Interview with Arturo Bobadilla (Podcast Transcript)

[00:00] Richard C. Howard: Hey guys, Ricky here, owner of Dodcontract.com and host of the Government Sales Momentum podcast. Well, thanks, everyone, for listening. Today I am talking with Arturo. How are you today, sir?

[01:19] Arturo Bobadilla: Doing great. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:21] Richard C. Howard: Good. And I know we just had a quick conversation before the podcast started. You're in Peru today.

[01:27] Arturo Bobadilla: Yes, I am.

[01:28] Richard C. Howard: Amazing. Working on projects. So you are a busy guy, and we really appreciate you taking some time to jump on the podcast with us and talk about federal contracting and selling to the DOD and whatnot.

[01:40] Arturo Bobadilla: Absolutely. Yes, of course.

[01:43] Richard C. Howard: Fantastic. Well, Taro, if you could, could we maybe start by talking about what your company does, what you specialize in, maybe a little bit of history there.

[01:53] Arturo Bobadilla: Yes, my company satisfied the veteran’s fairs. I'm a company, a small company. I am veteran disabled as well, 100% owner of Proficient General Contractors.

[02:12] Richard C. Howard: Okay.

[02:12] Arturo Bobadilla: Thank you.

[02:17] Richard C. Howard: Okay, perfect. And what does your company do?

[02:22] Arturo Bobadilla: We are a service and procurement for the federal government, especially for the VA hospitals.

[02:29] Richard C. Howard: You help with procurement for the VA.

[02:31] Arturo Bobadilla: Hospital, procurement, services and services, construction services, and all trades.

[02:42] Richard C. Howard: Okay. You say all trades.

[02:45] Arturo Bobadilla: Correct.

[02:46] Richard C. Howard: Okay. What's the name of your business?

[02:48] Arturo Bobadilla: Precision general contractors. LLC.

[02:52] Richard C. Howard: Precision, yes. General Contractors.

[02:56] Arturo Bobadilla: Yeah.

[02:57] Richard C. Howard: Great. So with Precision General Contractors, and you said you are certified SDV OSB. So for our listeners, that's a set aside certification that you can get if you're a service disabled veteran and you can't just sign up for it. You have to go through the process. Right. And so you went through the VA, and I know it sounds like you're doing a lot of work with the VA. Is that the case?

[03:23] Arturo Bobadilla: That's correct, yes.

[03:24] Richard C. Howard: Okay.

[03:25] Arturo Bobadilla: Not only with the VA, but also we did some projects for the Costco and the Army Corps of Engineer.

[03:34] Richard C. Howard: Yes, Army Corps of Engineers. Sure.

[03:35] Arturo Bobadilla: Yeah.

[03:36] Richard C. Howard: And that makes sense if you're working, if you do a lot of construction related services and whatnot. That's very cool. So you've been doing this now for a few years. You've got your certification. I know the VA likes to use that certification a lot, where they give preference to Sdvsb companies that are selling services and products. Maybe we could talk a little bit about where you're at now. It sounds like you have some past performance with these agencies. What are your goals as far as selling to the government over the next couple of years?

[04:08] Arturo Bobadilla: Yes, I'm working on getting more certification so we can do some work for the Bod and the VHS. My main goal is to be able to work two projects for the Embassies worldwide. And so I'm working on those certifications that we speak with one of my legal departments in the state of Florida. So that's something that's the main goal, being able to do projects overseas.

[04:38] Richard C. Howard: Okay, interesting. So is that targeting us? Military installations overseas?

[04:47] Arturo Bobadilla: Only US. Military.

[04:49] Richard C. Howard: Okay, fantastic. Because there is the foreign military sales aspect too, which you could potentially jump into if you're working overseas like that. Okay, great. Where right now do you see your challenges?

[05:04] Arturo Bobadilla: Employees? Yeah, that's one of the main things that I'm working on, trying to hire as many veterans that know how the government, the federal government system works. It's not that easy. That's one of the main challenges that I'm facing right now. My company is facing right now. Little by little, we are trying to here and there to recruit ex military personnel so they can help us get what we're going to get.

[05:43] Richard C. Howard: So when you say that understanding how the process works, the government process works, do you mean that you're looking for people to help you with your acquisitions, with the business, like with the opportunities, finding opportunities, closing contracts? And whatnot are you looking more for the employees that would actually be doing like your construction services and working on the bases and whatnot?

