Interview with Ron Ben-Zeev of World Housing Solution, Inc. (Podcast Transcript)

Rick Howard here, and I am talking with Ron Benzev. If I pronounce your name? Ron, founder and CEO of World Housing Solutions, Incorporated. Hey, how's it going today?

[01:25] Ron Ben-Zeev: Doing great. How are you?

[01:27] Ricky Howard: Can't complain. I can't complain. I know we were talking a little bit before the podcast about the weather in Florida versus Boston in the summer, and I've got my window open, and you do not at this point, but six months from now, it'll be the exact opposite, right?

[01:40] Ron Ben-Zeev: And you're welcome to visit.

[01:42] Ricky Howard: Well, hey, that's exactly six months from now. I will visit you for sure, maybe even eight.

[01:48] Ron Ben-Zeev: Awesome.

[01:49] Ricky Howard: So, hey, I'd like to start off by maybe you could tell us a little bit about World Housing and what you're doing in the federal marketplace, maybe specifically with the Department of Defense, and then we can talk about maybe challenges and some paths forward for your business.

[02:04] Ron Ben-Zeev: Wonderful. Thank you. And thank you again for the opportunity to be on the podcast. So our story is a little bit different, I think, than many folks have started working and selling to the federal government, particularly DoD. We started our lives in the disaster relief for FPG World, both internally and externally displaced. The genesis of our company was the earthquake in Haiti and looking at what happened in Haiti and how people were not able to really find shelter that was adequate in a sub tropical climate with a lot of issues with the terrain. So we invented actually, we did what they do, used to teach, I mentor entrepreneurs. And it's always, you know, who cares about your idea, right? Go find, talk to people about it. And I did exactly the opposite. So don't do what I do, do what I say sort of thing. So we invented a shelter that could be assembled by hand by unskilled laborers above ground. And if you remember the old lunar landing module where it had articulated legs, we developed an articulated platform system so you could deploy the shelter almost irrespective of the terrain. And then once it's all bolted together and attached, is actually earthquake and hurricane resistant. And because of the material it is inert, it's not affected by mold, mildew rot termites. And it also offers protection to the refugees on the inside simply because typically women and children are the most at risk in that environment. We got zero interest. No one cared about our idea. And then I got an email to my info at worldhousingsolution box, and the email came from the CVS from the navy. And honestly, I didn't know what a CV was. So I started by googling that, and then we started responding. And by the way, props to and oh my gosh, it's amazing what the CDs have done over the last 100 years. Just insane. If people are listening to this, I'm not familiar with this. Go look at it. It's amazing what those engineers have done. So we started conversation with this gentleman out of Mississippi, and we finally got on a phone call. And during the call, the gentleman says to me, he goes, you're not the only alternative form of construction company we reached out to, which I said in my head, well, you're the navy. I'm hoping you're talking to everyone. And then he says, you're the only person that responded to my email. So you mean I'm not the prettiest girl at the dance, I'm the only girl at the dance? To which she kind of chuckled and said, well, I guess you can put it that way. And that's how we got the first win with the DoD, which, quite frankly, was never on our radar. And he started using alphabet soup of acronyms and things, and to me, it was like a foreign language. What do you mean? What's the GSA? No, I don't know. What it just say? And fed Biz up. And it was just insane. So very fast learning curve. And we started working with the navy, and we did shelters for them, both for the navy itself and also for the hearts and minds program. So let me dive a little bit deeper into the shelter concept. We've designed based upon the requirement that the navy gave us at the beginning. We expanded on our original refugee shelter concept, and what we've done is the question that came to us was, we need a bigger, we need a wider, and we needed to keep the same parameters. So for the navy, the first shelter was and it's all composite, so it's an insulated composite system which allows for two or four people, male or female, to carry. The heaviest thing we manufacture can be lifted and carried by four individuals, male or female. And that was a requirement. The second requirement was that everything has to fit in a 20 foot container because not every day is going to handle more than a 20 footer. Those are all the things that came to pass and we build for them almost 700 square foot shelter that they then assembled in 6 hours in Camp Shelby. Ten individuals who had never done it before under our supervision assembled the shelter, then took it apart and reassembled it. That was a big thing. It has to be able to be broken down and rebuilt. That shelter is now eight years old. It has gone through four hurricanes, can't remember how many trouble, storms. It still sits in Mississippi. And it's the worst thing we've ever built because it was the first thing we've ever built. And we've learned a lot from them and to this day we still learn a lot. But that's really what we started off with. The second aspect that we had as an issue was how do we tell the story and how do we convey what we do and what separates us from others which are in that field? How do you get shelter? Tents, obviously, containers obviously, and then melcom military construction and we're kind of sitting in the middle, something new to come out there. And so we started telling the story but from the wrong angle. And the angle that I was using at the time when I was meeting with people was we're green, we're sustainable reduction. And it was big yawn. And most of the time it missed the target. And then I went to a conference and the conference really was AHA moment for me in DC. And it talked about every person that walked on stage that day from multiple places, came back and said, kept on talking about and everyone in the room by the way, had something to do with hybrid technology, sustainable technologies, all these things. And the refrain was time and again, we're not going to buy you because you're green. If you can solve these kinds of problems and you happen to be green and you're competitive, then yes. But just because you're waving this green flag is not going to make us buy what you do.

