Why Work with the Small Business Office? (Podcast Transcript)

                       [01:12] Richard C. Howard: Hey, guys. Richard here with Richard C. Howard and Associates, and Government Sales Momentum Podcast. Just real quick up front, if you want to schedule a consultation with us, you can go to Dodcontract.com. Great consultation. They're free. We'll do a 30 minutes consult with you and your business, give you some free tips and advice on your approach to the federal marketplace. But we can certainly talk about our services at that point if you want to. Now, today's topic is how to work with the small business office and I'm going to focus this on the Department of Defense for this conversation. If you've listened to me for any length of time, you know how important it is to find out about opportunities before the solicitation comes out and how to influence requirements on those. I do talk about the small business office, but we just had an amazing experience with one of my clients and I want to talk about that today. But before we get into what happened with them, let's talk about what the Small business office can do for you. First and foremost, they're an advocate for small business, right? So whenever we submit an RFI or sources sought response, which RFI and sources saw it, if you're new to the podcast, these come out before a request for proposal. This is when the government doesn't have the handcuffs on. They're finding out about information and you have a lot of freedom to influence requirements to tell them, hey, this is what we think you need. And one of those things that you should be recommending. If you are a woman own small business or an Ada or Stdosd or hub zone, you need to be recommending your set aside. Hey, we think that this should be set aside for a woman owned small business or service disabled, veteran owned small business and if you could do that, you've just eliminated all the competition.

                      Every other company that doesn't have that certification in order for them now to put a proposal and they'd have to partner with you. So you've submitted your fire response. You have really done a good job of influencing requirements, telling them real specific things that you want to see in the solicitation. And you're recommending that it is a let's say that you're a woman, own small business. We're recommending this is a Wasp and you submit it and they say, all right, we got it. What are your next steps? Well, typically for me, I want a meeting with that program office if I haven't already met with them. So maybe a week later, hey, glad you received this. Can we set up a meeting? A lot of times you're not going to hear anything back, right? So when I submitted that RFI response, I also sent it to the small business office. And I don't mean the big SBA website that you might have done your Wasp certification through or got some research on. I mean that each individual, when you look up a contracting effort, there's going to be a small business office associated with that unit, right? And it could be located on the same base. It could be more of a regional office that covers different in the military, different bases, different systems. But the Air Force has many small business offices, for instance. So a little bit of homework, but you find the right one, you send them our fire response as well, initially.

                      Next thing I do with the small business office is I'm going to reach out to them and probably a week or so after and ask for a meeting specifically with the small business office. Now what they can do during that meeting, there's a couple of ways that can go. One, you can find out if they know any additional information about the opportunity you're going after. They may have some details that you didn't know. So some of the small business offices are very plugged in and very influential. Some of them aren't. Okay, so depending on who you're working with, you might have different experiences. But if you have a bad experience with one small business office, I highly recommend that you keep going and keep utilizing this method as you move through your federal marketplace sales. Now, one thing they can do is if they don't know, have any additional information about this particular effort, they can help you set up a meeting with that program manager responsible for the effort. And that is huge for you guys. That's why whether if reaching out to contracting officers or POCs that you have aren't working, small business office could potentially do that on your behalf. And they also might have contacts that you don't have. So at a minimum, they should be able to provide you with a couple of POCs that you can use to get into that office and that's going to help you gain insight. It's going to help you teach the government about your company because you want to be top of mind when the solicitation comes out. Very important for you to do as much influencing and relationship building up to that point. Now, some other things that can happen is they can influence the set aside, right?

                       [05:40] Richard C. Howard: So in addition to them setting up the meeting, they could say, hey, look, program manager, we've got a woman own small business that comes to us that we know that they submitted an RFI response. Why not make this a woman own small business set aside? Now, there are some rules about how many small businesses have to have a certification in order to set it aside. Last time I checked, it was two or more. But that's another thing that they can do for you is help set that aside for your small business. And again, you might not be the only company that's contacted them. So in aggregate, this can help you out a lot. By the way, just pivoting back to setting up meetings. If you ever get push-back from the small business office or the contracting office on setting up a meeting, one tactic you can get is if you can get a couple of companies that are also interested in the same opportunity and go back to the small business office. It is going to be very difficult for them not to set that meeting for you to say no. We're not going to do it. If you have, hey, we've got three, four companies, we're coming to you, we're all interested in this, and we need more information. They're probably going to have to set that meeting up for you. So there are some strategies you can take if you're working with a team that's maybe not helping you the way that you want to, but most small businesses are there to help you. So they're a huge advocate for you. Now, getting to the reason we set this up, so one of my clients, the same technique our fire response submitted, we set up a meeting with a small business office. They took it a step further. They said, hey, with your certifications and the way that we're not talking contract vehicles and ways to put you on contract, but they have some interesting ways the government could put them on contract. They said, hey, look, with your set aside and the mechanisms we can use to put you on contract, we're going to pitch to the program office that they take a completely different contract strategy and then just go directly to you because that's how much we believe in you guys. And so that's probably the best you're going to get. But I mean, imagine that now you have this advocate that's going to pitch that has a relationship and authority to a certain degree, but that has a relationship with the contracting office and they're going to pitch for you. They're going to pitch your company and say, hey guys, we're trying to make it easy on you and also maybe hit some of our numbers in the same way. Why don't you go directly to this company? Now this just happened, but whether or not that Sole Source contract happens, this company is absolutely going to be top of mind for that program office. I guarantee we can get a meeting with them after this as well. So there are a lot of benefits that are going to come from just that. One exchange took a half hour, half hour meeting. So guys, this was a short episode, but if you're in the process of responding to RFIs and sources sought and trying to influence requirements, don't leave out the small business office. This can help you dramatically.

                       [08:32] Richard C. Howard: If you did enjoy the episode, talk to you guys later. 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 in every interview with an acquisition professional that I've ever conducted. And we cover topics that range from defense sales planning and competitor analysis to SBIR and STTR former military sales. The list goes on. Go to Dodcontract.com if you are interested and I'll love to see you in the membership. Thanks.

If you missed it, you can check out our episode on Termination for Convenience to know contract management and what to do if the government terminates your contract.

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