 It took me a very long time to make this video and the reason is because, as you know, I despise state and local contracts. However, after having many, many conversations with subscribers like yourself out there, I realized there are some benefits to state and local contracts for some of the people out there that are wanting to get in this marketplace. Today's video is ways in which you can benefit and leverage using state and local contracts. Again, the idea is to have them help you or propel you up to the federal marketplace. So again, since my audience is growing and there's so many people out there that are wanting to get involved, that are wanting to do government contracts, there are definitely some real advantages to using state and local contracts. And so today's video, we're going to focus on what exactly are those benefits. All right, stay tuned and watch right now. How to use local and state contracts to build your business. This video today comes as a result of some of my YouTube subscribers, one in a most recent post stating that he had won some contracts at this state and local level. And so it helped propel his company forward. He also encouraged another subscriber to do the same thing. So I wanted to make a video today. I've not changed my position or my thinking. However, I have evolved. I've grown. And the reason why we decided to make the video was in order to convey that message today, local and state contracts can propel you to the federal level. And eventually, they could be like your magic beings helping you to become a Gov con giant. So today we're going to discuss some of those ways in which I believe they can do so. Obviously, we know that the federal state and then the locals at the bottom. Again, the stuff that I've been teaching is following the federal rules, the FAR at the state level, you're going to have 50 different states and you have different laws. And then at the municipal level, for example, here in Miami, we have actually, I think it's 35 municipalities within the county of Dade County. So there are a lot of opportunities out there for people who are just getting started. And this is what we're going to discuss today. But keep in mind, I cannot teach you the rules of how they govern each and every individual organization, each and every individual municipality and or state law. But I can teach you some of the ways in which you can benefit or your company can benefit by using some of these contracts. Number one reason is the actual registration themselves. So the states and the cities I've noticed have had some of the easiest registration forms with very, very low minimum requirements out there, meaning that you can get registered and you could start a business and then automatically go and apply for a actual small business certification and or with the city or the state municipality area that you're working with, if they do offer small business certifications. So the packages are small. The most, the biggest requirement that I've seen out there pressed upon a small business is maybe a one year minimum requirement, but again, very low minimums compared to that of the federal marketplace. Number two, learn your business. How does your business work? A lot of people are just getting started. They just incorporate it. They've never ran a business before. They don't have any experience in business. So working at the local level will give you an opportunity to actually learn your business and how it works. What do you need to do? Who are you as a business owner? What type of personality do you have? What type of manager are you? And then also find out kind of where are some of the things that are missing in business? So the very first thing, when you jump out there in a federal marketplace, they're not going to give you a fair shape. If you make a mistake, you're going to pay for it. If you, if you, if you underbid a job, you're going to lose money at the smaller levels, they will give you a chance. They won't necessarily enforce all of the rules. They'll be more lenient towards you than it would at the federal level. Number three, past performance. This is a very commonly asked question amongst my subscribers. Eric, what do I do about my past performance? Well, what I've seen in my experiences at the local levels, they don't ask for past performance. Therefore, you can actually get started and have zero past performance and start building up your past performance, start building up your work history of doing jobs, and then you could take and transfer that information eventually once you've succeeded on your capability statements for the federal marketplace. So it's a great way to start off building past performance for those of you out here that have no past performance and are interested in becoming prime contractors. Number four, great way to learn business 101 through real experience. Like I said, if you just started, you just incorporate, you became an S corp, C corp, LLC, you're going to learn things like management. How do you manage people? How do you deal with government and staff and bidding jobs? These are really important factors that you've got to take with you, that you have to take in consideration when going after much larger projects. And in addition to that, human resources, how to hire people, how to fire people. Again, the reason why I'm making the video is because all of these questions have come to me in one form or another from people like yourself, from subscribers, from people who email me, from people on my email list, from people in social media, LinkedIn, associated friends. So these questions pop up in my