? Can I tell you a secret? Of course, okay? I know that everyone else is listening to us talk, but that's okay Just a thousand of our closest friends, right? Those are the only ones you invited and me too. That's right. Exactly. So When is spring? When is spring? You see when we live in Florida, we don't have seasons Yeah, it's you leave you have climate. I get that right. We know we northern hemispherians Get very excited about things Coming up and blooming and all of that so that would be March 21st approximately. Okay. There you go March 21st No, actually the only way that I think about fall and spring is I associated with college Okay But not actual experiences from the weather and changing of the trees and the leaves and I don't get to see that stuff So I just also when I start college and it's a fall semester spring semester summer semester. That's associated with right, I'm from Canada, so You can't wait you can't really cannot wait till spring, but people talk about the weather much more frequently That's funny. You want to introduce our guest today? Yes, absolutely. I am delighted that my my marketing part of my marketing team and My regular webinar moderator Heather Herbein from transcendent marketing is here and hey Heather supports me in part of our broadcasts at Summit Insight And I also want to mention transcendent marketing because they do my marketing operations team they're based in Arizona but they support clients all across the country and if our guests are if our visitors on YouTube are involved in especially the federal market and one of the challenges you have is to try to Identify and get calls set up with people who are qualified to have that conversation That's part of what I engage transcendent to do Heather is a pro And so in fact you might actually sometime get a call from Heather who might be following up on a question You asked or we notice when people visit our website And so we want to know whether the state the time is right then Heather helps us connect So Heather, thank you for being an awesome part of my team and for supporting us here tonight She's got some goodies for you. So she'll be dropping some links in the YouTube live chat So watch for the goodies. Heather's got the goodies Heather bring on the goodies Okay, let's go So tonight Julie, what are we talking about tonight? What are we discussing with everyone tonight? We're talking about a whole different way to look at Who's your buyer in the federal arena to break it apart? There's a lot of reasons why I have rainbow behind me And it's not just because I don't want to bother to accessorize, but I really want people to start thinking about The people you're having conversations with in the federal market in a whole new Way and slow down and break it apart and really really really see what's there So we're gonna be talking about the people you need to meet There's a lot of reasons why I have rainbow behind me. Okay, so no, that's great Thank you so much. By the way for everyone that is tuning in right now Always always always, please use this time use this opportunity to let us know who you are We see your names. We don't know your industry. Let us know your industry that you're in let us know the city that you're from Again, we want to take this time and use it treat it like a conference treat it like an event There's never a bad time to meet new people to connect with people. This is an industry event We are hosting these bi-weekly on Mondays and again Typically there's about ends up at the towards the middle part It's about 90 to 100 people on here and by the time we finish watching it There's probably five to 700 people that have watched this video over the next week. So again Leave your name we have your name but leave your company's name and leave would tell us what you do and where you're from So that way everyone knows. Thank you mark for being the first one to put that out there MTP let us know what you do Kenny Lewis. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome The Lonnie welcome mark Higgins. I see you John James Aloha from Hawaii MJ global Ariel magic mark and everyone else who's on here Thank you guys so much for being with us also just some housekeeping make sure to give us a thumbs up I see right now we're about 40 people 11 likes gives us thumb up Let us know that you like the content And also respect our guests. I mean it takes a lot for us to come on and do this As you can imagine it takes a Julie's taking time out of her schedule now We have Heather's taking time on her schedule show them that you appreciate them show them that you value their time You respect their time you value the content. They're delivering again. We are literally capturing and cultivating years and years and years of knowledge and Experiences together to come on and share it with everyone out here. So definitely Be respectful of everyone's time be courteous ask Questions we want to engage you we want you to ask your questions a lot of it's interesting because People want to talk to me one-on-one, but I'm here now Julie people want to talk to Judy one-on-one She's here and you don't ask any questions ask all the questions Even if they're a little bit outside of the thing that we have today What our topic for today is the people you need to meet and the concept of players and layers if I were here just to teach You'd find me on a webinar someplace. There are other places that I teach So this is your chance especially if you're at an earlier stage I want to see your questions for me. This is part of why I'm here to serve Eric I see you're here in Missouri and you're all Excited because you're starting something new in government contracting great We're gonna have some ideas that will help keep you on track and very exciting Very exciting. Yes, so again, I have yet to see an actual live event. Have you seen one a Live event a live conference recently. Oh my as an in-person In-person I I have not been to an in-person conference since last March an in-person meeting since last March I have no travel in my budget for this year. So what does that mean? That means we need to take advantage of the opportunity Every chance we get to engage other people in the space other businesses other small businesses in our industry We don't have this all the time. This is a this is a blessing And we should all really take advantage of it And I'm hoping that the people listening are paying attention and will ask engaging questions to our speakers So Judy, thank you so much. You're welcome. And we also need to Pay attention to the online skills it takes to thrive because There are some things that pandemic will simply have blown out of the water and will never be coming back There are some things that will Change forever, right and there are some things that are going to end up being hybrid One of the things and you have people who are tuning in from all across the country in Beyond the borders of the United States here on this channel One of the things that federal agencies have realized is that they are going to Continue they need to continue to meet their outreach mandate through online Events and so the time that you spend to master Connecting with people online is not wasted by a long shot hone those skills Don't just say oh well never mind. This will all be over soon really soon vaccines now and your ability to not only go to other people's events but pay attention to what works and Think about how could I host one of the how could I do a better job than the people who are doing these things now? What am I loving one of my hating pay attention to the experience you're having and and Both as a guest and as a presenter think about how you could engage people in your own online experience is really important No, that's great. Those are great points. I I I can imagine that like you said even post pandemic We're gonna realize some efficiencies and some cost savings in doing this and I could see this Being Maybe splitting up the you know half-and-half live-person events to webinar events and online events I think online is not going away We're going to be rejoicing at being in each other's presence again. There's nothing quite like that, but Online has changed and I think we've all had to master it. No, I agree. That's true. That's true. All right So I see we have some people in here the room's filling up good stuff Well, the good thing about online rooms is Judy We don't have to start setting up seats and putting in the folding chairs in the back of the room Right, you remember those conferences where they fill up and there's standing room only and you've got to bring in those Heather's laughing, you know, you know, you bring those folding chairs from the back and you got the seating room only No, at least we don't have to do that. So as long as YouTube holds up We can we can take on a few hundred people into this space right now. So Let's go ahead and leave the conversation Players and layers five Yep, you bet So one of the things that you and I agree on and there are many Eric is there's no such thing as selling to the government Write it down. There's no such thing as selling to the government and here's why I'll say that When you win a contract certainly with the federal government and this also holds true with state county and local There's going to be a real human being that inks a signature real or virtual on that Contract and there's you're going to sign it as the business owner That's the person who's got everything on the line when they choose you There's no