[08:33] Ricky Howard: And not to interrupt, but it's the same. A lot of the things, the challenges that you've encountered, you might be surprised how common they are, right? And especially when a company, a small business is just starting out. But that piece about going in with green, a lot of companies will focus on either the wrong thing or maybe a certification they have like hey, I'm a woman on small business or service, disabled or a day. The government doesn't buy anything because of that. And a lot of companies think, hey, I have this, why don't they buy? They have a problem that needs to be solved. You provide the solution. And just like you said, if you have an amazing solution, then all this other stuff is that's like the cherry on top right? Hey, certification, we're green. We meet these certain criteria. Those are the extras but it's not the meat. They're not buying you because you're on a particular vehicle maybe unless you're the only one that they can get to. But typically it's going to be the solution for us and then the certification or one of those extra details, right? And that's just a nice to have a bragging, right? Maybe a bullet point they can put on a chart but it's not what they're trying to do.

[09:43] Ron Ben-Zeev: 100% and we're learning that, right? You live and die by the fact that people don't care about your solutions, they care about their problems. But working with the DoD, very often they will not tell you what those problems are because you're not cleared. Right? Or they can share those from our standpoint. So we didn't pivot what we do. We pivoted how we told the story. And what we did was instead of focusing on the fact that we're green, we focused on the fact that we're reduced the logistical burden. And when I talk to individuals and I would say to them we reduce logistical burden and reduce the number of fuel trucks on the road. Danger, problems, cost. And then the question typically is well how do you do that? Glad you asked. We do that by delivering one of the most efficient, if not the most efficient shelter system available to the deal today. And here's why it's the most efficient. It's not just an R value, it's also thermal bridging and thermal transference, which means that we're the only shelter that has been independently tested to provide a return on investment to the government by reducing the amount of fuel you buy. Now, sometimes that falls on deaf ears if I'm talking just to the contract officer who the purchasing individual has got a very narrow view. I've got X amount of dollars and that's what I need to spend. They don't really look at the sustainable part of this because it's not their problem. So if I say to them, look, you may spend 15% more or whatever X more today but you'll save 90% ongoing the next because it's not my budget, I don't care. And so we often try to get, if we can, more people around the table or empower some of the individuals to go back and tell our story, which is the hard thing on how to do that. But that's how we pivoted. So we pivoted the story. Logistic burden, risks, challenges. Cost in lives as much as cost in dollars. Custom lives even being obviously the most important aspect. And very few people realize that 58% of our casualties in Iraq came from the logistical side. People driving trucks. I mean even the dumb bad guy knows that a 20 ton truck can only go through one road. And if you think about it, after a while they started really hitting all the convoys coming through Pakistan and strangling our ability to get fuel to fob for the operating basis. So when we are talking about you can go solar with our system, you can reduce the size of your generator, you can reduce all these things suddenly start percolating and getting people to think about oh wow, okay, we can do this, we can do this. That only happens if you're able to get in front of the individual or individuals and then have a conversation and then obviously finding also the right partners as you grow from primes to other channel partners and figuring out what is the best path to grown for a small business. It's filled with bumps and bruises and broken bones as you're learning on which door to knock and how to work with certain people.

