Interview with Mark Amtower - Federal Marketing Strategist (Podcast Transcript)

[00:00] Richard C. Howard: Thanks everyone, for tuning in this week. This is Ricky Howard with the Government Sales Momentum podcast. And this week, I'm here with Mark Amtower. Mark, how are you today?

[01:21] Mark Amtower: I'm doing great, Rick. Thanks for having me.

[01:24] Richard C. Howard: No, thanks for coming on. You have an amazing history in the federal marketplace. Managing partner, and correct me if I get any of this wrong, managing Partner for Amp Tower and company author. You also have the amp tower report. It looks like you are also a host for the Amp Tower off center. Looks like federal sales and marketing and advice. A.m. radio. Is that correct?

[01:50] Mark Amtower: Am radio. That's a funny thing. I didn't know it was a podcast. I've been on the radio for 16 years and people started telling me they were listening to my podcast and I got confused.

[02:05] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, I mean, podcasts are huge now. Obviously I'm doing well, but everyone's got a podcast now, but people listen to them. People love being able to listen when they want to and download it, and obviously people are listening to you. And of course you're also focused a lot on LinkedIn and marketing and coaching there. So there's a lot that I would love to cover today, but maybe I could hand it over to you and you could give us a background on yourself, your career and kind of why you're doing what you're doing.

[02:33] Mark Amtower: Well, my degrees are in American literature, so I'm still a little surprised that I ended up here. But after college, I taught for a little while and I found out that tenure track wasn't going to happen and teaching part time didn't pay. So I got a job. I worked my way through graduate school, telemarketing, and I developed some skills that way. And that translated into a job working with a company that sold management training to Fortune 1000 fortune 100 actually, and government agencies. And that was my entry into the government market. In 1985, I decided I did not like working for other people. I was living down to their expectations rather than living up to mine. But as I looked around the market, nobody was treating marketing to the government as a separate discipline. So I had some skills at that point. So I decided I was just going to migrate in that direction and I started compiling databases of key feds and selling them in a little debase program. And then I found out that there was deliverability. This was back in the days of direct mail, right? Right. So I found out there were deliverability problems in federal mailroom. So I introduced myself to a lot of federal mailroom managers. I started an association that included the publications that were going into federal agencies so we could actually meet with the federal mail managers and resolve these issues. And I crawled around federal mailrooms, as mail was being processed, delivered and processed. And that was an education. So I knew more about direct marketing to the government than anybody living except for those mailroom managers. The market morphed. And in the 90s this email thing came along. In the early 2000s, this Web 20 stuff came along. I've been evolving with the market for 37 years and I'm still having a really good time doing whatever the hell it is I do.

[05:00] Richard C. Howard: Well, that was a great synopsis. I think it's really going to resonate with the small businesses that are typically listening to the podcast. Because marketing to the federal government is probably one of the questions I get the most. How do they do it? A lot of companies are frustrated because they either don't have the contacts to market you or maybe they don't understand the process, right? Should they be sending out 1000 emails to 1000 contacts that they have never met? Maybe they just bought a list somewhere. Or is there a more refined, targeted approach that they can take where they bringing value and that could actually produce results?