such thing as selling to government. There's only doing business with people and In the federal arena There's more than one person once you have a conversation with someone about how many people that they have to talk to to actually win the work Then things get interesting When I ask somebody Who is your federal buyer? The conversation breaks into a lot of pieces some people will say well the federal buyer That's the person in contracting. They they're the one who signs things But Eric the person who signs that contract. Are they the only person that you have to get to know when you're trying to win federal business? Absolutely not. So talk to me about why not who else are you having to talk to? Oh from me I Need to talk to the person who actually is having we're doing the work for so the actual customer Right now is the actual customer the one that is Breaking up the department's money and making decisions about what priorities for you're gonna get are gonna get funded. No, no Okay, so that's a third piece now What about But who did you actually meet first in the organization when you're getting to know them So for me because I'm in construction. We've met the engineers a lot of times The engineers for us is the one who's writing up the actual scope of work who has the need Right for that building for that facility Mm-hmm, and so he's saying hey my pipe broke my roof is leaking I've got to put together a scope of work. I need some intelligence from industry to help me put together that scope of work, right? But they the end user isn't necessarily going to be the one that runs the competition and picks the vendors, right? That's correct. All right. So you've got an an end user layer Yeah, you've got somebody in contracting who's running competitions and signing contracts all right, then There are the people who are really easy to meet and Those people that I would bet I would love to see it in the chat When you think about the titles of the people that you've met the ones that if you sorted through all those business cards You'll find that there are so many small business specialists who work for government or supplier diversity professionals who work for the large corporations and They are easy to find happy to talk to you in part because Their jobs they're measured on how many small businesses did they have conversations with But they are not your buyers So think about that. They're really easy to meet. They'll spend all day talking to you, but they're not your buyers so figuring out who in the cast of characters is involved in making a buying decision and What does each one of them care about because they each care about different things, right? And in order and so you have the the job when you're trying to sell Offer your products and services to the people in government who are delivering government's missions you need to sort out what each of the players involved in that buying decision what they care about and Really dial down your your thinking about what a win looks like And so one of the things that I wanted to do is to offer everyone who's come here the idea of five people you need to meet and Think broadly because there may be I'm truly talking about those are the layers. I'm gonna tell you what they are Sound good Eric. Sounds great. I love it. I love it So get out something to write down on because you're gonna start to think about the people that you know in the federal arena in a whole New way, I'm gonna be unpacking for you what I call the players and layers methodology Can't wait. All right first layer And so the this is the layer that's easiest to meet these people come go to lots of conferences These are the ones who hold outreach briefings This is the layer I call small business specialist Right, okay, and there are small business specialists whose Responsibility is both inward-facing and which is say in Facing inside the agency and outward-facing talking to industry Their responsibilities inward-facing are every single time a requirement comes up for competition Small business specialists job is say excuse me Would you explain to me why this hasn't been set aside for small business? Could would you explain to me? The research you've done to show whether or not a small business can do or more small businesses can do this work at a fair and reasonable price Because the federal government has a goal to award 23% of its contract dollars to businesses that are defined as small We'll put down a footnote and go into what small is and what small isn't another time. All right, and So every federal agency has goals Those goals don't require the agency to reserve contracts for small business. That's really important The agencies do have to Make their good faith best efforts to show that they tried to meet those goals And so the small business specialists and there are thousands of them that work in agencies departments and offices across the country their job is to meet with industry and help answer questions about how to do business with that agency and They're not the ones who award contracts. They are people who go to events and talk about the agency forecast The agencies needs and requirements But the more research you do before you talk to them the more help they're helpful They're going to be now I want to pause for a second Eric and I want to ask people some of their experiences both great and Frustrating with the small business specialists And with yours too. Okay Couple things so first thing is Judy wants to know is put drop in the chat share your experience of Talking with or trying to attempt to talk with or meeting with a small business specialist drop that in the chat your experiences Now I just want to go back Judy over and highlight some things that you mentioned I took some notes you said they're inward-facing and outward-facing small business specialists. No inward-facing now We're facing responsibilities one person abilities. Okay, as they in when facing in into the agency They're they're accountable for did the agency make its best efforts to meet the small business goals So if there's anybody in the agency that loses sleep over did we award enough contracts to small business? That would be the small business specialist and I make that distinction because The players at almost all the other layers did are not losing sleep over Did I award the contract to a small business? They are not so the only person that gets a really that it's Really really really high on their performance appraisal is not the person who is awarding the contract It's not the person ninety nine point nine percent of the time that is using your services They're a helper. They're a facilitator But a lot of the time You want to say hello? There's two or three things they want to know that constitute a win There's a couple of things they can do for you, but you have to come prepared to do the work They're Outward-facing responsibilities are to answer industries questions and in some ways Act as a little bit of a navigational assistance if you're doing your job and a gatekeeper If you as industry are not doing your job and showing up smart and doing the research beforehand The vast majority of conversations that a small business specialist here to begin Hi, I'm a service disabled veteran on a day woman owned business in a hub zone. What do y'all do? It's horrible but that means that when you show up and Say something like our company specializes in electrical trades contracting related to systems that conduct solar power into the HVAC We've done this work right through the Midwest we have two million dollars in bonding and we are partnered with Parsons and we're also Involved in an 8a joint venture and we are service disabled veteran owned small business We see these five things are in the forecast and we believe that our past performance suggests that we have something to bring to the table Here are the people we've researched if you or me, who would you be talking to? Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it And you will watch the small business specialist eyes get real big. I love it. I love it. I love it I love it. Let's look in the chat Let's see what we have here I've gotten a couple responses, but not helpful Julie says so far great Julie what when you say great What do you mean by great? Yeah, Marx is if you're a consultant for a business, how do you explain with confidence that you solve the agency's problems? Well, Mark, that's a great question If you say that you solve the agency's problems then be more specific my wonderful friend and one of our Summit Insights Top Gun Coaches will Randolph if former Acquisition professional for both the Navy and for Homeland Security says everything spins on how you use four words If you use the four words in this order, how can I help? You're just creating more work for the person you're talking to if you flip the words over and say how I can help Everything changes so mark you want to be Specific not I can solve the agency's problems But this government accountability office report shows that your personnel turnover is the highest of any federal agency And your employee retention is the lowest the proprietary system we have for assessing human capital and improving employee retention has been shown in both government and industry to increase Retention so that over 80% of employees stay more than five years. Would you like to hear how we do that? There you go mark Be specific be specific. Yeah, so Let's see somebody else had a conversation with a small business specialist at USDA