[13:03] Ricky Howard: Sure, I think you touch on a lot of points that people will resonate with or maybe some things that they're surprised by even starting with your email example, it is amazing to me how much work can come from just being responsive to somebody on the other side and of course that's true BTB in the BTC world as well. But you're talking to about the government if it's the contracting officer or program manager that's reaching out to your business, they are reaching out because they have something specific that they want to buy and a lot of times that can be attached to a pretty large contract. So not responding to that and look, some people just don't understand working with the federal government and how that works, right? But yeah, I think it is funny just the response, right. And even just taking it a step further because we were talking a little bit before about how important relationships are with the government and a lot of small businesses don't realize that upfront they are maybe hanging out on Sam dot gov or it used to be fed visops and just responding to proposals but it's really that relationship with an actual human being in the government or in the military. It's going to be making that purchase. And I've often said that I knew 99% of the time what company we were going to hire before a Solicitation ever left the office. I didn't always get to hire the company I wanted to but typically we knew typically the company had set up a meeting or we had got to see their solution because the Solicitation, that's a lot of work for the government to put together. We're not going to put that together. I say I'm still in the government, we're not going to go through all that work unless we know somebody can solve the problem. Right. And then it's the proposal process from there. So how do you establish a relationship knowing what you know now? How do you go about doing that and what do you think some of the challenges are?

[14:55] Ron Ben-Zeev: I think for everyone the challenges are slightly different depending on what product or service. They're trying to move forward. In our case, we're in the shelter space, but we're different because we're rigid shelter. We got a lucky break whereby we've been defined by the government as expeditionary. So we're in the same category as tents and containers, even though we are ridiculous shelter that has opened up opportunities for us because of the color of money and how that's attached to acquisitions. And so, again, it's a lucky break. We didn't know we tried to make at the beginning, we tried to make our shelters are as real building looking as possible. And it turned out that was actually the exact opposite that was needed. So we had to undo some of the things that we did. So it looked more like you could take it apart and move it very quickly. Even though it's still hurricane and North Quaker resistant and it has a hard stance, we still have to provide that because of statement of forces, agreements, issues with construction, or adding certain things and certain bases around the world where that ability has been taken away, Germany being one of them, where building things is a lot harder. So those are all the things that we learn and we learned the hard way. And we learned the hard way because none of us at the beginning came from the government or the acquisition side. We went to meet with the PTAC here. We're in central Florida. So we met with the PTAC at the time, and he was amazing. But he gave me recipes I didn't want. You don't give me recipes. Cook it for me. I don't understand and I don't have the bandwidth right. And those are the challenges. And he started laughing and he was like, Ron, I don't have the time to hold your hand, but here's a general way to do this. And this is where people like you can help smaller companies or even big companies dipping their toe in the federal government acquisition engine methodology, understanding the pitfalls because it's don't stop there. No, don't do that, don't say this. And those are all the things that are hard enough in the civilian side, working with companies. It's ten times more complicated when it comes to government. And we joked about this before the podcast started. A podcast started. But every branch has its own language as well. So you can't presume that the acronym for army and yet the same acronyms belong to every branch. It doesn't happen that way. And all those things make it more complicated if you don't have the experience of having been in the service. Yeah, absolutely.