[05:39] Mark Amtower: Well, I mean, you do this I have a small business advisory program that runs a year. But basically you need to know the processes. You need contractual vehicles or access to contractual vehicles through partnerships, joint ventures or whatever. As soon as you register on Sam, some slime ball from wherever is going to call you and tell you need a GSA schedule. That's not the case for most companies. So know the landscape. Go to a PTAC. Procurement technical assistance centers are designed to educate those entering the market on the basics. So if you don't know the basics, just don't come in. Don't try to play because it's not an easy market. There's no low hanging fruit. So once you figure out where you might fit in the market, then get some adult supervision, some help from the outside to figure out exactly where you can go and which vehicles you're going to need and how to approach the customers and there's a number of consultants out there that can help with that. And again, you have to vet these people because there's a number of companies out there that also are saying they can do this and they don't. They'll take your money and run away. So be cautious. Vet everybody that you talk to. But I work on the visibility side. I'm a marketing guy. So government executive, one of the dominant media properties in the market, a couple of weeks ago hosted their leading brand study, an annual study, and this was a six or seven. And during the seven years that I've been attending their brand event, there are two major factors. Is an agency aware of you and what do they think of you? So it's awareness and reputation kind of situation and there's a lot of ways to deal with both, to become aware. But the crux of the matter there is if a contracting officer or program manager is not aware of you, doesn't know who you are, the likelihood that they're going to read any material from you drops to about zero. And there's just too much stuff coming in. If they don't know you, why would they want to? So developing a reputation is key, but it's not going to be the same for everybody. Everybody should be focusing on a niche, an agency, a particular. If you're into technology, don't tell me you're into cyber, tell me what aspect of cyber you're in. Zero. Trust, continuing diagnostics and mitigation, whatever it might be. So then you start building a core of content around your expertise, and it's got to be on your website, it's got to be on your LinkedIn profile, it's got to be findable and it has to be shareable and it has to be valid. Okay, so you're starting to demonstrate your expertise, so you're starting to create awareness, but you're not creating awareness across government. That's silly. So you're focusing on an agency or you're focusing on a pocket of technology users. So once you do that, then you're approaching partners, then you're figuring out which vehicles you need to be on. Then you can start outreach to key players who are going to influence inside the agency the procurement. So no single player is going to make the decision. In government is usually a team and you just have to slowly create awareness with them and build your credibility.

[09:47] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, I think that definitely resonates with me. I'm sure the podcast listeners are maybe even getting sick of hearing and we over and over again talked about how important it is to focus and know who you're selling to in the government. And you're right, it doesn't make sense to market to the entire government because most of the government can't even make a purchase. But you need to know who's actually buying the product or service you're selling. And luckily in the public sector, that information is mainly public and you can go out and you can find who's making a lot of those purchases and start developing your target. A lot of what you said sounded a little bit like content marketing, even on the commercial side.

[10:28] Mark Amtower: Right.

[10:28] Richard C. Howard: So only maybe more refined and focused towards the agency you're selling to. Do I get that right?

[10:35] Mark Amtower: That is exactly right. I started generating content on the marketing side 31 years ago. I think my first newsletter came out in 91. And back then, nobody was writing about marketing to the government, so I was able to build a pretty decent audience, but content and here's the cool thing. I was writing about content that other people were sending to the government. That was the first content that I was generating these really cool newsletters that were mailed into the government and now they look simplistic, but back then they were the educational tools for teaching people inside government. Everything was shrink-wrapped software then. So you'd send out a newsletter with tips on how to use Excel or formatting Word documents. And those were valuable.

[11:33] Richard C. Howard: Absolutely.

[11:36] Mark Amtower: My content was writing about other people's content. And frankly, that's what marketing is about, looking out there to see what works for other people and then adapting it to your situation. People still want those tips.

[11:54] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, no question. It's almost an art form, in my opinion, on how to get in front of the right people in the government and to kind of send the right message. I know on the government side, as a PM, I would be inundated with companies trying to market towards me, but every now and then there would be a company that did their homework and knew what problem I was trying to solve in our acquisition shop, and they have a solution that they want to talk about and that type of thing would resonate with me. Does that have anything to do because I know I didn't read your entire book, but I read some of the essays in there. And so you talked a little bit about staying in your market and your target market. Could you talk a little bit or expand on that a little bit? Is that due to you want to learn about your target market and develop those relationships? Is it other?

[12:46] Mark Amtower: Well, you just said it when you were a PM, somebody had to do research to understand what your problems were. If your content or your outreach is generic, there's absolutely no reason to get a response. So the more finite, the more you're addressing the individual's more immediate concerns or even longer term concerns, the more that person is going to see that you took the time to understand the issues that they're facing right now. Right. You can address those issues intelligently and succinctly, and that's the key also being succinct. Then you've got a likelihood of starting a conversation of building a relationship. And make no mistake about it, this is a relationship driven market and it always has been.

[13:38] Richard C. Howard: Yes, that is a point that I think gets lost on a lot of people, and I tell a lot of listeners, clients, and whatnot I probably knew 99% of time what company I wanted to hire before an RFP ever left the office. I didn't always get to hire the company I wanted to, but I always knew there was a company that could solve the problem, and they were probably my preferred person to win that contract. We still had to go through the process and everything, but they have a huge advantage being in that position. So I think being focused like that and having a target and understanding your customers is extremely important. How does this relate to LinkedIn? So you focus a lot on LinkedIn. You talk about it in your book as well. And obviously I've been through your awesome LinkedIn profile. Can you talk a little bit about how a small business should approach their LinkedIn profile and maybe some tips that they could use, assuming that they're already registered and they already have a target in a niche?