met and shared information I came to them with an IT plan Great angel being able to do almost every federal agency Publishes a strategic plan a strategic Plan these are gold. This is different from an agency forecast, which you also want to find These are usually five year plans They include not only spending priorities, but they have the language the agency uses to talk about their missions and their problems Being able to come into the conversation speaking the language of the agency is really important I was having a conversation with a client team and They were involved in something called additive manufacturing things related to sophisticated 3d printing and The NASA shared services Organization was one of their target agencies. Okay, and so we were having this discussion and The person who was leading the effort to NASA We said what's the one thing you need to keep in mind? It's going to be on everybody's mind in NASA right now and she said well, I don't know And this was last week. We said perseverance to it. Oh, yeah, I got a work card. No, honey perseverance Mars lander. All right, if you can't show up talking about Mars lander this week And congratulating the people in NASA you're talking about talking to about their mission achievement Then you're not on the same planet almost literally as as the folks you're talking to so you've got to be able to show up Talk is speaking their language. So small business specialists And Adele, let's see here. We've got we've got a couple of different things here I see something here Julie someone says are there sometimes group decisions for awarding projects Brian asked a question Great question, Brian. Absolutely sometimes they So the larger the program or the contract award the more likely it is that there'll be a group formed called a source selection board and You can't know who's going to be on the source selection board Before the acquisition begins But there's a lot of ways to research who in the agency is involved in delivering the mission That needs my products or services And you have a lot of opportunity before the acquisition begins When things are in an early stage when The agency is still publishing doing market research publishing sources sought or requests for information You know what you can do that brings me to something that Brian mentioned um And it's something that he mentioned before on the market research phase sources saws. Okay Um, is it possible that agency already has someone in mind they want to work with? Well, of course Market research is important to show that they shopped But they also want to be genuinely aware of who can provide good value Right. Even if you take a look at federal acquisition regulation part 13 We're going to talk dirty here from it far part 13 in simplified acquisition has many places in which the language says that the contracting officer is encouraged to seek competition to not just talk to the same people all the time to actively seek out offers From more than the people they bought from Time after time they're under a lot of pressure to compete opportunities and so In order to make the buyer feel comfortable With giving you a shot. They're human beings. They have so much on the line when they choose you They want to make sure that they get best value. They want to make sure that they're Going to award a contract to someone who will perform flawlessly I love to do the Get my magic wand out And so let's say I'm going to get my magic wand now. So I let's say That uh, and we did this. Well, I think we've done this before I can award you the federal contract of your dreams. All right But fairy tales. They always have a hook, right? So you you could get the contract of your dreams You have the stuff the staff the space the servers to perform the whole thing right now Not oh award it to me and I'll go and find stuff and I'll get capacity and I'll board now. That's not really great and so It's really important to be able to talk about your capacity to perform work Right now And that gets the interest of the people that you're talking to when you're talking about your case studies your success stories those things that really show How you shine and why you can outperform your competition What are those? best values What are those extraordinary things that are quantifiable? That are can be objectively measured that Could make it easy for someone to weave that into the desirable characteristics of the vendor they're seeking And then when that interview board when the source selection board comes together It makes it easier for them to choose you because you've been Earworming them for months But oh if you want to do this well if you want to make sure that your mission gets delivered if you want to lower the risk Increase the odds of success then you'll want to have our methodology Now judy I want to share a story because you asked me about my experience with small business specialists Yeah, and it actually ties into this source selection board that you're discussing now Um, which is bryans goes back to bryans original question was um I heard that there's we and some of the discussions and sometimes are their group decisions and awarding contracts uh I went to an industry event put on by the army corps of engineers And this was actually the louisville district. I you know, I give real examples and at the industry event They encouraged invited um all of us to participate right any one of you could have went out to that event Uh, I actually flew out the louisville because they had on their forecast Projects that were going to be done in the northeast united states is where I primarily work at for construction At the industry event I ran around and talked to the different participants at the different tables It's so happened that two of the ladies from the corps of engineers said that they Occasionally sat on source selection boards And so they gave me a lot of pointers and tips on how to submit my proposals And how they handle things differently and what's interesting I'll share with you something that they shared with me which I thought because again, someone in here talked about putting together a proposal One of the the uh persons was saying to me Make sure that you follow the format and the guidelines seem simple Right and so they said if we tell you 30 pages we mean 30 pages Okay, and they gave me an example and they said if you gave me 32 pages One lady says I'll take off the last two and throw them in the garbage Someone else says I'll grab two random pages and throw them in the garbage And someone else says I will take the entire thing and throw it in the trash is non-compliant Right It's non-compliant and and and and that is Again examples of talking to the actual person sitting on those making those decisions about how they handle things differently So there is no one size fits all If you don't comply Each individual respect the person is going to evaluate that non-compliance differently And I love your I love you your story because it it underscores how valuable it is to show up with Smart questions when you're going to industry outreach events Many of the people who are in the small business specialist role Have been contracting officers in other parts of their professional lives That's very definitely the case for example at homeland security An agency that for many years has prided itself on overachieving its goals on awards to small business And its constant flow of first time contractors each year They do they work really hard to knock it out of the park and One of the things that you'll notice when you're looking at agency forecasts You'll find that there's just about every federal agency publishes an acquisition forecast and there are thousands of line items And in on most of the forecasts, there's a point of contact Sometimes the point of contact department of justice forecast the last time I looked at it was Small business at doj.gov. It was the same email that wasn't as helpful as I was looking at one of my clients who was doing some homework into homeland security and so The point of contact that they found I've talked to the folks who prepare the homeland security forecast That is not a small business specialist. That's someone in the program office The vast majority of the time now you can't know that until you do your research But it takes us back to players And layers so we talked a little bit about small business specialists They can be both navigate navigational assistants and gatekeepers. They can be champions When you're able to come in and look at the forecast and see something that Your small business could perform It's not set aside for small business and you're pretty sure that there are two at least two or three or four small businesses In a category similar to yours who are capable of doing the work at a fair and reasonable price Then that's a great time as far in advance as possible to talk to the small business specialists and say hey this thing This has potential to be set aside And give the end user give a really tight competition among qualified buyers The buyers want to have good competition, but it's really frustrating for them to have hundreds or thousands of offers So a tight competition within the rules with good value and great suppliers that interests them So being able to bring a small business specialist information about a specific line item Why not only is your company capable of doing well with that? But if you want to suggest that it be set aside for small business that happens all the time But