[17:56] Ricky Howard: And you know, you mentioned even just building off of that colors of money, right. So for those that may not understand, there are different pots of money. So I'll speak directly to the military, right, and different pots of money we can use for different things, right? Like, you have research and development money, you have operation and maintenance money, construction dollars. Each of the militaries have different codes associated with these types of money. So it can be a little bit confusing if you're used to dealing with the Air Force and they're throwing out terms like 3403, 600 and then you're working with the Navy or the army and you're hearing something different and then by the way, you might be working with another federal agency and you get something completely different like with the Department of Energy or something. So you're right. It is a different language and that's why we also talk about how important it is to be focused and especially when you're starting out. Understand who your primary customer is going to be. Learning as much as you can about them before you start expanding to different whether It's services or different even organizations where they have service.

[18:54] Ron Ben-Zeev: These are hard conversations to have because you don't always get a phone number. And that's if you're lucky to actually have interaction directly with the customer. Often you work through Primes and again, people are lazy by nature. If you're going through a middle person to sell your devices, your things, it's only as good as how well you train those individuals at representing your company. And how hard or easy is it if someone says calls and say I need 20 10th well the salesperson go well, what is the problem you're trying to solve? And have you thought of maybe this net? No, they're going to go 20 10th. Yes, absolutely yes, contract officer, we got this and we're on it. As opposed to us going no, ask these questions, does this matter to them? And that's the challenge. And when you're a small company you don't have 500 sales people knocking on doors.

[19:58] Ricky Howard: No, you're absolutely right. And then there's also to point out, and you're probably aware of this at this point, but by the time the contracting officer is involved, typically not always, but typically we are at the point where the government's ready to make a purchase and if we're at that point requirements are set. So they might already have hey, we need twenty cents. And you might not be able to change that at that point. Whereas where you really want to be, especially with small business, with a niche like yours is hey, let's find out. We know to a certain distance, like you mentioned, the CVS, right? So if we know the CVS in the Navy are doing a lot of the purchases along those lines, they have the requirement. Now those we can start reaching out to maybe their program management shops that develop the requirements or forecasting purchases in the future to have the conversation hey. Maybe it makes sense before you put a Solicitation out or buy something on GSA or whatever you're going to do. Maybe it makes sense for you to go with this option and then those conversations can you be surprised how often that turns into a company like yours dictating the requirements. Right? So now instead of, hey, we need 500 tents or 500 portable shelters, now you can say because of your conversation or maybe you respond to an RFI. Now it can be, hey, not only is it affordable shelter, but it needs to be able to be deconstructed and carried by four people and man or woman and all the requirements that you guys can solve. And maybe you actually get them to put in the green requirements too, right? So all you're doing there is eliminating everybody else that could potentially put a proposal in on that to just a few companies that are true competitors of yours or no one, and you get a sole source contract depending. That's ultimately what you want. But it doesn't always go that way.

[21:44] Ron Ben-Zeev: It's difficult. We've been fortunate that, again, through some of the contract vehicles, we are approved through the DLA Tlssoe contract as well as the MRO contract. But we've also had some direct contracts and all of those give us different avenues. And then working with some of the Primes is really a force augmentation process. If you find the right primes that don't just want to add another error in the quiver, but they really want to learn and understand how to use the product and then go talk to their customers because they often are in certain regional areas, they hit the same bases to go talk to the same people. And that becomes kind of a process as well. It's finding the right dance partner and then educate them as to what you do and then keep the finger on the pulse all the time. Again, lots of juggling going on for a small business that has to manufacture, hire, continue, market, sell. So it's a juggling act and yes, things will drop, right? No one's perfect, but the key is to learn from those mistakes and brush yourself up and continue.