[14:35] Mark Amtower: Yeah, let's hope you focus on that first. But I joined LinkedIn in 2004, so I was an early adopter. The market wasn't here until 2010, but GSA negotiated at that point. Deals with all of these social networks on how information about government employees could be used. Once that happened, the Feds, DOD and IC started joining LinkedIn in fairly significant numbers. And I started talking about LinkedIn Nine, and I haven't stopped. So people would say, Fence aren't here, they don't care about this stuff. So I started doing a census in 14 of Feds on LinkedIn, and I do the census every year. Now there's 2.5 million feds on LinkedIn. I've identified 552 different offices, operating divisions, and agencies that have company pages on LinkedIn. So you can get very granular about who you want to find and do some outreach. But your outreach has to have a context. If you just send out the form letter, I want you in my network, you're going to get the form letter back, go to hell away. You're just not going to respond. You've got to have first of all, your profile has to reflect some sort of expertise in an area that the invitation recipient understands and can relate to. Okay? They're not going to connect with just everybody. But feds do connect on LinkedIn. I've got about just under 11,000 connections, virtually all in the market, and probably 7% or 8% of those are Feds. And keep in mind, I'm a marketing guy. I rarely reach out to Feds, but I have them reaching out to me because of things that I say on the radio or in my column in Wash Tech or what I'm speaking. So they will accept requests to connect. And if you have some visibility or expertise, they'll reach out to you.

[17:08] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, no, those are all really good points. So having your profile reflect what you're doing is definitely a huge one because I know that I would go and check out who's requesting to connect with us here and seeing if they're legitimate and what are they doing. Plus you can get an idea of if you happen to hit somebody in the government that is, let's say you're targeted a program manager or acquisitions officer of some sort and you're looking to help solve one of their problems, they can go to your website and kind of get an understanding of exactly what your niche is aside from the title next to your name. That could be hugely beneficial as well. Often I'll even because we'll have some listeners talk about, hey, maybe during the process, the RFI sources saw a process, something along those lines and having trouble either scheduling a meeting or reaching out to some point of contact over there. LinkedIn could be a great way to find some people that are in that program and maybe getting around the clutter of I know the US. The AF Mil mailboxes a lot of times block emails from coming out. And so if you're sending emails, you might not even be hitting your contacts on the other side. So LinkedIn is a great way to just as a secondary measure just to say, hey guys, I've reached out and maybe I sent you something here and we're trying to provide a solution just to make sure you got it, no worries. And so I've received and sent those emails.

[18:39] Mark Amtower: LinkedIn touts the stat that in mails from LinkedIn are eleven times more likely to be read than emails anyway. But you make an excellent point. That's why we back in the 80s, why we started going to federal mail rooms, mail wasn't getting through. Okay. Agencies are big. If you did not have the right routing code, they're not going to sit there and look up all this stuff. Especially if you're sending 500 catalogs into an agency at the same time, right? So if you're spamming, I mean, the federal webmasters have had spam filters since spam filters were invented and they're designed for a reason. If too much mail is coming from a particular ISP in a specific time span, it's considered spam and it's just blocked and you don't know that's true. But the flip side of that is LinkedIn is the number one place that people are vetted right now. They're it's where we all go find out, is this person real or their credentials, what they say they are. And you can tell if somebody's got a lot of endorsements, a lot of recommendations, or if you're targeting a specific agency and you see that you share connections with somebody, that's huge. So if you're reaching out to a PM and you don't share any connections at all, you probably lose some credibility there. But if you share 20, 30, 50 connections, then all of a sudden you have instant credibility.

[20:24] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, you're right. That's a big deal. And I think it just speaks to how much there is inside of LinkedIn that a lot of people may not think about or focus on. I think it's worth considering putting some time into not only your profile, but things like you said, you can request recommendations in LinkedIn from people that can show proof and build confidence in what you're doing, which is half the battle when you're selling the government.

