 I'm going to read for you an actual email that was sent to me by one of the subscribers today and it says I've been in contact with other companies for quite some time now so I decided to pursue government contracts. I established my company however I'm having a difficult time trying to justify my past performance under my company and because I was an employee for another company. This is a very commonly asked question for all of you out there that are just getting started in this marketplace who've just heard about government contracts. Maybe you formed your LLC recently or in the past however you were an employee or you work for a company as a 1099er maybe you are an actual product consultant you're wondering Eric what do I put down for past performance? How do I handle that? Well so today in this video we're going to discuss what should you be putting down for past performance and or how do you get around past performance and what are some alternatives options that are available for all of you out there who want to take part in this federal marketplace at the highest level possible to maximize your total revenues your total opportunities out there what should you be doing? Watch right now. All right so the first thing is if you are getting started out here in the marketplace there is always the option to be a subcontractor. I cannot stress that enough you know when you are getting started and you don't know anyone you don't have any resources you don't have a reputation being a subcontractor is a great way to go it's a perfect avenue to get yourself inundated inside the government facility working on the government base on the government installation now you are there you're on site your people are on site and the government gets a chance to really know who you are because again if the government doesn't know who you are how can they help you? One of the things that happened to me a long time ago when I was working as a subcontractor is that the actual person doing the inspections knows who were the ones doing the work so even if some large company like St. General Dynamics gives you the project the guy who's doing the inspections the government agent that is on the site who's doing the inspections the site manager or project manager whoever that may be they're going to recognize your firm for being the ones that actually doing the performance so if you do a good job you're going to have a good name and what's going to happen is they yes they obviously they like to use the big contractors and when they're handling these huge enormous projects but when they're smaller projects that they think as within your will house within your spouse and your skill set they're going to want to offer those jobs directly to you so if they can get around working with some of the big guys and and a lot of the scenarios then they'll definitely they'll take a chance and they'll do that right away so I remember the first time that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers one of their reps stepped up to me and said hey Eric listen I see you've got your firm I checked out your website which I didn't even know this guy knew who I was but he had already done some research he checked out my website he said look it looks like you're up and coming you need to talk to the person over here at this particular location and talk to them about some particular contract opportunities directly for your firm instead of you working for these other guys so again being a subcontractor is a great way to get your foot in the door the second way is let's look at the RFQs you know you have RFQs which are requests for quotes and an RFPs which are requests for proposals well the RFQs majority of the time they're not asking for past performance so if you focus your attention on just the RFQs then it's like a 90 probability that past performance is not going to be a factor it's going to be based on your ability to be able to perform it's going to be based on price delivery schedule time other factors but not actual past performance whereas if you're looking at request for proposals those require technical volumes which whenever you're putting together anything that involves a write-up more than likely it's going to be a best value scenario and you're going to have to look do your past performance and put that in there as well as your team members so you're probably going to lose out when you're looking at RFPs versus RFQs let's take a look at some of that example right now on the screen I've got pulled up here site security and alarm system this project over in Hawaii and I just went on FedBizops pulled up the project I pulled down the SF-18 form again SF stands for standard form 18 this is the document you actually fill out to submit they ask you to put on here your DUNS number so on this form they're asking you to put in your DUNS number and then put in your price and that's it and if we pull up the actual statement of work nowhere on here on the statement of work is it asked for past performance so I pulled down all these documents again there's a schedule there's tells you about the existing systems tells you about some holidays your wage rate gives you maps and drawings and layouts of the building but nowhere on there is asking for past performance but again we're talking about here we're looking at let's go up to the top we're looking at here it's an RFQ over here another project on FedBizops this one was a special notice and I just again I'm just searching around doing queries as we're discussing and what they're asking for on the special notice is an actual product demonstration and if you go through and scroll down it tells you the description of what they want done doing some sort of experiment detection track identification of swimmers and a port harbor and and the instructions it tells you very clearly it says okay list your company your organization description for company note if you're a small business or for an own describe your demonstration experimentation objectives and goals here's it says the capability description product maturity installation integration application if you have any classification such as secret classifications how is it set up but again nowhere in there is it talking about actual past performance so when we're looking at jobs online if you focus in on for example like dibs and fed bed which and nico and fed connect things like that you're going to see a lot of the RFQs out there so those are just price proposals versus the RFPs now I've seen some RFPs that don't require past performance so you just have to look for it and what I do is I do a quick search you know search and find I type in past performance and that's you know how I do it number four is actual bid local and state jobs we just made a video recently about doing local and state projects but to summarize on the local and state levels they are open floodgates for people that are just getting started off the ground now that's not a way that I particularly like to recommend for people because a lot of times what happens is when people start doing state and local contracts that becomes your new comfort zone and when that becomes your comfort zone it becomes very difficult to break out of that and then jump into the federal marketplace that's why you don't see a lot of companies that are state and local companies that are doing federal contracts and you don't see federal contractors doing state and local contracts so a lot of times what'll happen is that becomes