[06:03] Arturo Bobadilla: It's all about securing projects. When it comes to the project itself, I subcontract people through the company, and that's something that I've done it before many times. It's not that hard. It's just the people itself that will go after every contract or opportunity that a federal government has and secure those.

[06:27] Richard C. Howard: Yes. That's a pain point that a lot of small businesses especially have. And when I say small, I mean small by NAICS code. Right. So businesses that are doing under 20, $30 million a year in revenue, depending on your NAICS code. I think the problem they find is obviously selling to the government is so much different from selling commercially or B to B. That finding somebody with that skill set can be, first of all, difficult just to find somebody and then just from my experience as an acquisitions officer tell you. Most of us end up working for the big defense contractors and they're just gobbling people up and have some crazy offers that's hard to compete with if you're a small business and find someone that's trained. And that's part of what we're doing too with our businesses, is training sales executives and certifying them for federal sales, so they actually in military sales, so they actually understand the process and the acronyms and how to go about capturing those contracts. So that might be something that we can talk about later, but maybe for now it might help me to understand what's your process now for finding contracts and closing those? Is that something you're doing yourself? Is that something you have somebody in your office doing?

[07:48] Arturo Bobadilla: My project manager, actually she was the main member of my company back in 2019, late 2020. She passed away because of public oh no. And sort of put me in a position that I have to pretty much redo the whole company since I was counting on par me going overseas and working on different projects. She's the one in the state that was running the whole show. So other than finding qualified employees, I'm also working on finding an approaching manager general to run the business while working overseas. Sure. Right now, I would say I'm working 75% with a company in going after projects. Not really big projects, just the small ones. I can keep the company open sure until I'm able to hire these two side of the company to these two divisions, my general manager and the employees. But to your question is I'm working on 75% of the company right now.

[09:13] Richard C. Howard: Okay. It's hard to manage your company and do the work and then also have to go after all the contracts and whatnot.

[09:24] Arturo Bobadilla: It's been a challenge, especially with the restrictions that we have. And it's not the same as pre-pandemic that we were able to go and do the site visits, projects face to face, meeting with the contracting officers. Now everything is virtual and most of the time we meet so many people up in the construction, for example, we have to delay the work, the starting of the project, and so it makes our job a lot harder. Sure, older than employees.

[10:00] Richard C. Howard: Yeah. No, it does. What's your primary tool that you use to find upcoming opportunities? Is it word of mouth or you're going through Sam.gov?

[10:09] Arturo Bobadilla: No, fedbiz.

[10:11] Richard C. Howard: Fedbiz? Yeah. So used to be FedBizOps. Now it's, I think, betasam.gov. Right. But it's that's correct.

[10:18] Arturo Bobadilla: Yes. That's a government website that has all projects available out there.

[10:24] Richard C. Howard: And when you look for them, are you looking like by state of Florida because you have certifications there with the VA or are you looking for Solicitations or more like RFI sources thought?

[10:35] Arturo Bobadilla: No, my certification is nationwide.

[10:38] Richard C. Howard: Oh, it is nationwide. Okay.

[10:40] Arturo Bobadilla: Yeah. Including Puerto Rico. So I do projects in different states, including Puerto Rico. So whatever fits well within my scope of work or if I'm able to find subcontractors in some other states, then we go after those projects.

[10:59] Richard C. Howard: Okay, interesting. Are you writing proposals on solicitations or are you going after opportunities like pre solicitations, like, before they actually know the requirements. Are you able to talk with them both?

[11:15] Arturo Bobadilla: Yeah, we get a lot of invitations from different states, especially within the VA hospital or VA system. And those are invitations because we have a past performance. So we go after that. We put a bit we know how much to go after in terms of amount of money. We know how to work that system. So that's what we do. That's our practice.

[11:42] Richard C. Howard: Okay.

[11:43] Arturo Bobadilla: Interesting to gain those projects.

[11:45] Richard C. Howard: And when you first started in selling to the federal government and selling to the VA. What were some of the first projects that you ended up landing? Was that using your certification through the VA. Or you're kind of figuring out the government system there? How did you get started?

[12:04] Arturo Bobadilla: Well, as soon as I got out of the service, I started hitting, knocking doors, Miami hospital, Miami, fort Lauderdale, palm beach, because it was closer to the office. So face-to-face, I was just talking to every contracting officers with my capability statement to show them what I was capable of doing. Luckily, I would say I was lucky. Three of the CEOs opened the door for me. So that's how I started working on small projects like plumbing, AC, and some other procurement that they needed, like medical equipment, supplies, etc.