[20:49] Mark Amtower: For sure, you can also share content, but just like emailing content or having it in one of the trade publications, that's no guarantee that it's red. But if you start slowly developing credible reputation in the market, more and more people are likely to show up to see what you're saying. So I've had people say, well, I did a white paper on this last year and nobody visited. Where did you share it? How did you share it? Did you share it or is it buried in your website? Well, I posted it on my company profile. Well, your company profile is not going to get as many views as your individual profile. So there's an art and a science to generating content and then sharing it.

[21:38] Richard C. Howard: Yes, I know, absolutely right. And some people have a reason why paper. You might want to break that down and send a little piece of it out instead of the whole thing.

[21:45] Mark Amtower: Little piece is key because the attention span of people right now is under 9 seconds, which is scary as hell. But if you want people to read content, mike column in Washington Technology is now 14 years old. Nick Wakeman, the editor, tells me to keep the columns under 500 words because that's a three to four minute read and that's about the length that people will go. They don't care who you are. They aren't going to spend more than three or four minutes reading your stuff.

[22:23] Richard C. Howard: Yeah. No, I agree. And it's probably just going to get shorter. We're in the age of ticktock, and I know those are like I'm looking at my wife and kids ticktock, doing five second clips on these videos and moving on. And I think that's where we're going. We're just getting shorter and shorter attention spans.

[22:39] Mark Amtower: But in order to build a reputation that has some gravitational pull, you need to generate that content that resonates with a very specific audience.

[22:51] Richard C. Howard: Right.

[22:51] Mark Amtower: And again, doing that first building a profile that resonates with the audience and then doing outreach to that audience to make sure they know who you are. And then you create the possibility that they'll look at the content when you share it.

[23:08] Richard C. Howard: Now, those are all good points, and you're right. You have to figure out a way to get people's attention and deliver content that's valuable and more than a short clip. I want to see if we could pivot here because there was one I want to say it was one of the essays in your book. It was the five habits of incompetent BD executives. And I thought that that would be interesting for some of our listings.

[23:34] Mark Amtower: That's Mike listeners. Sorry, the book you're referring to is our new book, how to Win in the Government Market. Mike Led, or this is funny, last fall, Mike called mike and I have known each other by reputation for 30 years.

[23:50] Richard C. Howard: Okay.

[23:51] Mark Amtower: But I don't think we've ever met. We know each other because we both produced one boatload of content between us, probably about 1500 articles over 30 years.

[24:02] Richard C. Howard: Wow.

[24:03] Mark Amtower: So he called and said, let's do a book. And I'm going. And I have several. Thank you. And he goes, no, you don't understand. Pick 25 of your favorite essays that are evergreen, that still have value, and I'll pick 25 of mine and we'll stick it out on Amazon. So that's what we did. It seems relatively easy, but when you write as much as I do and as much as Michael does, picking 25 of your favorite pieces is not easy. But we both did and the book came out. But half of the book is Mike's, and you just picked Mike's stuff, not mine.

[24:40] Richard C. Howard: Okay, well, sorry about that.

[24:41] Mark Amtower: Yeah, it's an interesting Michael writes about BD capture. I write about marketing and LinkedIn.

[24:49] Richard C. Howard: Okay, I got you. We do get a lot of business developers and executives listening that are trying to refine their skills and whatnot, but marketing is a huge part of that. You need to know how to it blurs the line sometimes between your business development and your marketing, especially if you're targeting specific people with a message. And like we're discussing on LinkedIn.

[25:15] Mark Amtower: Yeah, some BD people that I know are among the best marketers I've ever met. So they just take it to a different level. Their marketing is one on one communications. Sometimes they'll produce white papers or case study or have the marketing department generate something. Then they'll fine tune it for a particular audience. But yeah, I mean, marketing has to support BD and sales in order to keep the lights on.

[25:45] Richard C. Howard: How would that tie into so influencing requirements is a topic that always comes up, and marketing is a piece of that. What would be some thoughts on best practices for some of these smaller businesses that have an opportunity they're going after they're still in the market research phase on the federal side, and they are trying to influence in any way that they can.

[26:09] Mark Amtower: I speak frequently for the association of Proposal Management Professionals, and invariably at their conferences, there's always people talking about, well, the contracting officer doesn't know us, issues like that, but prior to and then they're not going to look at your bid or they're going to put it at the bottom of the stack and they'll be bored out of their minds. By the time they get to it. But you can create content once you understand that an issue is facing an agency, you can create content that educates the program people as well as the contract people on avenues for addressing these issues technological or process or whatever. If you generate really good content and get it in the hands of the right people, then you start to shape the RFPs and the RFIs, then you have a much stronger chance of winning the business or being on a team that will win the business. If you generate content, it's not just going to influence those inside government, it's going to influence the larger companies that are looking for teammates that fill those slots that they may not have the most strength in.