saying hi Um, we're a this flavor small business. What do you got for me? Not so much So the more work you do the harder they're going to work for you Okay So small business specialist then that's one layer um other layers you the the layer that you talked about eric Really really powerful and that is end users one of the things that people often want to know is well Where do I find all these end users? And i'm going to give you two really powerful sources First I want you uh everyone write things down Get out whatever you're writing notes on and jot down the typical job titles of people who Are the users or the managers who buy the things most need the products or services that you have Maybe it's director of engineering Maybe it's system engineer Maybe it's facilities manager those job titles Are things to search for in Either the federal agency directory some federal agencies have great employee directories I'll be really blunt and say health and human services if that is an agency that you have Been looking at you've done your research and you know that you have products or services that they need They have one of the best employee directories and you can do searches on titles And a lot of other things and start to build out your all the people that you know at the end user layer Veterans affairs doesn't have a directory like that Veterans affairs is a great example of an agency where searching on linkedin Can really be your friend Over two million current federal employees are on linkedin And so you can filter you don't need a paid subscription or paid membership in linkedin You can do this with your free login and filter by federal agency by job title by location and Drop me a nice note. Just don't hit the button And connect with me on linkedin. Tell me you met me on gov con giants And leave me a thought or a question I'll connect with you and that's going to leave you one step closer to being able to see and connect with federal employees Who represent your end user layer? So because you are part of the gov con giant community That's my connection offer to you. So small business specialist layer End user layer you'll they and users will talk to you and A lot of the time they'll tell you what they think about their jobs about the Vendors they're working with now the things they wish the vendors they're working with now would do for them This isn't something that you do 10 days before the solicitation hits the street though All right, the closer the competition is to beginning the less anybody wants to talk to you Exactly and so I urge you I beg you if you're on this call to stop asking What can I bid? and start asking yourself who is my buyer and how can I get to know them If someone's not repeat that please please repeat. Absolutely. Stop there. Okay. Clear and loud Okay, so many listen, Judy. I'm telling you again. I'm going to go back to my church analogy You have to tell them and then tell them and then tell them I will say it over and over again and over again Heather and I both I can't find nothing to bid. I don't I'm on beta salmon. I don't Heather, right? Is that right? Heather Heather and I are both wearing corrective eyewear Everybody here who's wearing glasses has had the experience where you sit In the optometrist's office and they put this big huge thing in front of your face and they flip the lenses They say better a or b better a or b better a I can see And you're going to have that experience In the federal market and completely dissolve something that I call opportunity illusion We are flooded with opportunities Email and databases and notices and well-meaning friends who send us solicitations and all that stuff And especially if you've paid money for one or more data subscriptions and have stopped landing Bucket load of guilt landing in your email box every morning. Just make it stop Because if that thing is sitting there and you don't know the buyer You don't know the budget You don't know the incumbent and you don't know the history your odds of winning are in the single digits The most important information you can get from that solicitation Is probably at the bottom and that's the point of contact information For the person who is associated with that requirement And when you try to approach them, you're not going to approach them about the thing that there's less than 15 days to go That's a clue that this person is involved in at least one and perhaps more Instances of running a competition for a thing that you do maybe In the particular office that person works in They just hand out assignments to buy things and just take them off the pile and the person the point of contacts is Is generalist but a lot of the time that person specializes in doing a lot of buying for this particular kind of thing So rather than going. Oh, what can I bid say all right? Who is this person? What other things do they buy? Who of my competitors are they buying from? Who are all the players involved in The agency where I want to do business Who are involved in making decisions? For buying what it is that I do so recapping our layers We started out talking about small business specialist lots of information gatekeeper Navigator helper can be your champion when you come having done a lot of work End users juicy intelligence about requirements and scuttle about about what's working and not working Great time to have conversations. Those are people that You can invite to an online presentation They're the people that the the small business specialist is often the one that Is designated recipient of your capability statement? That's the person that all that will often say oh sure give that to me and I'll shop it around and Something might happen or something might not end users If you can get your capability statement into the hands of the end users and not just say here it is call me but say hey We're we're new around here. We're we've just revised our capability statement You're always just revising your capabilities. We've just revised our capability statement What could make it better? What's going to happen? They're going to read it. We're going to read how bad is that? Yeah, that's a good one. Yep. Some eyeballs on it All right, so small business specialist end user then Contracting layer now the contracting officers a lot of the time can be hard to reach but Here's something I learned when I was giving a training presentation to a group of national group of a couple hundred acquisition professionals in citizenship and immigration services in homeland security Almost all of them had received training in Engagement with industry But the vast majority of them despite having received training Said that they felt anxious and concerned about getting things wrong and they would almost rather not talk to industry than take the risk of screwing up the consequences of Doing something incorrect in an acquisition Can include doing something that will mean that someone decides that they're going to protest A contracting officer does not want a protest They want to have a perfect file with the right vendor and a perfect paperwork and lots of competition and no complaints and so rather than risk Something going wrong because when something goes wrong that goes in their permanent file Eric if you and I are both working for a government agency, let's say both of us We've got master's degrees in the acquisition regulations We both manage billions of dollars of acquisitions and it's promotion time and you and I are competing against each other and they go through They go through your file just billions and billions served looks perfect lots of industry outreach Um favorite presenter everybody loves them. They look at mine and say, ah really really great online game Like you went to I went out of her way to go to comfort. Oh She had a protest Who do you think's going to get the promotion Eric? You're me You're getting that promotion I get to go home to my family and tell them my kids that they're not going to disney I get to wait next I get to wait another couple of acquisition cycle another couple of promotion cycles to compete for the job I stick it out and I had another three years to retire and I'm not going to get that promotion And that affects my long term financial stability that affects whether my grandkids go to disney It affects whether or not Heather is it important to take your grandkids to disney? Yes, Heather of course, is it it affects whether my kids go to the best college? Right all of those things are really on the line So there you're that's why your buyers the contracting officers particularly are really risk averse Which means you need to take your time And slow down When you get to know them and get to know lots about them So that by the Sharon has a question on here. Yeah says Judy. Are you recommending cold calling linkedin messaging and users? Great question You're going to do better when you build on relationships you have To open doors to people that your data and your research shows you need to know Ideally, you're going to be doing a warm getting a warm introduction somehow if you but hey Of course, all of us have to have conversations with people who have never heard of us and so Being able to approach someone with something of specific interest to them related to their mission their responsibilities a small problem That you know that they've got that you might be able to offer an article a piece of information an invitation To an industry event where you're going to be presenting a case study about a thing You have to