SBIR & How the US Government Will Pay to Develop or Modify Your Technology (Podcast Transcript)

Hey, Richard here! Thanks for listening to the Government Sales Momentum podcast or for watching the video. If you're tuning into our website or on our YouTube channel today, I have someone if you've been on our YouTube channel before that you've probably seen before one of our most popular videos, actually, which is why I've invited Luke Robertson back here to do a podcast with us. This is Luke Robertson. This is someone who I worked with when I was in the Air Force and then have worked with my consulting company, Richard C. Howard and Associates. And I'm fond of embarrassing Luke by saying while I was an officer in the Air Force, I had a list of about five people that if I ever started a business, I wanted to work with. And he was number one on that list. So now we're very fortunate to be able to work with Luke, helping small businesses and larger companies sell products and services to the federal government. So without further ado here, Luke, why don't you just give us a little bit of your background for those that are unfamiliar with you, and then we'll take it from there.

[02:15] Luke Robertson: Awesome. Yeah. Good to be a chance to chat with you. My background, I went to the Air Force Academy, studied systems engineering there, and had quite the experience. And it's kind of neat because so many of the classmates that I went to school with are still out there in the Air Force. To be able to stay in touch with people for decades is one of the most amazing things. It's kind of similar to you being able to stay in touch with those people that I've worked with while right. Yeah, it's neat. After I graduated, I became a pilot, flew C 17 for about 15 years, flew in combat all around the world as well and then at one point along the way, the Air Force gave me the opportunity to diversify my experience a little bit, send me to Arabic school and grad school. And after that, I spent significant time in both the United Arab Emirates and in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, working downtown in the Saudi Ministry of Defense doing military sales, foreign military sales. Came back from that, flew again for a short while and then separated from active service and stayed in the Reserve, some lieutenant colonel in the Reserve now as a Defense attaché. In fact, I'm in Washington, DC. Right now. And when I came off of active duty and became a reservist it's just a part time thing for me. What I do. My day job, I guess you can say. Is I'm the director of Strategy and business development for a tech and communications company that's Palo Alto based and also run my own consultancy. Highland Integration Group. Which works with Ricky and tries to help folks to sell stuff and services and goods to the government.

[04:16] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, no, that's awesome. And it's interesting too, because once I retired, about the same time that you separated from the Air Force. And what was interesting is that we both kind of found ourselves in the same realm, right? So I immediately I started a consulting company. But you with this other business you were working for. We do great things getting them contracts with the government, and eventually it didn't take us too long to say, hey, there's some synergy here. Let's go out and help some clients together. And it really works out well. And that kind of leads us to what today's topic is going to be. This is something you've had tremendous success in. My clients have had a lot of success in. It is also a topic that frustrates businesses selling to the government. And there are some areas there that they just don't know. Maybe they've heard a couple of acronyms that they don't understand. But basically what I want to get out today is for companies that have a product or a solution, whether it's fully developed and you can modify it, maybe test it out, or maybe you have an idea that you've partially worked it out. There are programs within the Department of Defense and other government agencies to help sponsor your technology, to help develop it, or to modify it for government needs. And actually one of the programs can be relatively quick in government contracting terms, right? So instead of an 18-month timeline, you could be on contract in four months and some change maybe a little bit longer than that from submission of an idea. So what I'm talking about, Luke is the SBIR STTR program, right? So the small business innovative research. Don't ask me what STTTR stands for off the top of my tongue, but it involves partnering typically with a nonprofit or a university. But basically what I'm getting at is there's a couple of ways of taking a new technology and selling it to the government. And what frustrates a lot of companies when they come to me and say, hey, I have this new thing, but I'm not seeing requests for proposals come out or sources saw it, or I'm not, hey, we're reviewing acquisitions forecast. Maybe they have a business developer that's not as familiar in the government space. But we're just not seeing the need for this technology that I know could really help improve the way the military does things. Our Health and Human Services, how do I get it in front of them? How do I get it in there? So there's two main ways that I tell clients to do that, right? One is kind of the longer term, and that's educating the government agencies about your product, your technology, or new technology. And we'll get into that in a little bit. That usually takes a little bit longer. But a faster way is if you can find a Cyber program, an SBI, our STTR program that has a topic, and we'll go into the specifics of this that centers around your technology, right? So if you have a new software that improves, I don't know, you pick improved cyber security in some way, some revolutionary way, well, that's something that you may be able to find a topic on or if you're involved with. I mean, you've seen some of the topics. Some of them are flying cars; some of them are based security centered. Some of them are open topics where you can propose anything. But let's talk about SBIR program. What is it? How do you get into it? What are some of the specifics? Maybe you could tell us a little bit from your perspective on the program and what your thoughts are.

