Be Inspired! Not discouraged (Podcast Transcript)

                         [01:10] Richard C. Howard: Hey, guys, Rick here with DOD Contract Academy and the government Sales Momentum Podcast. So today I wanted to talk about a question. I got an email from one of the listeners who was discouraged at some of the things that I've said. I mentioned statistics, and there's a couple that I mentioned all the time. And as you guys know, you can make numbers mean anything that you want. A good marketer, a good statistician, can take any numbers and come to any conclusion. And I think that my messaging has confused certainly the person that emailed me and potentially some of you out there, so I just want to clarify what I'm talking about and just give you guys accurate information and you can make your own conclusions from this. But I often say that less than 10% of companies that are registered to sell to the government actually never sell anything to the government. And that's true from the math that I've done with the amount of companies that are actually registered. And then we can see who's actually selling each year. It certainly is the small majority, those companies that are selling products and services. And that could be taken as in this email. I'll read it to you.

                         I basically sent out if you've subscribed to my email list or if you're a member of the DOD Contract Academy, then you'll get regular updates. And I sent one out on the last episode, the last podcast episode. I sent an email update. Hey, check out our podcast with Oliver and Street Smart.VR. They've closed over 50 contracts with a DOD. They're SBIR face two graduates. They're really killing it. It's a great episode if you haven't heard it. And the email I got was, hey, that's awesome. Was discouraged when I saw less than 10% are awarded contracts. I started to feel like, what's the point. Thanks, Rick. And I won't use her name on here, but what I wanted you to know is, first of all, the 90% of companies that aren't selling anything, so there's a lot of reasons for that. First and foremost, everybody registered to sell to the government is certainly not trying to sell anything. So a lot of people go through and get a registration and actually never even write a proposal. You could take probably 10% right off the top right there, just someone that goes in and registers and never even submits anything. But what about the remaining companies? Why aren't they selling anything is the difference, right? So first, when I give that statistic, I am not talking about my clients. I'm not talking about people that are listening to this podcast like you, and I'm not talking about people in the DOD contract academy.

                         Those companies that are not selling anything fall into a couple of different categories. First and foremost are the companies that aren't selling anything. Most of them are good companies that have good products and services but just do not understand the process. And there aren't a lot of people like myself, like my team, that are putting information out there that is actually accurate as far as how you sell to the government. There's a lot of misinformation out there, and then there's just a chasm of no information, right? So I've often said if you're trying to figure out how to sell to, I mean, you pick your agency, but the information is literally scattered across hundreds of websites. And now it's up to you, the business owner who's trying to run a business, or the sales professional who's actually trying to sell something. Now you're trying to stitch together what's actually real, what's not, and what is the process.

                         Now, I have the benefit of having been an acquisitions officer, right? So I got to literally put companies on contract, hundreds of them. And I had companies pitching me all the time, and I saw what companies were doing wrong that never won anything, and I saw what companies were doing right that always won, and that includes small businesses that were killing it and the larger defense companies. And the theme, and this is what we teach in the academy, and this is what you hear me talking about on the podcast is whether it's a small business or a large defense company. And a lot of times the small businesses are just copying what the bigger defense companies are doing. They're doing the same things right. They're doing the same things right over and over again. And that's why they're winning those contracts. That's why the students and the companies that are in our DOD contract academy are consistently winning contracts. And hopefully that's also you the listener, and I've certainly got plenty of messages saying, hey, you've really helped us. Hopefully that's translating to you having some success selling to the US military and other government agencies.

                         I'm not saying that it's easy or it's fast and I never have, right? So just like anything worth doing, it takes a lot of work. And the government's timelines are not short timelines. The benefits to selling to the DOD and to the government and learning this process is that the contracts are typically pretty lucrative and they're stable, right? And it offers you another line of income. So if you're selling commercially and you're looking to pick up a new client base, then the US government or the Department of Defense could be a very strong income source for your business. And look, a lot of companies just focus on selling to the DOD. A lot of companies just focus on selling to different federal agencies.

                         Another statistic so that's the first point. The first point is that if you're following these guidelines, then you're not going to end up in that 90% that's not selling anything, right? And then, of course, there's one other category before I move on, of companies that they don't have a good product or service, right? And that's the minority. But look, first you need to have a superior product or service that you're bringing to the table, right? So personally, I don't work with clients that no matter how much money they have, if they're trying to sell to the US. Military, which is where I came from, and you're not bringing a service or a technology or something that's going to improve the lives of men and women in uniform, that's going to improve our posture, our defense posture, I'm not going to work with you, right? And you shouldn't work with companies like that either. Those companies aren't going to win. So if you don't have something yet worth selling, then you're not going to sell anything.