you you can approach people Um, someone may accept a request a connection request on linkedin But if you're going to send them a connection request then You must include for as a good practice a cover note saying what's in it for them I want you to think about the concept of micro Engagement not micro purchase but micro engagement What does a tiny win look like for them which comes back to thinking about your players at all the layers What does each of them care about so end users they want to get they want the thing now And they want to make sure that it performs and does the job because often lives and missions are at stake and on the line Now that actually that's actually brings me to a second question that Sharon asked prior which is I'm struggling to find the information about the customer's needs and wants So I can develop my discriminators. I know what she means What separates her from everyone else? How do I identify the customers if I'm not in the agency? How does she wants to know how to develop their needs at once? Now you gave some examples earlier about the oig report and things like that There's some other ways where people could find out what an agency needs and some of the well You can look and see what they buy You can look at past federal contract data Which will show you who's buying products or services Similar to yours first. So don't leave your research waiting for solicitations to come up on beta sam To go forward look back. I'm going to say it again to go forward look back Past contract awards show you the pattern. There are very very few things that the federal government federal buyers purchase now that they've never purchased before Odds are good that your federal buyer has bought something like your product or service From someone who's not you Which probably means They didn't get nearly as good of value Or price or service or innovation as you could have given them There are very few people I'm going to bet on this call Who would say I do the same thing as everybody else? I want to here's a challenge for the chat What's one reason why someone would choose your company instead of the next persons? Why would a federal buyer choose you? I'll give you some hints All right, it might be price, but that's a hard game to play Location location location. Hi, we are 75 yards outside the chain link fence at Patuxent river naval air station There's all kinds of encouragement to do business with companies in the local area Another certainly might be quality of service time to delivery qualification of key personnel 90 percent of our employees have master's degrees our key personnel have master's degrees in the thing that you want proprietary process These are some things remember that the things you're thinking about You want to think about What are you offering that lowers the risk Lower the risk increase the odds of performing And what objective proof do you have if you're in the construction industry? Eric? What's an emr rating? emr rating If you guys don't know emr rating that tells you how many times you've had accidents on a job site Okay, now you have a really low emr rating if you have a low emr rating. That's good if you have a high rating That's bad. Yeah, and that's an objective statistic So if you're in construction your emr rating could be something that Could really help you stand out, right? Okay, so think about the kinds of things by the way Since you just mentioned that actually on our capability statement. We wrote on there. We have an emr rating of 0.69 It's written on a capability statement awesome So that's that's a very like you said it's an objective and we we actually talk about that Yeah, so when you think about gee, I want to know what they're buying so I can pick discriminators that matter to them Think about what's going to help them lower risk and increase their odds of success All right, and so think about those things that way and take a look at the people who are already Supplying them and think about all right if they're doing business with Deloitte. What are the reasons they might be choosing Deloitte? Hmm, and you can look at the cake oftentimes larger companies will have case studies published About work that they've done so you can take a look and see if I were a buyer in their shoes What would I find so attractive about this? So you really want to put yourself in that individual federal humans shoes at that level at that at that layer And the other thing you can think about again your players at your layers is what's happening for that Individual federal human right now. It's one of the reasons I love looking up my federal contacts on linkedin You can see often you can see what agencies they've been in before How long they've been in that job? Are they close to retirement? Did they just arrive six months ago? From a completely different agency Are they going to be more risk averse? Are they going to be wanting to be a star? Are they have they been stuck in that job for 14 and a half years with no change in title? might they be looking to really shine and Kick it up there and be eligible for a promotion What would a win look like for that person? How could you offer information? experience past performance quality of product or service insight an article an invitation a report that The person you're talking to will go. Oh, how did you know? Yes, that would be really helpful for me right now These are real human beings the way that you approach them Shows them That you've taken the time to get to know what's happening in their world So layers small business specialist end user contracting and then Other primes you've got a prime contract a layer that I call Competimates Eric you and I are Competimates We're both providing Expertise in the federal arena Somebody would look asked and go. Why would we ever do anything together? We're competitors, you know Don't think about opportunity in the federal arena as pie It's not a zero-sum game. I really want to encourage everyone here to think about opportunity as dough ad warmth It rises there's more to feed everyone Sure, is that easy to do when you just lost something lost a competition? Yes, it's hard to do that That feels hard But the federal government is almost always buying federal humans are buying more another day Nobody wins them all either contracting staffs under a lot of pressure to share the workaround so layers again small business specialist and user contracting primes sometimes you'll team with them Sometimes you will compete with them Nobody wins all the time Finding out gee so-and-so is showing up in that account a whole lot. I need to get to know them And let's talk another time Eric about teaming But if anybody I will say this write this down if you have been frustrated By large primes who take your paperwork and never call you Stop coming with a handout And asking to be fed The prime will always return your call when you come bringing a specific opportunity not not hey, I found this in the forecast I think you should did it no Coming with an opportunity where you've been talking to the end users in the account They think they're going to die if they don't have the thing you've got want to talk They sent us your way because you have a contract vehicle That's right. We'll always return your call so so julie wait So if I go on beta dot sam and I find an opportunity and I send that to the prime They're not going to call me not terribly likely If that if beta sam is the first time that prime has seen it they know better Than to go after that That's right. And so again when you're looking at the whole stream of published opportunities stop asking what can I bid? back away From the solicitation and no one will get hurt Start asking yourself the question Where do we have relationships? I'm not saying don't ever bid anything cool thousands of people Do that successfully every year, but the cost of doing that repeatedly is very high It's very high. I remember when I was researching my first book And I one sat down said I've just won my first contract And I said that's great. That's so exciting. Tell me about it. And I was because I was researching the book I said how many bids did you make to win the first one? She said 39 I am not going to do math in public on youtube But the cost I didn't have a heart to tell her that the cost of winning one included the cost of losing 38 You don't need to have that experience Let your Cast of players and layers be your guide when you're looking to the answer the question Where do we have relationships? You want to be able to have relationships? At least at least one if not more Relationships at every layer and I can do a quick screen share to recap in visual terms. Would you like me to do that, Eric? I would love so I can do that. So hang on to your hats. All right So because you stayed till the end we show you the goodies and heather is going to be dropping a note in the Chat in the chat and we're going to have information for you on the gov con personas guide It's 22 pages of goodness about what do you say to the players at all the layers the five people you need to meet are these We talked about the small business Specialists the ones who go to the events they go to the small business outreach Conferences the booths they meet with you. They make presentations They meet with thousands of people all year, but they're not almost ever at your buyers A small business specialist is occasionally my buyer because I offer training For their programs when they're looking to help educate business. So mine