mind. How do you hire someone? How do you fire someone? Where do you go to find people to hire and fire? Interview techniques. How do you even interview someone? If you guys have never interviewed a person, there's techniques in which you can find out if the person has a serious candidate, if the person's a long term, or if they're just there for temporary. What kind of signs look for someone stealing from you or robbing from you? What kind of company culture do you want to have? And things that you may see and like about people's habits, good and bad. The other reason is working with suppliers. One of the things that I preach, preach, preach is supplier credit, vendor credit. How you could start off right now on the smaller level with the state contract, with the local contract, and you could start growing your supplier credit. I'm assuming that you've already built up the credit, but if you haven't, you can build credit. You can establish, you can start with very low minimums, because the contracts are smaller in size in nature, and then begin growing that credit that way. Again, you're preparing yourself for the larger contract opportunities. The other thing is contracts. Have you ever signed a contract before? Do you know what a contract even looks like? Learn the importance of getting everything and writing when you're dealing with subcontractors, when you're hiring actual 1090 employees, 1099 employees. Again, these are skill sets that are very important for preparing you to become a number one, a prime, or become a sub on a larger scale project. If you're going to be managing people, you're going to be managing resources, you're going to be managing teams, getting things and writing, getting documentation and writing. Also learning about what questions you should be asking, because a lot of times, it's not what people tell you, it's what questions that you didn't ask. If you don't ask certain people, certain questions, they're not going to share the information. I had a situation this morning on a building that I'm building myself, where the electrician texts me because we're putting the roof on my duplex, again, it's one of my own personal projects. I don't have anybody out there managing or overseeing the job I'm doing it myself. So the guy says, well, before they put the roof on, I need to put a hole in the roof for my pipe, for the electrical pipe. Well, why didn't you tell me that sooner? Well, he says I thought you knew that. So a lot of times, the questions that you don't ask, or the questions that you don't know to ask, are more important than what the information that people are actually giving you, because people will not give you all of the information. But again, this is where starting out at the local level, at the state level, is going to play a vital role. Number five, great way to network with other like-minded individuals. And then we're going to go over to the website and see when you look at, this is Miami-Dade County. When you look at Miami-Dade County, here we have the Allied Minority Contracts Association, South Florida Chapter of Association, General Contracts of America, BAC Funding Corporation, Construction Association of Florida, Engineering Contracts Association of Florida, Latin Builders, Underground Contracts Association, Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce, Contract Resource Center. So these are all resources that are available to you. This is a way that, if you're coming from one industry to a new industry for your business, right? So let's say you worked in restaurants and now you're starting a business in logistics. This is a great way for you to get out here and start meeting people in logistics or in similar type industries or complementary industries that may can introduce you to people that you can network, maybe introduce you to potential suppliers or vendors or contractors or subcontractors to help you expand. So you start learning networking techniques. Number six, and for me, number six is really important, taking action. It's kind of like when you are smaller and they throw you in the pool and they tell you how to swim. Well, you're not going to learn sitting behind a computer. You're not going to learn how to do this just looking at fan base ops. You're not going to learn how to do this by just doing passive reactive type step. You're going to have to be proactive and take the initiative to start putting yourself out there. And that takes some, you know, conquering some fears and it takes some risk, right? So you've got to overcome some of those fears and put yourself out there. But the best way to do that is by taking action. You're going to, as you do more and more contracts, as you do more and more bids, you're going to become more confident doing it. So number six is taking action. It's a great way to actually learn contracting. I know that the big contracts intimidate a lot of you guys out there. So maybe some of these smaller contracts that they're readily available will help you get your feet wet and start building your confidence so that you can become prepared to take on some of those larger projects. Number seven, no need to travel long distances because all of the contracts are local, then you can basically drive everywhere, right? So it's going to be in your geographical area, your geographical region, and you can drive your car back and forth. You can go check on your project any time. And so it's much more convenient. It's less costly. And again, learning when you're starting to work with other people and other entities, it's a very good way to get practice in and working together. And