[27:30] Richard C. Howard: True.

[27:31] Mark Amtower: And again, this is another reason why small companies should focus on not being a six-person company is not a six systems integrator. Okay? Right. Focus on what you do well. Enunciate that clearly start generating some content and some past performance regardless of whether it's in government or industry. Okay? You need to be able to demonstrate that confidence in order to gain traction here.

[27:58] Richard C. Howard: What are some other avenues they can use besides the LinkedIn for their marketing and for their content strategy?

[28:04] Mark Amtower: Oh, pick the right associations, pick the right networking venues. I mean, LinkedIn is an adjunct to face-to-face networking. It's been primary over the pandemic, but it's certainly not alone. There. So there's AFC and there's professional services. Council. There's NDIA on and on. Act I act. There's a lot of association. So find the one that best fits what you need and join and engage. You can join all the associations out there, but unless you're engaged in them they're not going to be of much use. And there's Hubsone Associations. Michelle Burnett's Group. Scott Denniston, former Ostebu at DA started the Veterans Coalition, it's now run by Scott Jensen. There's a lot of very valuable groups out there where you can start networking with your peers and ultimately I was on the Small Business Committee at Asia for a couple of years.

[29:13] Richard C. Howard: Okay.

[29:13] Mark Amtower: Saw deals being made in those rooms. JV form bidding arrangements. Yes, we'll support your bid will be a sub to you or you can be a sub to us. But you've got to know these people to do it. You just can't stand there on a street corner with your sandwich board sign say, hey, I'm here, come find me. Doesn't work that way.

[29:37] Richard C. Howard: Yes, I totally agree. In fact, Apps C is great by the way. That's probably the one I'm the most familiar with out of what you just described. But a lot of them times they will sponsor live events or virtual events where you'll have your customers on the other side and you have opportunities to answer questions or they'll provide POCs. And what I tell people a lot also is if you are having trouble in your reach out to maybe a Federal Acquisition Guy or Gal if you attend an event with them, whether it's virtual or in a conference, a lot of times they now have a directive by their superiors to respond to people or to companies that attended the same event. In some cases, they have certain people pointed out as a POC that you can reach out to, and that can be very valuable as well as far as getting meetings and kind of understanding what's coming up that could resonate with your company.

[30:30] Mark Amtower: Help you if you want. Case study. Right now, one of my mentees, Chelsea Meghan, is going to Suffolk down in Florida. She's in Seattle. So we map out a strategy for her. She executes it brilliantly, and she's the right person to do this because she's just a fringing ball of fire. So Chelsea starts posting about going to Suffolk four weeks out from the event. Okay. And if you play in the operator arena, sofa is a huge event, right? So she starts posting four weeks out. She posts weekly until she gets there. She starts building momentum. She takes a photo of herself when she lands at the airport, post that 5000 views of that because she's already built momentum. She's taking pictures and posting them on LinkedIn, probably elsewhere, but primarily LinkedIn. The whole time she's at the event, and she's saying, come find me. I have a gift if you come find me. It's a little woman soldier and candy or something, but it's fun, it's cute. And she just built so much momentum that when she was outside of the event center, people would say, you're Chelsea.

[31:49] Richard C. Howard: Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, because it's hash tag, and anybody looking for that's going to be one person.

[31:56] Mark Amtower: She's a consultant, she just tens of thousands of views on her social just because she was hyperactive. And again, when you meet her, she can fulfill all the expectations. She's just a ball of fire and she's freaking bright as hell.

[32:15] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, no, she's great. And then for anyone listing, she's been on previous episodes, I think twice actually, before. So can they hear exactly what you're talking about in person and get her contact information and whatnot? So I didn't know that you mentored her, but that makes sense because she is great, and you certainly have an extremely extensive background in this.

[32:35] Mark Amtower: I have currently eight people that I'm working with, all women. Because guys know everything and they don't need me.

[32:45] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, well, I mean, we know how that goes, unfortunately. Sometimes egos get in the way of actually learning, and that's why women are taking over the world.