[12:50] Richard C. Howard: And right. Well, that's interesting. We talk a lot about how important relationships are and actually talking to people instead of just putting a proposal in on solicitation and having no outside information. And it's interesting, you got your foot in the door by literally going and knocking on the doors and kind of generating that relationship and turning into something.

[13:17] Arturo Bobadilla: It was a good experience, really good. I mean, getting to talk to these CEOs, which are also ex military members and some other division within the VA system, so we were able to talk the same language, military language, and so there was a commodity, there was a nd, so they knew where I was coming from in terms of trying to build a business and things like that. And I built alongside with them the trust, whatever I said, I promise in documents that's exactly what I was going to go into.

[13:58] Richard C. Howard: Deliver okay, interesting.

[14:00] Arturo Bobadilla: Yeah, that was really important.

[14:04] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, that's definitely important. And it's interesting starting small the way you did and then building up about right now, size wise, about how many employees would you say you have at one time on average, and what kind of size jobs can you handle at this point?

[14:24] Arturo Bobadilla: The biggest one I was able to do was $15 million project. Now I'm just going, what is small? Less than a million dollars, as mentioned before, just to keep the doors of the business open, and then I'm able to find the right people to take over the project, the business itself, so I can again go back to what we used to do.

[14:50] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, that's interesting. And of course, we always want to help everybody on the policy too. So is it a project manager specifically you're looking for or somebody more associated with business development that has that kind of federal background?

[15:04] Arturo Bobadilla: We have to have a federal background. It doesn't matter whether it's a project manager or just simply the administration side of the business that's going to be able to run every employee within the company and to supervise. That's the easy thing. But I have to have a military background on how to work within the federal system. Sure, that's the key.

[15:32] Richard C. Howard: No, I agree. It's a very specialized skill set and it's necessary because it can take years to learn that right correctly, especially if you're just stumbling around trying to learn it as you go.

[15:45] Arturo Bobadilla: Yeah, that's right.

[15:46] Richard C. Howard: Interesting. So now you're of a certain size. You've been doing this for a while. How about contract vehicles? Are you on GSA? How does the government usually put you on contracts?

[15:58] Arturo Bobadilla: I think it was for the past two or three years, the category between GSA and the companies, they put us on the same GSA category where if you wanted to go after GSA projects, we were able to go after as well, and we were able to get it to get those projects. So I think the government somewhat along the line, they increase our certification capabilities too much to the USA.

[16:38] Richard C. Howard: Oh, that's interesting. Okay, so that sounds like it's worked out for you. Is that typically how you'll go on contract? Are you typically competing for your contracts with other companies? Is there any sole source contracts that you're able to win?

[16:55] Arturo Bobadilla: The service disabled company, everything is set aside when it comes to the VA hospitals or VA projects. When it comes to per se, the engineers, we have to go and not fight but compete with other companies because we already learned the mathematics calculation of how much we can mark up our price and more so that we have our first perform for us, then we were able to secure those projects.

[17:38] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, it really speaks to you, just as I listen to you, the power of not only understanding pricing, which is really important, but how important past performance is, as well as that. If you have a certification that makes sense, whether it's SDV, OSB and kind of knowing where to hunt. Right. With VA, for instance, they like to use that a lot, or Woman on Small Business and AA, they all have their pluses right and ways that you can kind of exploit those and try to create inroads for the government. Interesting. So right now, how could I best help you? What would you want to talk about now where we could vector the conversation to potentially help you and your business, whether it's expanding globally or are there anything within the acquisitions process or strategies that you'd like to talk about.

[18:32] Arturo Bobadilla: I guess everybody knows this. The Pandemic put us in the situation. We have to start all over again because it's a lot of employees that they stop working if they quit. That's the main challenge that we're facing right now. So whether these employees are there in Florida or some other states on hiring, because physically they don't have to be in Florida. And that's something I've been working on with the different private agencies, employment agencies, they're looking for this type of employees anywhere in the US. So we can hire them and not only go after purchase within Florida State, but also in different states. And that's something that I'm working on. And so I guess it's not enough working with these two or three agency companies that I'm working with to find the employees and also my project manager or my general manager to run the business. So that alone is a hard work for me to get this company back on the road. Okay, that's the challenge that I'm having right now.