that way, you know, you start learning how to handle problems and address issues. Also, when you're hiring a local workforce, you can hire local workforce. So when you're hiring workforce, when you're hiring actual employees, great way. Again, because the products are local, you can source locally. Hiring is a skill set. That's why people have human resource departments just for hiring and managing overseeing people. So this is a great way to build that skill set. You can hire slow and fire fast and start gaining some experience at the local level. But again, all of these things help prepare you for when you're managing projects in three different states, when you're overseeing jobs across the country. So all of these skills are going to be transferable as you grow your organization. But at the right now at the very beginning when you're getting started, great way to get your feet wet and start learning some of this stuff. Nine, the agencies, believe it or not, whether they're state or local, they've got a lot of money also. So these people, they have a lot of money. And for example, if we look right here, just at Miami-Dade County, their current pool of contracts, you'll see contracts that are expiring or in the next few four years, but I mean 6 million, 8 million, 27 million, 19 million, 29 million, 190 million, 27, 20 million dollars. So there's a lot of money in some of these contracts, even at the local level. So if you're thinking just in terms of size and money, there's a lot of stuff going on right now in your backyard that you can take advantage of. And if we go look at the states, same thing at the state budgets, I mean, look at these budgets, they're in the billions of dollars. So every state from California to Maryland to Missouri, they've got billion dollar, multi billion dollar budgets. So you're not going to have to worry about them not having money to pay you, at least in the interim. Number 10, they're going to train you. These organizations have perfected training and outreach programs. They're very good at it, even better so than the federal government. All of the, at least in Miami-Dade County, we have, for example, here's their website. Here's vendor outreach programs. Today is July 26. So they just had an outreach program a few days ago. They've got some coming up in January as well. But then for even beyond the outreach program, they got upcoming events, training, workshops, webinars, seminars. Look, on the eighth, they have a couple on the ninth, on the 12th. So every month they've got something going on. Great way to have someone partner with you, to partner with your business and getting you up and running because there are other skill sets like accounting and proposal writing and techniques, things that people want to know and they don't know. And the local cities are there to help support you and teach you those skills and those techniques. Number 11, bid preference and rotation list. If you've never heard of a rotation list, it's simply, let's say there's six or seven of you guys on a particular contract. And on that contract, let's say number one, two and three, I've already done jobs. They're going to now prioritize four, five and six down the line, right? So you will get a contract and then you'll go around again. And once everyone else has got a contract, they'll put you back on the list. It's called a rotation list and then bid preferences. Again, I'm referencing Miami-Dade County because I know Miami-Dade County, but if you scroll here on their website, it says right here, I'm going to zoom in a little bit, it says county departments are under the SBE certified micro enterprise receive an automatic 10% bid preference on contracts 50,000 and under. So for all of you out there that are looking at bidding those contracts 50,000 under, you're going to get an automatic 10% preference. What does 10% preference means? It means if your bid price is higher than the bigger company. And again, we're talking about not necessarily large businesses, but if you're in the program, the SBE program, and they're not in the SBE program, if your price is higher than they, you could get a 10% preference, right? So you can be 10% higher than them and it makes it basically the same playing field. So they're giving an opportunity to make more money as a small business. Number 12, you're going to meet all types of people out there, dynamic people, shysters, we call them pushers, poker players. When you're out and you're on a job site and you're bidding and you're considering bidding, right? So we go to site visit, you're going to meet some people, they're going to be anxious and they're going to tell you that they already know how to do this job and they've got the inside touch and, you know, you're going to see those kind of guys and then you're going to see the low bidder people who every job they get, whatever the government's proposal is, they're going to try to undercut the government to win the project. And then you're going to see some people that bid really high, right? So you're going to get a chance to meet interesting types of people. And again, I promise you this skill set is absolutely necessary for when you go out there and people are not trying to intimidate you by the way that they look, by the way that they sound, by what they talk about, by who they know, and you can be almost neutral in passing judgment upon the next bidder, the next contender out there, right? You will learn through experience and through practice and habits, right? That how many people are out there are full of it, how many people out there are sincere or how many people