[07:36] Luke Robertson: Well, the Small Business Innovation Research Program is established in statute, and fundamentally what it is, is a way for the US government through various sponsoring agencies like the US Air Force, Department of Homeland Security. They all kind of run their own programs within the larger Cyber program. And it's a way for these organizations to be able to take advantage of the innovative talents of smaller companies. Oftentimes, small companies have fantastic ideas, but they simply don't have the capability to be able to bring these ideas to bear. They sometimes aren't quite able to even productize it. And they certainly aren't able to make it through what they describe as like the Valley of Death. Where you have one good idea, maybe one good product. But then it's a little bit more difficult to then be able to build that thing out at scale and be able to go under contract in a way that you can then turn your company profitable. And the Small Business Innovation Research Program is designed fundamentally to be able to bridge that gap, to be able to bring these innovative resources into the government, and because it's designed for small businesses to be able to sell products and services. It's designed to move quickly. Small businesses don't have a huge amount of time. They don't have 18 months potentially they need to turn a profit now. They need to have a customer now. So the program, it's an application process, it's a contract, not a grant, although there are similar programs that are grants as well where basically the government will put a small business on contract to build out what their product is. And usually what the government is looking for is a kind of a modified commercial product. So if the small business has a product and it's applicable to some commercial customer and it's proven, it's known that this thing is going to work, but it may not exactly fit what the government's needs are. And what the government will do is it will pay that company to modify that product so that it'll be fully applicable to the government's needs. Once proven, once demonstrated success within this program, then the government arranges, and this is really the main strength of this program is it will then arrange a simplified contracting on-boarding process to be able to move from the prototyping stage to full on production sales. And I've seen a variety of companies, both the company that I worked for, I guess full time you can say, and also the companies that I've worked with as a consultant, being able to land these contracts and then be able to productize their idea and then be able to actually fully sell it.

[10:38] Richard C. Howard: Sure, yeah, those are great. There's some great wisdom there and some great tips. I also do know that the government has sponsored some solutions that weren't already being sold commercially. They were a little bit past the idea stage, but I do know a couple of companies where they've won Sibbers and then that funding they were using to help develop that solution. But it still would have a commercial and government in that case. Perspectives. Let's talk a little bit about the phases of the Sipper program. So this is something that I discuss a lot with clients. So on phase one, and we've kind of joked about this, right? So you have a great idea or solution maybe like you said, it's already a product that you're selling commercially and you think that it would be a great thing for maybe the Department of Defense and whether say, we find an open topic or a topic that it could fit under. Sometimes these topics are very specific, sometimes they're very broad based on the future was one in the past, which, I mean, you can drive a truck through that thing, but let's say you find a topic and you submit your silver and what happens then? So what are the three phases? I know there's a phase one is a phase two and then it can go on from there. What do you view the phase one Cyber as?

[11:54] Luke Robertson: Let me answer that here in just one quick second. But I guess I think maybe I'll try to add a little bit of clarity to what you mean by the topics and the submission.

[12:01] Richard C. Howard: That's a great point.