[20:04] Richard C. Howard: Got you. And we certainly have a variety of listeners to the podcast and a pretty large network of other small businesses and companies that we work with to include recruiting organizations that might be able to help you on all fronts. Or potentially one of the sales executives that goes through our training might be somebody that you could use as a program manager to help you with your business. So that's something we could certainly talk about and we could send any of those leads or information on individuals your way.

[20:34] Arturo Bobadilla: Yeah, I appreciate that.

[20:38] Richard C. Howard: Great. Well, your business is interesting, and I find it interesting how you're going global and you're in Peru now doing work. And it's nice to see a small business, especially a former military member, kind of grab the certification right away, build the business up and to be doing really well. Like you said, COVID really did change things for everybody, right? A lot of businesses, it killed a lot of businesses. It created virtual spaces where they didn't exist before. And quite a few companies bought into federal sales during COVID because they lost their commercial base, which is an interesting twist. Some got out and some new ones got in. I will say that because I work in this space and I'm seeing things, the past six months, things have really started opening up from my perspective as far as being able to go and do live events with, like you mentioned, being able to sit with the contracting officers and program managers. We're able to start doing that again. The conferences are starting to come back alive where a lot of businesses are going and attending and networking and doing all of that. So I do see a lot of momentum picking up here as far as that's concerned. So hopefully it will naturally alleviate itself and potentially we can make some connections for you as well as far as some of your employees are concerned.

[22:00] Arturo Bobadilla: That'll be awesome. I appreciate that.

[22:02] Richard C. Howard: Great.

[22:03] Arturo Bobadilla: Yeah.

[22:05] Richard C. Howard: Fantastic. Well, I appreciate your time today. If you have any other questions, we could stay online and keep talking or we could end the podcast. Absolutely. Up to you.

[22:12] Arturo Bobadilla: No, that's pretty much it. I'm flying and traveling constantly not only here in South America but also part of Europe, trying to build a business outside of the business. I'll be back to Florida in the next two weeks and continue working, recruiting the right people. So once again to build the company again. Right, but I'm really helpful. The help is there with zero. We always keep that up. So no matter what condition.

[22:55] Richard C. Howard: You're not really starting from zero because you do have that past performance and you have incredible background. And so you're going to be able to go in there and not only do what you did before, but I'm sure keep increasing and go globally like you're looking to do. One last question for me, maybe it's a two part one. Do you do commercial work as well as government work? And why do you focus on the government and the DOD for work? Why is that part of your business?

[23:24] Arturo Bobadilla: It's a lot easier for me at least it's a lot easier work with the federal government projects rather than I call it private commercial business. Since the money is secure, the project is a lot quicker than commercial site. In the commercial, we have to do a lot with inspectors and rejections and their policies are a lot harder than within the federal government. So working with the federal government, most of the employees within that side of that division, they are ex military. They know what we're doing. Once again, we speak the same language, military language. And so the understanding of what we're coming from is there. The commodity, the friendship, the brotherhood is there other than the policy itself. So for me at least it's better, it's easier and it's quicker to work on federal contract.

[24:34] Richard C. Howard: I think I'm smiling because I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear that the federal government was faster at doing anything. But my wife's in real estate, so I could certainly understand all the inspections and everything that goes into kind of working commercially there with the local governments and all their processes. So yeah, in some cases there's no question that the federal government is faster. And it sounds like in your case that's one of them. And I agree. I think the stability of the contracts, they tend to be lucrative too. You kind of understand the system, you know what to expect.

[25:07] Arturo Bobadilla: Yeah, like I said, if we know how to do the math by taking all these projects within the federal government, the profit is there. You always make money and you make money quickly, very quick, in short term project. So you can target three, four, or five projects at the same time, and you make the money there, it's very easy. So that's something that I prefer to do rather than commercial.

[25:42] Richard C. Howard: Well, I think that is going to be very helpful to our listeners, especially those maybe in the same kind of industry as you. Do you ever work with subcontractors or teaming? Are you open to teaming arrangements? So if there's a business that maybe needs a company that can do construction or maybe they do perform some type of service that would be related, are you interested in any of those types of agreements or relationships?