I'm I'm unusual in that respect By the way, make sure but Judy before you continue Thumbs up hit the like button. Please Hit the like button. There's uh 49 likes and I think there's 80 people in the chat So hit the thumbs up button. So yeah, because we're going to take it on home Here's your big summary. All right, and heather you put it you put it in the youtube in the youtube chat. Awesome So this is free. This is 22 pages of goodness of ideas to talk to these people about and what they care about and what they don't Contracting officer has a power that the president of the united states does not have the legal authority to bind your company To the government of these united states in agreement to provide products and services as specific price and under terms and conditions Contracting layer can include contracting specialist as well But this is the layer of people who have the authority to manage and administer contracts and run competitions. That's your second layer third layer and user this is the person who is Defining the requirements who is stuck with the consequences for good or ill of what gets purchased But is often very involved at an end user There may be multiple people in that layer your program manager may be at that layer the people who have all those Juicy juicy job titles that typically are the ones who are buying what you do. That's your end user layer And there's a lot of places you can meet them There's a particular person with a job title called contracting officers Representative cor or core The core is part of the end user layer and they are a liaison between the end user layer and the contracting layer very valuable in part for distilling out requirements and Helping shape what goes into the specification that gets competed. Okay Next layer stakeholder Your stakeholder that might be your base commander might be the cabinet secretary The person who gets tied to the stake and tarred and feathered if things go tango uniform Your stakeholder can be the person who makes the big speech on the dais at the conference. They're not your buyer You do not Want to ask them would you please introduce me to the person who buys x the last thing you want is to be Trotted down the hallway all covered in stakeholder drool and plopped in front of A decision maker goes do I have to? No All right, make your uh you the kinds of things you want to talk to the stakeholder about are personal that you want to be talking to them about Their family You ask them how they're these days you can ask pretty much anybody and it's appropriate how they're doing If you have worked with their team, you can let them know that the small business specialist was really helpful You can let them know that their end users are doing an amazing job with hardly any money and not enough time Tell them what you're seeing in the field. They care about your eyes and ears But don't beg them to award you things. It doesn't work that way. Okay, and finally prime contractor All right, they may be competitor. They may be competitive mate find out who they are learn lots about them You may be subcontracting to them Don't ever go around behind their backs Make sure that you're subcontracting agreement and i'm giving a webinar next week with my friend maria panacelli on great success In subcontracting things you need to know in order to successfully Profitably subcontract you want to make sure that your agreement with your prime Does not mean you stay like a mushroom in the dark under the fungus in the closet But you're allowed to go and talk to people on site. So prime contractor That's your other layers. So those are your layers prime contractor stakeholder and user Contracting and small business specialist players at all the layers When you are considering Can I bid something? I want you to start Laying out in a methodical way Who do you know? If you don't have a fancy schmancy contact relationship management system cheer up Excel is your friend Excel or google sheets use a spreadsheet If you don't have one place where you've got all of your Dot comms and dot mills and dot govs in one place and sort them out by company and by agency. See who you know See who you know and then look at what layers you're missing. So these are all the usual kinds of things organizations city state zip and when you move to the right You want to have a column, which is what's their role? What's their role which lay you want to make sure that if you're going to bid something, you know You've got a contact not just in the small business layer But for sure at the end user layer and at the contracting layer You may or may not need to know the stakeholder, but you should know who they are And get a sense of how they're shaping the needs of the organization And you really need to know who are the incumbent Primes as well. So those are so use a spreadsheet sort out who you know notice who you don't know And get to know who you need to know and start to make friends take your time Start with lots of lead time Eric. Does that help? Oh, that was extremely helpful So that's a little bit of a preview of our players and layers method when I work with clients directly This is the core of our work and we're building out plans that are detailed and specific and are based on hard past contract data And our clients are making choices On which agencies they want to focus on No more than two or three Julie, um, people are asking about the webinar you've got coming up Heather, do you have a link for that? Do you have a link for that? Heather's gonna scram, but I know she's got it. It's close to hand. Yes. And the weather the webinar is free And also, um, Heather the the link that you dropped in the chat. I don't see it. Can you It's a bitly link or am I not getting my I've put Can you send it drop it to me in this chat here and I'll drop it in the the main one And then we'll drop the other link. Hey, we're gonna make sure to drop you the links For the webinar is coming up and then also Uh, what was the first item that we oh the gov con personas guide the gov con personas guide All right And this is 22 pages of goodness talking about the players at each one of those layers And what kinds of things to talk to them about what kinds of things to say And if you go I want you to go get this thing. I want you to use it. I want you to write me on linkedin And tell me what happened Tell me what you learned how people responded Yeah, uh, make sure and by the way, listen everyone out here listening I know you have two or three friends That are trying to do government contracts or interested government contracts make sure to share this video with them Again, as you can see we come on here and pour out our heart our souls We give you everything we invite you to other webinars. We invite you to summits. We invite you to courses. We give you A assistant material all for free here live So make sure that you share this content with other people that can benefit from it because I know that there's so many charlatans and schemers and people trying to take advantage of you out there We want you to know that you can come to a place a source that has factual information From people who've done this year after year. I mean, julie. She's I don't want to say how long she's been doing this, but I Eric I own all of my 61 years and 33 of them. I've spent as an expert in Learning my trade in federal contracting. I love all of the things I learn from my clients and People ask me who do I work with can I say? Sure? I mean I work with established companies That are looking that I've got either lots of commercial experience, but non in federal or got really solid track record in federal and are looking to grow my book It's there for people who are making their way trying to figure it out. I took all the really Methodical stuff that you really got a note dumped it out of my head put it in the book. The book is there Where the government contracts made easier is the book? um, and so I'm not able to work with all companies. I do one private one-on-one program But a company that is ready to take it to the next level whether you're concerned that you're not getting enough traffic across your contract vehicles Or you're subbing and you want to step up to prime your I talked to service disabled veteran 8a company today and they Were sitting around the million mark and we're going we've all read your book. We love your website We really need method. We are in only in one agency. Help us. How fast can we sign up? This doesn't happen to me every day. Okay. I was just dancing. It was really wonderful um But that gives you some idea of this kind of situation where i'm working with my clients one-on-one there you have wonderful programs eric for people at different stages of readiness and Everyone here eric you talk about this a lot as well. You have a whole book about free resources and government contracting Which is wonderful if you're not working with your procurement technical assistance center run. Do not walk Can you drop the link in um eric for aptac dash us dot org? Absolutely Run do not walk your tax dollars in mind have paid for a network of thousands of people across the country who's Are there to help you they have counseling contacts courses And their help is low cost or free if you haven't worked with your procurement technical assistance center for the psych I might go find them look at their website read what they do tap the free resources first by the way, um just to kind of echo what judy's saying we actually on our Podcast we just