are out there changing when. So you're going to meet all facets of people. And a lot of times, if you've been a teacher or a counselor or some of your life, you may not see this type of interaction between people because you're not in a place where you're competing or contending for something against another entity or firm. So in our environment, because we are competing to win, then it's going to bring out the best and sometimes the worst in people. Number 13, you get the feeling of winning. I know that anytime that I win, I'm happy, right? You're elated. So in doing so, if you're starting out at this small level, you won't become so jaded about the process. You're going to automatically, once you start winning some jobs and doing and making money, you're going to automatically build confidence to build more confidence, right? So it's going to help boost your self-esteem and prepare you for any potential setback or downfall that you receive on the federal level because you didn't necessarily get that contract award. You already know how to overcome those feelings because you will have experience, joy, happiness and some success. So with success comes failure. You will learn by doing that maybe things don't always work out that way. Maybe, you know, you did bid the job, but someone else got it. That was cheaper. But at the same time, when you learn failure, you're going to learn that maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe that project wasn't meant for you. Maybe that person who won that project ran to a problem that you couldn't see for see happening and they end up suffering behind it. So again, you're going to learn the failing of winning. You're going to learn some of the feeling of losing. And I'm not saying losing money, but maybe losing on a contract that you thought you were the best fit person for or you thought you had the best pricing for, you know, whatever the case may be, you're going to know what that feels like and you'll have had some resistance. So that way you're better prepared to deal with all this stuff when it happens on the larger scale. Number 15, learn how to play the game. I hate to say that this is a game, but really when you look at it, you know, you're going to have to plant seeds. The seeds have to harvest. You have to water the seeds. You're going to have to till the soil. So there's a lot of steps in here that are very similar to winning at a game. But the biggest part is again, you have to get started. You've got to put one foot in front of the next. You've got to go to the stop sign. You have to do the activities. You have to do the work. And from what I've gathered from now looking at, you know, my subscriber, my base, half of the people out there are just getting started. So this is probably a much better avenue for them to take to help them grow, learn business and start learning how to play the game. In conclusion, I want to leave you a couple of tidbits and secrets, things that I've learned, things that I've used in my life and I continue to use. One of the things is when you're looking at what we're doing out here and you're looking at starting a business and you're very happy, you're very motivated. I know it happens time and time again. People tend to get very easily discouraged once they run into their first road bug. Well, I want you to take your failures, right? And minimize them to an inch. If you look at what we're doing as a marathon and not a sprint, take your failures and minimize them to an inch. And when you can minimize your failures to an inch, it doesn't make them seem so grandiose. You know, it's a technique that I use because once you start to spend a lot of time downing yourself and honing on and focusing on that one instant failure, that what you consider to be a failure, you're not going to find a way to resolve the issue or to look for solutions that help put you past that level. So again, I want to say reduce your failures to an inch. The other thing that I keep in my mind whenever I'm doing stuff is it's an experiment. I don't know how it's going to work out. All I know that I'm going to try. I'm going to give it my best. I'm going to give it my all. But at the end of the day, it's really it's an experiment. And so what I do is we continue following the process. And then we hope that the real results will come. So if you bid three or four jobs with this particular organization, then you'll start to see patterns of how people are bidding jobs. You start to see who's bidding high and who's bidding low. And you'll know whether or not this is something for you. And then you go on and maybe you'll bid with another agency or maybe you'll bid with another type of product or maybe you'll figure out some way to add more value so that you're not bidding. You're not the lowest bidder. And then the last thing, treat it like a game. Again, like I said, if you know the rules, then you have a better chance of winning the games. Learn the rules of contracting. Learn the rules of the people that you're working for. Learn how the other people are playing the game. Study your competitors. Study the agency. Get to know the people. The more that you know about the people, the agency, your competition, your suppliers, the more that you know, the more information that you have, the better suited, the better you are going to be in a position to actually realize some of the success of winning some of the success of getting the contracts and ultimately completing the product so you can put money in your pocket. So these are some of the tips. I hope that this video helped you guys out there and I'll see you next time.