                         The government is not stupid. The people that are putting contracts together aren't stupid. And people typically in this space aren't just motivated by profit. They're also motivated because this is a good thing to do, helping our US. Military defend the country, helping the men and women in uniform, helping the government employees that are trying to do good work, and in a lot of cases, not getting paid a lot to make our country safe and to work correctly. It's a noble profession, helping those people. It just so happens that it can be pretty profitable for companies that figure it out. So you can be extremely successful selling to the government. You just got to approach it the right way. And I'm not going to get into all the different strategies and tactics.

                         We talk about the Magnatime there in the academy, if you remember there. You can go, obviously going through our courses and getting the weekly coaching and the community. So you're going to be successful if you have a great company and you're following these processes consistently. And that's what brings success. Now, another statistic I talk about is that less than 1% of all small businesses even registered to sell to the government. So I want to make sure I'm giving a message of inspiration, right? This is a niche that most companies don't even try. Most companies don't ever even attempt to sell to the government. And we know that because most companies don't ever register to sell to the government. So just by registering to sell to the government, you are giving yourself an opportunity to make sales that 99% of those other companies aren't giving themselves. Right? But now it's the process of, okay, now are we going to be able to take some time, like an hour, a day, or however long you want to put into it to actually learn the process?

                         Focus on a customer that actually buys your product or service, develop a relationship influence, and start winning contracts with them. So it's not going to happen overnight, but it can lead to a lot of success, just like it did with Oliver. We've worked with Oliver for a long time. They're doing phenomenal. Over 50 contracts closed with the DOD. And what they're doing is, if you listen to that podcast first, they were part of the SBIR program, small Business Innovative Research Program, which helps essentially companies develop technology, modify existing technology for government purpose. And there's a lot that goes into that. But they were very successful there, and they built off of that success. Because if you're a sip of phase two graduate, that can enable the government to put you on contract faster in a lot of cases, right? So you can use that, and there's a lot that goes into it, but you can use that to make it easier for the government to buy from you. And that's exactly what they're doing.

                         So now they're in, like I said, over 50 different units around the Air Force and other services. And that's phenomenal. Soon they're going to be getting to the next phase where they're going to be looking at large enterprise contracts and really scaling up after that. But if you listen to this, you can do the same thing, right? We had another member, and he's been on the podcast when just under $10 million in contracts. Within the same week, he won two other transaction authority contracts and one SBIR. Now, that didn't happen in two weeks. That was probably a six month process of identifying where they were going to submit their proposals, working with the teams, the government teams, learning what they were actually looking for, potentially putting in white papers ahead of time, and then proposals to land those deals. And with SBIRs and things like that, there's a little bit of work that goes into that. But obviously the payout can be amazing. But you've got to put the work in. You've got to put the time in. You've got to understand the process. So hopefully that dispels some of the rumors out there, or just me not messaging correctly, right? So this is a message of hope, inspiration. You can absolutely do this. You just have to follow a process, and it's very simple once you learn it, but it's not intuitive, right? So listen to the podcast. If you're interested, go to Dodcontract.com and you can learn a little bit more there.

                         [11:53] Richard C. Howard: Hey, guys, Ricky here. I hope you enjoyed this episode of government sales momentum. If you did enjoy the episode, please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. It's very much appreciated. If you're interested in selling products and services to the Department of Defense, I have something for you that you're not going to find anywhere else in the world. The team and I created a program that takes everything you need to win defense contracts and put it into one place. Up until now, only large defense companies and a small amount of people in the know have had access to how products and services are really sold to the Department of Defense. I've taken all of that information and put it in a step-by-step training module that shows you how to consistently sell to the US military to join our membership. Not only do you get the model, but you get weekly sessions with former DOD acquisitions officers for training and guidance to answer your questions, and a community of like minded business owners that want to partner on different opportunities to bid for subcontracting and teaming, or just to discuss general strategy on how to sell to the DOD. You'll have access to every course I've created, every coaching session I've ever recorded in every interview with an acquisitions professional that I've ever conducted, and we cover topics that range from defense sales planning and competitor analysis to SBIR and STTR foreign military sales. The list goes on. Go to Dodcontract.com if you are interested, and I would love to see you in the membership. Thanks.

You can also check out our episode on How a Management Consulting Company made over $7 Million in Government Contracts in just the past three years selling to various US government agencies. 

If you have any questions, feel free to reach us out here and we will get back to you as soon as we can.