[12:02] Luke Robertson: So basically the Sipper program, like I say, they're run by different agencies to discuss the Air Force separate program. Kind of in specifics, what the Air Force will do is it will release topics that some Air Force organization or user has stated. We need something and there is some. We don't know what exactly we need, but we know that there is technology that's out there within a certain field like you said, maybe a base security kind of smart camera thing. And then what the government will do, the Air Force will do is they will release a topic saying if you have a product that fits somewhere in this topic, we can fund it under this particular funding line. And then oftentimes they have what's called an open topic, which is government doesn't know what innovative technology is necessarily out there. They certainly don't know what great ideas or in some individuals mind. And so they will say, hey, write a proposal and send it in and if we like it, we'll put this under contract.

[13:11] Richard C. Howard: Just to stop and ask you a quick question there. For companies that have maybe been writing proposals and a little bit more familiar with the process, some proposals can be extremely difficult to put together. Where would you rate the Silver proposal? I know they're all a little bit different, but you can give us some of your perspective on that.

[13:29] Luke Robertson: Generally on the easy side, the separate program is designed in many ways it kind of runs as like the venture capital arm of these different government organizations. And so there's an understood risk to the government when it comes to funding these proposals. And so what the government fundamentally wants to know when it comes to doing a cyber application is they want to know about the proposing companies. They want to know that this company has some skills so they're going to be looking for BIOS of the people who are involved and then they're going to want to know what the technology is in generalities so that they can judge is there a technical merit to this? Does this have some value? Is there some application that this company has identified? But we're generally looking at a few pages of narrative write up, like a PowerPoint presentation and then a small but I guess you could say significant but graspable amount of administrative documents, various cost volumes and cover sheets kind of stuff. But in relation to a typical government response to a proposal, which may be a substantial lift, especially for a small company to put together a proposal, a subaru proposal is generally much more simple. And I think this leads us directly back to your question about these phases. Right, the phase one, phase two, and phase three. So I'll finally get around to answering that now the way that the government once again I'll discuss on the Air Force so I can have a little bit more in the specifics. Although other agencies run in this way as well, they fund technologies based on a couple of different phases. And phase one is something of more like market research. So the government will fund a company up to $50,000 to basically propose what their idea is and propose what they think the application to a certain government agency's mission may be. And this is a very simple application. We're talking like a five-page white paper, a 15-slide PowerPoint deck that describes the technology, describes the company, describes.

[15:50] Richard C. Howard: The application and what's the deliverable usually. So hey, we put that together, we're basically saying, hey, we have an idea or a product, the government fits within your topic. And then the government comes back and says, yeah, that's great, we're going to award you a phase one, what's typically the deliverable because you're not actually modifying the product, usually with a phase one, is that right?

[16:10] Luke Robertson: Yeah, that's right. So the phase one, fundamentally they're putting a company on contract to give them the legitimacy to be able to interface with those government organizations. So you're on a contract to deliver a technology, let's say, like you mentioned, a cyber security product. Now what you can do is that you can contact those government agencies and say, hey, this is what we think you need. Is this really kind of what you need? Or how would it be modified. And then the deliverable is a report. So fundamentally what it is, is the government is paying a company to do the market research and not just paying them to do the market research, but is then facilitating them to be able to do that market research, right, to make sure that you're not as a company, just some Joe blow who has no connection to the government whatsoever. Cold calling agencies within the military saying, I don't know who I'm talking to, but maybe you're the guy I need to ask if this is something of value.

[17:06] Richard C. Howard: An extremely difficult not to catch up, an extremely difficult subject for a lot of businesses trying to sell to the government, right. Because what you end up realizing is it's a relationship game, right. So once companies get past the point where they figure out, hey, just responding to RFPs isn't going to cut it, there's something else that's missing. And then it's usually the business development piece, right. So some combination of knowing whom you're selling to and then really establishing relationships, talking to those agencies. And we've often joked that the silver phase one; you're almost getting paid to do business development. So that huge BD lift that is difficult for small businesses. You're getting paid to do that with a phase one. It's an amazing opportunity.

