How Should The US Government Make Purchases? (Podcast Transcript)

                         [01:15] Richard C. Howard: Hey, guys, Richard here with Richard C. Howard and associates and the government Sales Momentum Podcast. So whether you're listening to this on the podcast or watching a video on YouTube or website. Thanks for tuning in today we're going to take a little bit of a different turn and I'm just going to comment on an article I just read which basically was talking about the government's purchasing strategies and specifically should the government be going after the best value for goods and services. Should they be buying the best product or should they be promoting social objectives? Now really the article was just saying hey, should they get the best deal or should they promote social objectives? And what they were really addressing is the rise in small business set asides instead asides for particular subgroups like woman owned small business service, disabled veteran owned small business eight, a hub zone, etc. For now the article was making the case that when the government does set aside their purchasing for the small businesses in those subcategories that the price goes up and that they're not getting the best bang for the buck, I guess you could say when it comes to federal spending.

                         Now I have a little bit of a different take having been on the other side of this, on the government side, not only as the procurer but as the military guy using some of the equipment and the services that the government was buying. And I can tell you my take is I don't necessarily want the government to get the best deal because the best deal, meaning the cheapest deal, almost always equals not great equipment, not great services and sometimes promoting social objectives actually makes sense, right? And it doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to pay more because you have set something aside for small business. In fact, what I've seen is that a lot of times the larger companies can force the little guy out if they don't have those set asides, if they don't have any requirements. So for me, as a user of some of the whether I'm flying or I'm on the ground with a piece of technology, I want the best technology that money can buy that's going to help us execute the mission, right? So at the end of the day, if you have soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and wives are on the line, you don't want the government to get the cheapest radios that they're using to call in air strikes or to get some support if they're in trouble. You want something that's actually going to work. And if the government has to pay a couple of extra dollars for that, then they should be as a taxpayer, that's what I want them to do. I don't want the cheapest and even with labor. So a lot of times you may have heard the term lowest price technically acceptable and you'll see the government putting these types of contracts out there and a lot of companies hear that and they already the hair on the back of the neck stands up from the government side. What we would see sometimes is you get lowest price technically acceptable and you see a new contract company come in and the employees, the people, a lot of the civilians, not the government civilians, but the contracted civilians that are out there doing a lot of the work. You still want the best people.

                         [04:27] Richard C. Howard: And if you're trying to pay them the minimum, you're not going to get the best people. And that affects the way the government does business and it affects the way that we conduct our military missions and our government missions nationwide. So really, I just wanted to bring that up. I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you want to send us a comment whether to our email address attached to the podcast or go to our website, Dodcontract.com what do you think? Should the government be just getting the best value, the best bang for the buck? Should we be looking at the best product? Should we be trying to buy the best product no matter what the cost? And how do you feel about promoting social objectives through government purchasing? Do you think that it's right that we are actually trying to promote different social causes by purchasing from specific groups of people versus just focusing on the technology or the product or service? And again, for me, I think the answer to that is it depends for a lot of products and services. You can segment that into a group that is disenfranchised something. Especially like IT services. Right. Where you have a lot of different companies competing in that trade space. There's no reason why you can't set it aside for a woman own small business. Minority owned business service. Disabled. Veteran owned. Small business. You're going to get plenty of great A players that you guys really hear and enjoy.

                        [05:55] Richard C. Howard: 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. If you 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.

If you enjoyed this episode, you can also check out our podcast on Non Traditional Approaches to Government Contracting to know more on what I would consider the nontraditional approach to acquisition.

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