interviewed someone from aptac that talked about the different types of tools and resources All the things they provide for you for free We just did that interview. Um, we definitely want to encourage you to reach out to them because again I'm hearing in the chat some people. Yes. They don't have money Um, the scammers were real. Well, this is a resource that you can turn to everyone can turn to You have every single state has a state organization often with multiple locations There's going to be one near you you work with the procurement technical assistance center in your state And they're a great resource. They can help you sort out. Hey, are these guys for real? I heard this other thing What do you think many of them have been former federal contracting officers? Right? They are they are wonderful resource for you Eric, what other questions are we getting as we kind of grind down to our adventure number three? All right, so we dropped all we dropped both of judy's links in the chat They're bitly links So you can see in the chat the links to the book Oh, wait, hold on wait. Heather just dropped the jewel. Hold on judy Heather just dropped the jewel. Hold on guys. Look all right, so Since there are 78 people that are staying to the end Heather just gave me a link to the first chapter of judy's book that you can get for free It's the it's the it's the chapter on strategy. So if you are on this calling going Is federal business good business for my business? How do I figure that out chapter one is on strategy? It's how to make that decision make it with confidence and if if you want to be In the market in the federal market be all in or walk away Our most precious commodity is time and you cannot afford none of us can But especially as a smaller business your time is the most precious thing You cannot afford to have that siphoned away by oh, I think I'll go to a small business conference over here Oh, somebody says no be in or be out Understand and chapter one will help you figure that out. What are the criteria that need to be true for my company to be successful in the federal arena? Until these things are true. I'm leaving this on the shelf. I will make money somewhere else. I will build My experience I will build those case studies find those marquee Clients that will really get a federal buyer's attention go. Oh, they do business with Marriott. Oh, wow, they do business with Pfizer Awesome, that's the kind of hefty experience or hey, you do they do you do business with the largest financial institution in your state All of these really helpful. Then you know, all right now. I'm ready So chapter one will help you make a good solid decision and not fritter away your time All right, let me check the chat real quick. See what's going on in the chat um, also by the way, yeah, I I'm sorry for the person who um actually Um, got to go. Yeah, that's that's a tough one. I there, you know If we could get back half of the money we spent on stupid stuff We'd be rich beyond dreams of avarice. I can't begin to tell you how much money I spent doing stupid stuff I'm gonna say you guys something. So this is the power of the internet and google and all this stuff Look at that. So they recommend our books together And my gov con launch book. So again, we really bought together How's that our peeps are peeps are talking with their pocket books And I I should tell you that I've also launched a workbook. So there's a companion workbook You know the next time you come on jenny, we've got to get that workbook link heather On here so we can make sure we can share that with folks and let them know about the workbook So get make sure maria dropped the link to my book in there as well in the chat And then that way you can buy my book and jenny's book together. Well mark You said you're gonna like leave a review. Thank you The reviews are really wonderful be sure to leave reviews for eric as well And here's why it matters if you want to help another business owner People make decisions about what resources they're gonna buy based in part on the reviews that they see So if you're reading a book and it's valuable, you're helping another business owner say hey Buy the book. Here's why it matters to me I don't know whether you've had this experience eric for me Autographing books is the second best part Of writing a book the best part of writing a book Is when somebody comes back to me with a copy of the book And it's dog-eared and stickied and highlighted and beaten up when someone says this made a difference for me By the way guys so before I ever met judy in real life, this is judy's first book Okay, and this is what I did to it Hold on. I'm gonna go put myself on the big screen. So Uh, just so everyone knows I I'm actually a fan of judy's as well So I was a fan of hers long before she ever knew who I was in existence And this is what I did to her first book. Okay. So as you can see I got it on the sides and on the All right Look, I got notes I scribble all across it. So before judy ever came on to my show before I ever met judy in real life Heather, this is what her book looks like to me. So again Well, here's the difference Eric that that the the in the here's the difference in the first book I'm on the cover in the second book You're on the cover. That's right And that really tells the story of all the things that I learned Over the time between writing the first book and the time reading this writing the second one so much about relationships is Baked into This book and the and the the book really goes deeper into players and layers get the handouts Meet your federal humans commit to federal human connection because that's what the players and layers methodology is all about see who you know Realize who you don't know and have a systematic methodical way To knit those together. That is the core of my practice and everything I do That's awesome. That's fantastic Mark, we're so sorry you got taken advantage of for the five thousand dollars, but I can tell you You know a lot of people think that they can buy their way into government contracting And that's what I hear judy people like the person paid for the access for the SAM registration and what about getting registered to be on a bid list and Registered to receive bids and all these things that people out there try and sell you on judy You know Charles revson. Do you know Charles revson was I do not Charles revson was the founder of Revlon cosmetics and His motto was we sell hope There's a lot of people selling hope. It's one of the most powerful forces on earth and The thing that's so hard about making a decision and buying some hope Is how crushed it feels when or you can feel When things don't turn out well, you know One of the things that I've come to appreciate that's so important In all of the fall down go boom experiences and I have them every single day as a business owner Is the importance of self-compassion To be gentle With yourself as you pick yourself up and dust yourself off Whether it is a $50,000 mistake or a $5 mistake whether you think everybody was watching Or not In the federal arena, there's a lot of dust What you don't see in the dust is the large number of people going fall down go boom every single day It happens to all of us So reach out a hand help somebody else get up leave a book review Help somebody put a thumbs up for eric say hey, this was really helpful Pass the word share this recording on linkedin say hey if you listen to one thing this month This is going to change stuff for you. So pay attention share the knowledge Build your gov con ecosystem. We are all related. We are here for each other Trying to make a difference day after day for federal buyers whose missions will be better achieve better because they choose us They can get stuff anywhere But their lives and their outcomes are going to be better If they choose us so our job is to reach them So they come to understand that and we make it easy for them to choose us. That's the whole game That's that's a wonderful closeout Real quick. I just want to answer this question from mark. He says eric. What's the best thing you learned from judy You know, so the two weeks ago judy and I were discussing meeting your federal human and And the particular episode that we discussed and if you haven't watched it go back and watch that one What I love was that judy said We talked about when is it appropriate time to celebrate? and what We learned was if you get any response back, then you know, you were talking to your federal human and she says it's like a dance So mark we pictured it. It's like a dance that you're going back and forth and talking to your federal human because So often we're submitting stuff. We're calling. We're emailing And we're doing things and until to us we don't know there's a federal human on that other side And you can't know what's going on for them And so remember that when they don't call you back, the only thing you could know Is they didn't call you back, right? So many people give up way too soon right When you've chosen the people that you know you're meant to serve After call three or four or five when you make them engaging and interesting and energetic You move from Pestilence to persistence You have to find that sweet spot between apathy and pestilence and it's different for everybody But most people give up too soon And you're at a great time of year to build relationships. You're going, yeah, nothing's going on new administration Nobody's spending cheer up your federal humans have time to talk with