[17:53] Luke Robertson: It is absolutely an amazing opportunity. It's a program that has demonstrated success. So literally thousands of small businesses have gone through. This program is not new, although it's become much more formalized and the application processes have gotten more streamlined and simpler in recent years. The program has been around for a long time and thousands and thousands of small businesses have used this vehicle for its intended purpose. And they are able to bring their products to the market in the US government in a way that they would never have been able to bridge that gap before.

[18:30] Richard C. Howard: So that phase one, timeline wise. So from the moment you put the application in, what kind of timeline are you looking at, assuming that you're going to win, right? So assuming you're going to win, what does the timeline look like for being on contract with the government?

[18:44] Luke Robertson: About four months, three to four months. So every four months the government will open up an application round and so a company will build their application, their proposal, if you will, and then submit it through the website according to the standard, the rules and format as required. And then the government will review that and the other thousands of proposals that go in. And there's actually a pretty high selection rate. And the selection rate depends entirely upon the round who gets selected and what's being selected depends based upon what the government needs at that moment, specific funding amount. But then what they'll generally do is reach out back to that company within three to four months. There's been a lot of movement within the programs to try to shorten that. They would like to get that down to two months or less and then straight to a contract. The government will have the contracting officer reach out to that company, write the contract according to the proposal that the company put in. And it's an extraordinarily painless process once again, especially in comparison to other contracting alternatives.

[20:03] Richard C. Howard: Sure. So now let's talk about, I think, what the real point of this is for any company. And this is what I tell my clients, I'm sure they tell yours is the point of cyber isn't to win a phase one. The point of cyber is really to win that phase two, at least initially, right? Because that's where the money is going to come to help you develop your product or solution. Right. So once we have phase one, now not only are we getting paid to do business development, but as you point out, just as importantly, if not more importantly, they're helping you facilitate some of your business development. What is that for? What do we need to get now in order to get to phase two?

[20:41] Luke Robertson: Yeah, absolutely. And if I could, I guess even expand upon that, I'd say the point of the separate program really is to get to phase three, which is the production level contract. And in many ways in order to get to phase three, you would go through a phase two, although not necessarily, you can go straight from phase one to phase three. So to add a little bit of clarity, phase one is that business development, that market research, that analysis of the marketplace. Phase two is once that analysis is complete and then there's been a gap that's been identified and there's a specific government user organization that needs something and that thing is not available on the open market, then phase two, the government will pay up to $750,000. And there are times in which you can go up even beyond that, but generally 750.

[21:38] Richard C. Howard: They could be managed by the agency that sponsors it, correct?

[21:41] Luke Robertson: It could be. It doesn't necessarily have to be. It helps in fact, if you have matching funds, the probability of selection for the program is, I don't want to say close to 100%, but it certainly helps. You don't need matching funds. So the agency that wants your product okay, so you go through a phase one, and in the phase one you identify a particular organization, some major, some colonel, some GS employee who is representing this organization, who is able to say, yes, this is what you've proposed, like what your technology has value to our mission.

[22:22] Richard C. Howard: Then that's one of the major accomplishments you need in a phase one. Right. Just finding someone to say, I've sponsored these. My organization has on the air force side and the acquisition side, which is really usually signing a memo of some sort saying, hey, this is something that we would have benefit from. It doesn't mean that they have to fund it, but it does mean that they're saying, they're signing them saying, hey, we think that there's benefit here and there's a need.

[22:50] Luke Robertson: Right? Yeah. Obviously, one way to prove that need is if the organization puts their own money behind the request. But once again, it's not required. But what is certainly important is to have someone who is of has sufficient authority within the organization to be able to speak for that organization to say, yes, we need this thing. Right. You can always go find somebody who's willing to say, well, that sounds interesting to me, but if they're not in a position to then affect any sort of acquisition, then it's still helpful and it's wonderful, but it's not necessarily yeah.

[23:24] Richard C. Howard: Because we're really looking at we're not talking about if we talk about security again, we'll just kind of stick with that. We're not necessarily talking about the user of that security application. If it's an airman or a captain in a flight squadron that happens to be using the tool, that's not probably going to fly.