your new normal and you become accustomed to just working at that very small level and you're not really preparing yourself for anything larger you just kind of get into the everyday routine of doing those types of projects so again it is an option that's available to you if you want to get started in a federal marketplace now some out of the box opportunities some out of box solutions first thing is teaming teaming is a very viable option I've got a lot of videos that I've talked about you know how do you rocket ship to success team you could team with a company that has past performance we have people in our golf con giants group that have they have the hustle they have the grit they're going they're really thinking about all the energy they're going to go out there and find the jobs pull them down knock them down and close them right and then you've got companies that have they've done some work in the past they've done some work in the private sector they've done some government products maybe years ago maybe when they had a day maybe when they had a certification the government gave them projects and now you know they're kind of they've lost their ambition and lost that desire and so they're not as they're not the ones that are going to go out there and reign in the deals so you could be the guy that goes in the or girl that goes in and wants to bring those deals in and partner with a company that's already out there that's already has some past performance on the books you can use a team member do you have anybody on your team with 1099 employee do you have a subcontract that works for you that has past performance i know that when we've put together deals so for example when we put together deals on some of our construction projects you know we didn't do electrical per se but my electrical subcontractor he did electrical work and he had a whole slew of past performance because why he works with everybody on those the installation so if you decide right if you're going off the project on your know you're working at a government facility maybe it's wise to partner with some of the existing contractors out there because why if you hire the brick mason guy that's already out there he's got tons of past performance if you decide to hire the ac guy out there he's got a ton of past performance but when you put it all together you look like a solid outfit right again what they're judging is the overall proposal so they're not judging just your company on its face yeah they want to know that you have done some work but at the same time depending upon the size scope scale project they want to know that you have a team of people a team of organizations that can actually perform and execute on those contracts number three lie please do not lie do not try and fake it till you make it on this particular scenario because what happens is this um if you lie on your past performance it's likely that if you don't have that experience it's probably highly unlikely that you can execute and perform that task and I would say this for not because I think that you're going to get in trouble with the government because they're so big that you're probably not going to get in trouble however my concern would be that you were going to get in trouble in the sense that you're not going to be able to perform you're not going to be able to execute and so you're going to get yourself and more of a a headache situation more anxiety trying to do a project that's above your ability uh that's outside of your uh comfort zone right and then you're going to not perform they may be hit with liquidated damages so there's a lot of other factors that I that I you may want to consider before actually lying on the project and then number four my all-time favorite is become a consultant I don't see what's wrong with becoming a consultant what's wrong with finding a company right like we said before find a company that's super successful in the private sector that's not doing government contracts right uh agree or work out with them to help represent them to the government marketplace so again you're going to go to this company and you're going to talk to them about bringing them in more business who doesn't want more business you're going to talk to them about bringing in opportunities now you go out and again I know it takes some humility right so you've got to humble yourself and say listen I know that I don't have the past performance to actually start working in a government marketplace but what if I decide I go and find a company a mentor someone out there who already has past performance and I help them get contracts at the end of the day you're still on the government site you're still on the government installations you're still doing the work right and for the majority of people out there the monetary benefit or the monetary value of what you gain at the end of the day that's what you're looking for right you know we're not I mean yeah you may want to build this national global international firm right Fortune 100 company but for 99 percent of the people out there I think that the bottom line is right making money making additional money building a career finding something long-term that can sustain you your family and the lifestyle that you want to create for yourself so again by being a consultant right and working for companies that's going to get you in the game get you in the door makes it a whole hell of a lot easier to represent someone that has past performance that has history that can execute on the projects right if they need you don't have to worry about the money part of it so again when you step up and you're sitting down with a government agent and you're talking and you're representing this large firm right that's behind you it's very easy to say to the government unequivocally that yes we can't perform this job yes we will execute yes we've got the financial resources yes we've got the team members so when you're putting together these technical proposals these these volumes right of documentation you can list all of your team members experiences you can put their resumes in there and then if you say hey listen John I need someone who's got experience doing this you just pull it right just pulled information he said oh yeah we've got three products we did that we've got 14 different people who have that skill set that have that certification so it makes it a whole lot easier right when you're out there right now we have for all of the gov con giants groups if you're subscribed to my email list you've probably seen it before I'm actually going to be working with five people who have consultant clients helping them take their business to the next level we're going to be doing a 20 week program we're working directly with five of you guys out there who you already want to go to consultant route you have a potential consultant client or a member who's a large firm that can perform an execute I want to take five of you guys out there right and actually execute on some contracts I want to help you get your client win your client contract in the federal arena so if you're interested in that today uh go to my website send an email in uh if you're on my subscription list you will have already seen that email it's called gov con giant certified trainer pilot program so if anyone out there is interested in that pilot program send an email and we'll make sure to put you on the list for our upcoming webinar thanks for watching today we'll see you next time