you They're Concerned they don't know if their pet projects are going to be funded They are looking for a new leadership to come in. They don't know what's going on The people who build relationships now Are the ones that are going to find their calls are getting returned come august and september So be brave pick up the blinking phone Talk to people Julie real-life example from something we discussed a few weeks ago We sent in a sources sought response And two days later A federal human responded back and said hey, we need these four items to complete Okay, and We were ecstatic because we sent it in blindly Not knowing any one other side and then we received a response in two days from a federal human And so we were all ecstatic. We were celebrating and we're jumping me down and we're like, okay We now we have to get this together Oh the oh, oh my goodness into the oh my goodness moment. Yeah And it's so important if you don't sources sought and requests for information are market research And if you do not respond to sources sought And are annoyed because there aren't opportunities being published or set aside for companies in your small business category That's like being annoyed by who got elected if you didn't bother to vote oof oof The good thing is government contractors It seems to me all the ones I talked to are very pay a lot of attention to voting So there are very few who are saying oh government doesn't matter to me. I'm not going to vote So we have I think we have a high voting population in our in our ecosystem. I think so as well I think so as well. Hey, well, listen, um, I don't see any Oh, oh, sir. I said as was rebut now if you got something saying webinar registration was canceled We've got a system glitch and so if you read The register for the webinar our system has got you we upped our limit on We'll be sending out a couple of things but we upped the limit on zoom And so you if you register for the webinar, you will get your seat Be sure to show up on time and make sure you get your seat because we start up the crack at the top of the hour But yeah, don't worry if you get a funny notice. We've got you. Okay. Thank you We sorry that it went weird. Okay. Oh, that's okay. That's okay. Brian over time. We invested probably $20,000 advisors attorneys Data shows that companies spend anywhere from 30,000. That's three zero 30,000 to 233 thousand dollars in the course of 12 months In pursuing federal business So if you're thinking, oh, well, I've got only got about two or three thousand dollars to invest I'm not saying you have to buy your way in but be aware that between cash and sweat equity building your knowledge and your experience And your research so that you can be approaching the right people with the right message getting good advice And every so often you wind up buying a tool or a thing that isn't that helpful You're going to invest On the road to building your business and that's true with any business And so my book actually has a couple of worksheets so you can kind of work out How much am I going to spend? What am I going to spend on the worksheets are there? That's why I built them I think a lot of people I think a lot of people are discounting sweat equity in the time That you're actually putting in right they're only counting the amount of money they spend in their pockets, but they're not actually counting The actual sweat equity part piece of that so and also A lot of the thing is that You can avoid some of that sweat equity by investing in a book By investing in a journal by reading the book. I mean again You know conferences sometimes you're able to go to a conference say jenny clark at solvability has one coming up And in in the spring. It's an online conference. You're a society of american military engineers National veterans small business coalition great conferences a conference can be a great place for content and contacts If you choose well and have a smart strategy eric that after we finish our series We should do something else of a Smart association networking and we're going to be doing a webinar on that as well with uh with my team in march All right, beautiful. Hey, listen, um, if you know, we know we knew you weren't bitching brian It's hard. Um, you thank you for actually putting a number there because lots of people don't want to say Oh, I spent bump-de-bump thousands of dollars. I'm so embarrassed. I'm not going to tell anybody It's important that we tell these stories and realize we're not Alone this happens. No, thank you brian for sharing because again, um, you know I was agreeing that the five to k wasn't a lot But I you know, sometimes people think I'm out of touch when I say these things But we once had a former government contracting officer said Uh, that was recommended by a contract specialist because they're from dc They charge us $30,000 and all they did was show me how to get a hub zone, which I already knew because I know how to read Um And they wanted to introduce me to some of their uh people to help me become dcaa compliant and Uh, uh introduce me to a prime contractor for $30,000. That's the reason why I created my channel That's the reason why we are doing these things. That's the reason why I give so much and I can promise you this There's not a week that goes by that someone like a julie or someone else in my industry in my space Don't question. Why do I give so much and why do I do all of this for you guys? Okay, I think I'm crazy for this, but I really do uh, I've been that person that's been taken advantage of and Like my favorite favorite favorite Uh person in the world jim rome says that um, it's a lot of money when you don't have it So any amount is a lot when that's all you have And we want to make sure that you're making confident decisions You're fortunate to be in a In an ecosystem with trusted people those of you who are fortunate enough to work with eric as a coach Awesome There are great coaches check their references if you're thinking of working with somebody find out What their experience and their track record has been in working with businesses in your industry your size and Approaching the agencies where you want to win work be specific and if they give you references call their references There's no excuse. Very good point. Very good point. All right. Um, so we we've already cleared up There is a technical glitch on the webinar. We will resolve the technical glitch On the webinar registration. Yeah for the registration. So again, we did drop in heather's email if you have any questions Uh, absolutely definitely, um, send heather an email or send us an email again. We're you know, we're If you if you need help we'll get you help I'm sure that once they get this thing resolved They will send me a link and i'll send an email out to everyone else and invite my tribe So hey, can we see a bunch of our thumbs up tallies of those who are here all the way to the crazy end? How did we do tonight eric 70 likes right 70? Wow So we did great. We did great Eric, thank you. You make this easy And You have patience while I kind of wander all over the place a little bit and you make sure that I don't get stuck in PowerPoints, but I just drop enough to give a little bit of uh, A background structure so people really feel like, uh, you know, there's method to all of it No, I love it. I love it. Hey, listen guys. Thank you so much. Make sure to share this with three people Okay, three. I want everyone to share this with three people that you know Let them receive all the gems all the jewels one thing that I can tell you I've learned in my federal lifetime of doing business with the government Sometimes i'm the prime of sometimes i'm the sub Okay, and then sometimes i'm just a matchmaker making a connection So again, if you share this with people you can become either the prime the sub or the matchmaker and vice versa So you never know Right when uh, that person who you help is going to come back around and reach out and help you We can never tell when that might happen This this is truly pay it forward people say oh something great happened to me before now i'm paying for no That's called paying it back guys paying it forward is putting it out there before anything happens. That's exactly that's what this Is so hey eric, when are we doing this again? Uh, we decided we were going to move it So our next thing is going to be monday march 15th, right? Uh, I have to look at it and see on the calendar. I'll let everyone know. Yeah, we'll confirm offline great Looking for hey listen guys. Thank you so much. Share this with three people. Please three people Make sure you share it with three people and a big shout out to heather Thank you for giving all the gooey yummy stuff and again if look up look up transcendent marketing Uh in in arizona if you're also in the place where you've got lots of leads You're looking for a call team to qualify Doing some smile and dial and set them up heathers pro And so if heather calls you then you've met her and you know And she follows up with us and helps helps me connect with people I need to talk with so heather of i thank you so much You connect with heather on linkedin as well and she'll have lots to tell you about how she does what she does Make sure when you connect with them you put guvcon giants or you can put gcg Right for short gcg or guvcon giants when you connect with them on linkedin. Thanks gary. Thanks come by. Thank you Thanks heather. Thanks, julie. Have a good night. Enjoy your week. All right. Good night. Good night