[23:42] Luke Robertson: Right.

[23:42] Richard C. Howard: What we're really looking for is someone in an acquisitions agency, like a program manager, maybe a contracting officer that would probably be the PM, possibly a requirements person. So it could be someone not in the acquisitions, meaning the acquisitions being the field of putting companies on contract for the government and managing those programs. That's what we call acquisitions, at least in the Department of Defense. But it could be a colonel that's in charge of requirements for the flying unit. We talked about earlier, right, that's up there on staff. He could potentially be one of the.

[24:13] Luke Robertson: Signers on this, right? I fear that I actually haven't been terribly clear as I discussed this about what do we even mean by why are we talking about like a memo and anything? And so to back up just to touch phase one is that market research. Phase two is the adaption of commercial technology to an Air Force's needs or an R and a D to develop a brilliant idea into a prototype. And in order to get a phase two funding, there needs to be a phase one. There's only the push. It's basically you as the company saying, hey, I think this is a value. Let me articulate what the value is. Phase two requires a push and a pull. So phase two requires that government organization or user or somebody within it to say we need this. And then that organization will then find a memorandum of understanding, not with the contractor, not with the company that wants to build it, but with the Air Force's cyber program saying this technology will benefit my organization's mission. And whoever signs that memo needed to be somebody who has some level of authority, program manager, program managers, folks on staff. Absolutely great! It doesn't necessarily have to be the way that the Air Force breaks it down is there is a customer and an end user. And usually an end user would be like maybe a squadron commander, perhaps somebody who is down in that unit level, not necessarily like the tech Sergeant, but it could be and then the customer.

[26:07] Richard C. Howard: Back everything I just said, okay, so I thought it had to be someone a little bit higher up in the food chain. But you're saying even an end user like that tech sergeant might be able to sign off on something like this.

[26:18] Luke Robertson: The higher the rank and the more the authority that somebody has, the more likely the more weight that signature carries. Although for a phase two, there are no specific restrictions to who can sign it.

[26:30] Richard C. Howard: It just goes to show too just how much detail is involved in this because these are constantly changing the Silver program and the requirements. And so I learned something new every day as we move through this. So that's interesting.

[26:42] Luke Robertson: What you just described in terms of who needs to be signing is kind of there's a phase two B, a supplemental funding program in which as a phase two RND program moves along nicely, then the government will pile on and say, hey, we're going to double down on this. This is really working out well. And that one requires the specific GS 15 or six above to sign off. But just the phase two MOU usually the end user will be like, maybe a squad commander, and then the customer will be somebody who's closer to a position that they can scale the solution across the organization so that's when you're looking at somebody at staff or PEO, once again, not required. So it is still possible to have in fact, I recently saw a successful phase two with two squadron commanders, a communication squadron commander, and a maintenance group commander or maintenance squadron commander, and both at the same base. Neither one has the authority to expand the solution across the entire Air Force, but the Air Force saw the value of the technology and said, hey, we see that this is something that's worth funding. And then they did.

[27:56] Richard C. Howard: That's amazing, too, because one of the biggest challenges for a lot of businesses is figuring out who to talk to, because a lot of times they'll be talking to somebody in the army or the Air Force or one of the other government agencies that maybe could use their solution but has no authority to make a purchase. Right? And so they're like, hey, I just talked to this army colonel, and this is a real example. They brought a solution. This army colonel, he was running an operational unit. He was not ever going to authorize $20 million purchase for the army. Right? Just wasn't his responsibility. They're like, hey, the army knows about this, and I'm just waiting for the sale to come in. I'm like, well, you're going to be waiting a long time because that army colonel says it's a good idea. And it is, but you got to picture it as thousands of offices within the army, and none of them talk to each other, and only a few of them have that authority to purchase. Right? So what's interesting about this is what you're saying, hey, with this program, we can actually find a user that thinks this is a good idea and they could sponsor it. It just makes it a little bit easier to go in and have a solution authorized by the government to start working on. Let's pivot and just talk a little bit about I don't want to spend too much time on it, but phase two, right? So phase one, we've won. We found either a user or an acquirer to sponsor the program. We submit the application, which is a little bit more in depth for the phase two. And then what happens then?