[26:07] Arturo Bobadilla: It's a good thing that you ask him that, because back in the I think I was, 2016, one of the biggest contracting of companies, general construction companies in the state of Florida and Broward county, they wanted to buy my company because they wanted to do a lot of federal contracting. And so they offered me $7 million to buy my company. So I said no, not knowing what was going to happen in 2020. So yes, I'm open for JV, with whoever wants to go over federal contracting. I'm really open to negotiate with anyone who wants to go after federal contract. I'm not 100% to make everything, every penny. I like to share what we have, our capabilities, our performance, that know how to do federal contracting business, but more so to be able to hire veterans to work with us because we owe, we owe to them. And I'm there 100% to get back to these institutions, whether it's army, navy, or the other forces, so they can have also the piece of the pie and learn how the business works. And if they want to go on their own, so be it. I'm all for it. Why not? Why not help them?

[27:45] Richard C. Howard: Absolutely. And as a veteran myself, I appreciate that. And those veterans listening out there, you always hear about veterans struggling to find jobs and whatnot, but this is one industry, and I remember when I joined the air force, I asked, hey, what is a job within the government that actually translates into or within the military that translates into a great paying job afterwards? And without hesitation, everyone said acquisitions, whether it's a contracting officer, program manager, if you have knowledge of those systems that can really translate into something for you afterwards. And I think to your point, even if you were in the military and not involved with acquisitions at all, you do still speak the same language. You're not starting from zero. So if you were in the navy or you were in the army and you're looking for a job, this might be a profession that you hadn't considered, but you could probably pick up with a little bit more speed than somebody without that type of background. You speak the language, you can learn a little bit of acquisitions, especially specific to a career, and that's for me. That's usually what I'm advising people. The five Federal Acquisitions regulations, it can be intimidating, but if you focus on your industry and who you're selling to, that narrows it down from a huge ocean to like a little pond. And that is a much easier bit of information to grasp and to become proficient in.

[29:10] Arturo Bobadilla: Absolutely, yes, you're right. The way how I do business is that I hate to pay salary. I'd rather pay percentage to them so they become part of the company. They will make more money as partnership by me paying them for, say, if we get a project in Illinois. Whether it's a small or large project, whatever they want to make is up to them. And I'll be more than glad to find the contract name. They'll go after the projects. I know if it's a one or $2 million projects and they want to example, they want to make 30 or 40% of that project, why not money? Have to make the money, why not speak? I have a big, big faith in what we do, and so why not help people by applying this kind of business to them? It's not all about my company. It's not all about me. It's about all of us. So we do business basically management, human beings. So we give them this opportunity and I help for them to make a massive amount of money. Why not? That's my philosophy.

[30:35] Richard C. Howard: That's very generous. And again, for anyone listening here, I'll talk with you a little bit after here, Arturo, about how you want to be contacted. But I'll certainly put some information in the notes of the show, whether it's contacting me or Arturo directly for employment. JV which I think you were referring to joint venture opportunities.

[30:55] Arturo Bobadilla: That's correct.

[30:56] Richard C. Howard: So if there's anything that we talked about and you'd like to be in contact, we could certainly do that. Do you have any closing statements or last thoughts?

[31:05] Arturo Bobadilla: Look, I do appreciate this podcast. I'm able to speak to you and military member what we do for others and while we are capable for others, because this is something that we learn in the military. So once again, my appreciation is enormous to you and thank you so much for allowing me to talk to you and your audience and see how much we can do together to help. Thank you.

[31:44] Richard C. Howard: Archer trust me, the honor is all mine. And I think you're right. The big picture is, when we're talking about selling to the military, sometimes it gets missed that at the end of the day, we're helping our country be a better place. Right. So no matter what the service you're providing is, people don't often think of things besides weapons systems that are being provided. But really, as you know, military buys everything from construction and office supplies to lawn care and food and everything else, and anything you can do and do well and provide to the military, it helps us be a stronger country. It helps us defend ourselves, and it helps the men and women in uniform. So, no, thank you for everything you're doing. And, yeah, we'll call today on the podcast and we'll reach out to you with any inquiries.

[32:34] Arturo Bobadilla: Thank you so much. God bless.

[32:36] Richard C. Howard: Thank you. Arturo. 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 at 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. You join our membership, not only do you get the model, but you get weekly sessions with former DOD acquisitions officers for training guidance to answer your questions in 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 have access to every course I've created, every coaching session I've ever recorded, and every interview with an acquisition professional that I've ever conducted. And we cover topics that range from defense sales planning and competitive editor 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 GSA Questions where I talked about about GSA and how you can use it. 

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