[32:56] Mark Amtower: I'm happy to help.

[32:57] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, I'm happy to help as well. That is for sure. Just one or two more things I want to touch on before we end the podcast, if that's all right.

[33:06] Mark Amtower: Either way.

[33:07] Richard C. Howard: All right, so I want to see if you had thoughts on any differences in your marketing. Is concerned between federal organizations and military organizations that reside in those, or do you kind of look at it as all the same?

[33:23] Mark Amtower: There are similar elements, but again, it's all about relationships. And on the civilian side, you need the relationships. Pretty much the deeper you go into DOD, the more important the relationships become, because your credibility there is going to be dealing more along the lines of national security issues. And if you don't have the relationships or the background, it's going to be harder to break in. And when you migrate to the IC, if you don't have relationships, go the hell away. It isn't going to work. So I don't do work in the IC, but I have a lot of friends that do. So when I get those calls hey, the classic call. I have something that NSA really needs right now. Yeah, sure you do. Like, you know what they need.

[34:20] Richard C. Howard: Exactly.

[34:21] Mark Amtower: But I have friends that deal in those communities. I'm not one of them, but I'm glad to hand off what I view as legitimate leads to those people. Really answer your question. DOD military requires stronger relationships, not just with the people inside organizations, but the companies that serve them as well. So when you're approaching any military situation, the likelihood of a solo bid is minimal. It's going to be teams. So you need to have that credibility in order to get on a bidding team as well and be part of that contract.

[35:06] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, those are great tips and good advice for those listening that are looking at targeting the military exclusively. What I wanted to ask you now is you do a lot, but how do you help clients? If someone wants to reach out to you for marketing help or help with LinkedIn, is that something you're accepting right now? And if so, how would they best reach you?

[35:28] Mark Amtower: Best reach me through LinkedIn or Markamtower@gmail. But I like working with small companies. Again, I have a program that's designed for smalls to raise visibility and to build out a LinkedIn network that's targeted around your niche. And I work with up to ten or twelve companies a year on that and happy to talk about that with pretty much anybody who fits. And it doesn't have to be a set aside as long as you're small according to SBA regulations by pricing is radically different. LinkedIn training I'll do for pretty much any company or individual, and I can't overemphasize how important LinkedIn is. When you're building your reputation, when you're establishing your credentials and just moving forward in this market at all, it's where you're vetted, and if you come up short, you're not going to get a second chance.

[36:33] Richard C. Howard: I totally agree. That is great advice. And what we're going to do for anyone listening, I'm going to put Mark's LinkedIn profile link in the show notes as well as your website. Do you have any parting thoughts before we end the show.

[36:46] Mark Amtower: Yeah. There's two things that you own in this market. One is your reputation. So work really hard to maintain that, and that necessarily means constant education to be good at what you do. The other thing you own is your relationship. So you have to nurture your relationships just like you manage your reputation. I'm tired of people saying, I have 10,000 connections. Who cares? How many of these people are you in touch with on a regular basis? I touch bases with as many of my connections as possible. I look at the notifications page in my home page and I reach out to people birthdays, new jobs, whatever. People looking at my profile, I'll reach out, and if I haven't had an opportunity to sit down with them before, I'll say, let's have a 15 minutes soon. Okay. Just tell me when and we'll set it up. So my calendar app is on my profile, and I want people to use it. I don't want to have just connections. I want to have relationships.

[38:02] Richard C. Howard: I know that is excellent advice. Reputations and relationships, I mean, that is the game. If you have those, you are going to be doing really well. And it sounds like, Mark, you can help people very much. So if anyone's interested in reaching out to them, like I said, go to the show notes, man or woman. Right. So we want you out there, and you need a federal marketplace is a very complex place to be. So finding somebody that actually understands the different places within there that are almost their own subject matter, expertise for each one, that can be hard to find someone that has that type of knowledge. And you certainly fit the bill here, especially with the marketing and what not with the federal agency. So thank you again for coming on the podcast. We really appreciate having you and yeah, hopefully we can do this again in the future.

[38:51] Mark Amtower: I'd love to. Thanks for having me.

[38:53] Richard C. Howard: All right, take care.

[38:54] Mark Amtower: See you.

[38:56] 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 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. If 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 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 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 Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB) where I talked about woman on small business certification and how it relates to federal sales.

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.