[29:27] Luke Robertson: So phase two usually have about a year, 18 months. It depends upon the specific organization like period of performance, generally around a year to year and a half. So phase two are pretty significant contracts. They also get funded in the same timeline as the phase one. So a few months after the submission goes in, an Air Force contracting officer reaches out and says, congratulations, you've been selected. Let's go ahead and put this thing under contract.

[30:02] Richard C. Howard: Right?

[30:02] Luke Robertson: And once again, the contract as written comes word for word from your proposal. So it's not like it's a negotiation then at that point and maybe this is going to work, maybe it won't. Once selected, then the government will say this is what you wrote up in your proposal. Like what's fine. And so it's a very painless process as far as the contracting goes and then you go into the execution phase and this can look wildly different depending upon the organization that you're working with and the technology that you're bringing. But generally it's kind of an opportunity to work directly with this military organization. The primary responsibility that your customer and your end user has is to work with you. And so because what you're not fundamentally the money for this contract is coming from big Air Force. Unless there's some matching fund playing route, which is rare, your customer is not paying for what it is that they're getting. And so at times this whole program can look like free money to some government organization and so oftentimes the officers you'd be working with will be very excited to work with you on it because it's free money. But the caveat with that is that it does require some effort on that government organization's side. They need to work with you, give your organization access to the base if your organization needs it. If your organization needs some sort of security sign off then your customer organization is going to have to be working with you and taking some level of responsibility in order to make sure that this contract is successful.

[31:45] Richard C. Howard: Right?

[31:46] Luke Robertson: And this is huge and this is something that's extraordinarily important and it may seem like anyone who has kernel at the end of their name signing your thing is going to be helpful and it is. But what you really don't want to do is to get under contract with the wrong customer and then you can't execute on your contract because whomever you're working with doesn't answer your emails. It's not their money. It's possible for contracts to get bogged down in execution. Now fundamentally this is a venture capital innovative, it's an innovation fund and so there is a huge amount of risk. So even in the best of circumstances you don't know for sure when you're developing a new product exactly whether you're going to be able to stay on time, on budget, etc. But you can control that risk enormously by having a genuinely motivated Air Force customers and end user.

[32:44] Richard C. Howard: Yes, I think part of that goes to and we'll talk a little bit about this, we'll do another podcast about business development and how to talk to the right people in the government. And I think part of this goes to also winning a Silver, right which is really understanding what the client's needs are. And this goes for all sales to the federal government. I mean when I was putting the company on contract, the number one question that I would ask, is, can this company solve my problem set? It was never what certifications they had or set aside the companies coming in fishing here and there, but it was, do they understand the organization and do they know what my problem set is? You can find a little bit of information doing online research and whatnot, but really to understand what the customers are looking for, you have to talk to them. And this goes into, I know you were doing this before you ever put a cyber application in because you can guess and you might get lucky, but you really want to know. And that's really going to refine your solution. It's going to hit upon what the government's problem set is in a much more direct way. And like you're saying, it's also going to help find that partner that's going to work with you. Right. So having that relationship ahead of time is really going to help and then just to talk a little bit about because obviously there's a solution development that's going on in phase two. And ideally, like you mentioned earlier, you can get to a phase three right, or to a program of record, which is another challenge. And we could talk for an hour about how to take a new technology, get it funded and put into a program of record. But this is a great way, this is a great start and kind of going towards that large acquisition. Any thoughts you have on the phase three and what comes after phase two?

[34:28] Luke Robertson: Yeah, okay. So once again, phase one is your market research. Phase two now is your Rd, your development. You're building the prototype, you're demonstrating an innovative implementation of an existing product or you're building something new. At any point along this process, you can go to phase three. And phase three, it's something of a misnomer because it implies that there is it has to be phase one and then phase two and then phase three. It doesn't have to be. You can do a direct to phase two. You can go phase one and straight to phase three. But what phase three is a formal production contract. One of the huge advantages in the Silver program is if you have won either a phase one or a phase two, the government has the ability to offer you what's called sole source contracting. So now the government can legally, without having to put in special justifications and there are some paperwork drills that are the alternative to award a contract directly to your company without formally advertising it. And this is just massive.

[35:35] Richard C. Howard: Absolutely, yeah, that is a huge some of my clients are Eight A certified, which they have a similar if you're an Eight A, you do have a similar I don't want to say it's exactly the same, but the government can have an easier way of putting you giving you a sole source contract. But I can tell you, just being on the other end of it, giving a company a sole source contract for the government is an enormous lift. It's a huge amount of work. So having the ability as a contracting officer or program manager to deliver a sole source contract without having to compete it and having a much easier way of justifying the sole source it is like you said, that is a huge win and would be very valuable for any company that has that.

[36:14] Luke Robertson: And you think about just from the practical side of this in so many ways these government contracts are built and predicated upon relationships. It's predicated upon a specific somebody within the Air Force or DHS or Navy or whatever the government organization is saying I need this product. And depending on how badly they need it and how motivated that individual is or how motivated they are to make their subordinates pursue this, it could be an extraordinary effort on the government side in order to get you on contract, even if they really want it. Absolutely. What this does, it smoothens that process and makes it so the government you're in a locker in the government, it eases their burden. And so now it's kind of the easy button. And this is extraordinary because there are so many organizations that are out there and they really want something but everybody's busy, everybody's got their own missions, their own normal jobs. And oftentimes this precludes their ability to look at the future and say well, I need to start acquiring some technology that our organization has existed for 70 years and it worked fine before this technology got there. And so it's a little bit easier sometimes for these organizations to say I don't have time for this. Well, once you solve those problems and you simplify it, now the guy can say I do have time for it because all it's going to take is a small push instead of a month long lift.

[37:51] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, what you're saying completely resonates with me. And people that have listened to the podcast or watched our videos probably have heard me say this a million times. But first question I would always ask is does this company solve my problem? But then when I find a company that does and I'm extremely excited about it and I want this a great solution, very next question how can I hire them? Right? Because it's not as easy as saying here's a credit card, buddy. We'll talk about simplified acquisitions but most of these solutions do not fit in that realm or micro purchases. Really. In order to put someone on contract, it either needs to be competed or you need to have some contract vehicle that I can utilize. If you're on a GSA, are you on a large GWAC like a NASA Soup? Or if not, maybe you are a sub to a larger company on one of these contracts. And I have other videos and podcasts about that stuff. But yeah, having a way to hire a company for the government is so big that it's really hard to express that to someone that has been on the other side of it. Just, I guess take our word for it, it really means a lot, and it can help you sell to the government in a much more expedited fashion.

[39:03] Luke Robertson: Exactly. You put yourself in the shoes of like an operational squadron commander. You've got a couple of hundred airmen working for you. You're flying missions, you're solving real world problems, you're deploying guys out into the desert and your days are full. And you think about somebody in that role may be able to be fully aware of what they need, but they may not be familiar with even on the government. It's not just because they're in the government that they're familiar with the government's acquisitions processes.

[39:38] Richard C. Howard: So for me, transitioning from flying. So I flew reconnaissance planes and flew mobility in the mobility world when I switched from flying to acquisition. What a learning curve, right? I mean. You think you have a little bit of an understanding. You know that there's an agency out there that makes purchases. But people spend decades and decades in just little parts of acquisitions. Much like a pilot would flying his weapon system. Learning his weapon system. Learning first going through flight school. Then learning the weapon system. The mission, then how to run an organization around that mission and weapon system, same with acquisitions. For instance, one of the members of our consortium of consultants is a colonel that was in the Defense Contract Management Agency, spent his entire career just learning contracting and how to help companies and the government within that realm. And that's very separate from program management. I was a program manager in acquisitions, and then there are engineers and costars and finance people. And yeah, it's interesting how much there is to it. And again, the point of the podcast is to kind of describe the difference roles within the acquisitions machine. Although that might be an interesting topic down the line, that'd be a good.

[40:53] Luke Robertson: One to hit too.

[40:56] Richard C. Howard: I think we've talked about what the benefits of the Sipper program are. And by the way, I also want to include STTI, because STTR is similar to SBIR, the difference typically being that you need to either be a nonprofit or partnered with a nonprofit, sometimes with a university, something along those lines. And we have clients on both sides. They're using cyber and STTI’s. By the way, you can have a pretty interesting angle with an STTI, which we'll cover in a different episode. Final thoughts? Maybe look on the value of the Sipper program and what you would recommend for a company that is looking into this program and seeing if it works for them.

[41:39] Luke Robertson: Final thoughts? It's just an incredible vehicle. An on ramp really is what it is. It's not a goal under itself. The intent here is to become a regular repeating government contractor. And this is one way to get there. And it is a particularly good way. It's a relatively small lift. There are an extraordinary number of rules and details about it. That information is publicly available. It's not a secret, but it is complex. And it's a major lift for a small company, especially in a company where perhaps every individual wears multiple hats and there's no dedicated government contracting office reach out and we can help walk you through that kind of stuff. It's not complex. It's just time consuming to approach it and then really recognizing that it's not just a process, but where the real magic happens is in the interaction with the government customers and user. Once again, that's the guy or gal that's going to be the partner. Right. So as you develop this thing, there needs to be someone on the government side who you can pick up the phone and say, hey, this is what's going on. They're going to call you and say, hey, can we adjust in this direction? And it's an Iterative process and it's a partnership, really. And then that person will also be the champion, if you will, at greater and higher levels as you try to push the government to adopt whatever your prototype is, whatever your product is on a wide scale. And so finding the right partner is paramount. I guess I can't over emphasize how important it is to have that right partner. And that really is a relationship. Yet a Google search can potentially give the name of an office that may have some, I guess can overlap with what it is. But getting into that office, finding the perhaps the exact office is probably the largest, the single most important thing that can be done. Sure.

[44:07] Richard C. Howard: Yeah, no, I think you're right. And actually I think we're going to call this part one and part two. Right? So part one is really the Sipper process, STTR and what we've just covered here. And then we'll have a shorter podcast that I'll put in there in a video kind of about the business development angle, right. That really is going to cover a few things. Right? It's because a lot of companies out there are probably like, well, how do I establish that relationship if I've never been in the government? Right. So I have thoughts on how to do that, both with a consultant, with a firm like ours, but also if not if you're on your own. You mentioned a Google search. I'll give some specifics in the next one on what you can do to identify those offices and get in there. Yeah, but like you said, Luke, certainly one of the things that we do is help customers with the Silver program, with St, Ti, and there are also a lot of other programs that aren't cyber, but they're kind of related that we're not talking about right now. There are different challenges, there's different ways to get your product or technology or idea in front of the government. It's really just knowing what they are and going through that process. And like Luke said, and having a relationship with someone to know where you should focus, it could just mean a few simple tweaks to your proposal or your application to really catch the attention on the other side or even better, having them waiting for that to come in, which we certainly have that as well with some organizations. You can reach out Richardchower.com, feel free to reach out. You can schedule a free consultation if you'd like to work with Luke and I would love to help your company get involved with the Safer program. Look out for part two where we're going to talk about some of the business development aspects. And yeah, have a great weekend. Thanks, Luke.

[45:47] Luke Robertson: Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it.

[45:49] Richard C. Howard: Perfect. Take care. Hey, guys, Ricky here and 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'll have access to every course I've created, every coaching session I've ever recorded, and every interview with an acquisitions professional that I've ever conducted. And we covered 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.

You can also check out my podcast with Louis Orndorff about Proposal Writing to know what are the things you need to consider before getting into the contract.

You can reach out to us here and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks you.