[23:01] Ricky Howard: Yes, no question. And I mean, that is a process, learning that one of the things we try to do with a lot of our clients or through our training is, hey, before you if you're just getting started, a lot of that information is public. So you could start off with a really good road map at the beginning instead of figuring it out as most companies do over time. And by making mistakes, you're still going to make mistakes. But we can go in. And this is what I like about public sector. All the information is public, right? So I can go in right now and I can see exactly who's buying. Like, for instance, with your neighborhood. I just looked it up as you were talking and I could see Defense Logistics Agency bias within just the naked code is 79% of everything is going through DLA, at least according to your main NAICS code. And then we can also see how they're buying. Are they using GSA? What contract vehicles? Are they using? So that gives you a before you waste your time maybe getting a GSA contract when you don't need one. Now you can say, oh, well, only 5% of purchases go through GSA, I don't need it. Or the opposite, 80% is going through GSA. This is something I really need to look at. And like you mentioned, the DLA contract vehicle. How was your experience there? And just for those listening, at some point I'm assuming you realize that DLA has a contract vehicle, that it would be good if you are a company listed on that vehicle. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[24:24] Ron Ben-Zeev: So we've been fortunate to work with several crimes that have taken us under their wing at the beginning and still to this day, and have helped us somewhat to navigate the quagmire they've walked us when their requirements coming up on how to respond and how to answer properly. What does this mean and what does that mean? Because again, hiring experts in the Far or whatever it is, is expensive and time consuming. So those are folks that have the expertise, and again, it's a force augmentation. If it's the right partnership, it's the right collaborative agreement, then everybody benefits. And I really mean everyone from the soldier to the acquisition system to the prime to us. Right. So the key is resolving the problem on the ground, if it's explained correctly. Right. We also chatted briefly about that because there are certain requirements that don't have visibility on. I've had meetings or I have phone calls where the person on the phone says, hey Ron, I need a quote for ten shelters and they need to go to Africa. And I went, that's a big continent. Can we narrow that down just a little bit? And the individual on the phone chuckled and said, yes, absolutely, let me do that for you, Africa. And I said, you mean you're not going to tell me where it goes? No, I'm not going to tell you where it goes. So it needs to be rated for SubSaharan desert conditions to the title kilometer jaro with snow. The person said, yes, okay, we'll give you a quote. And we have shelters that were dropped off in certain locations and I don't know where they are, that were picked up, moved, assembled by hand by those individuals, and it sits somewhere in Africa. But those are the things that sometimes you cannot have a fully transparent conversation. I'll give you an example. We were invited recently to do a briefing and a demonstration, and we couldn't because there's no one on our staff that had a TS level clearance. So we're outside the club looking at going, wait, I've been invited. We still can't let you in. Those are things like, okay, come back next year and make sure you've got the right folks on either partner up with or on your staff so we can let you in. Sure. Again, you walk around and mope and you go, okay, let's learn. Let's figure this out and start reaching out to some of our contacts so we can capitalize on some of those things.

[27:09] Ricky Howard: Yeah, those are good points from the other side. I experience some of that now. Right. So one of my clients, I win their contracts for them, right? But as an outside person, I'll get the same things like, hey, this is what we're looking for, a guy that's really broad and unspecific. I know just as an example of what I will do in those situations is I will respond to their broaden on specific requirements and ask, just as you did. What I've also noticed is once they realize that it's a real company that has a real solution and we provide value, then I can usually get a little bit more out of them. They may never tell me what part of Africa they're going to right. But I might be able to get, hey, does it need to have some type of energy source or whatever specifics to your business there are? You might be able to get things that they can say that aren't going to give away the whole farm, so how many users they're going to be. The questions are endless of what you can get, but any information you can get is going to help. You obviously put a proposal together or refine something that's going to hit their need because everyone's not going to ask those questions like that you're asking. A lot of companies will just put a proposal together based on nothing or the solicitation that came out with no relationship and see if they win. And they might win 1% of those or none or whatever it is, but it's never going to be as good as what you're doing, sticking a line.

[28:35] Ron Ben-Zeev: On the water without a hook or bait. You're not going to catch any fish. Most of the time we get lucky because we find the right people that are interested in the concept and see the broader picture. We talked about the chess board and how much of the playing field does the person you're talking to really see from sustainment to acquisition to long term. And so we were fortunate and blessed to work with the Marine Corps at the Pentagon level in support of the F 35 program, where we were approached to design a concept. They wanted to create a jump talk that fit on four six three Lema pallets. And basically they said to us, they said, we're going to give you four pallets. What's the biggest shelter you can build that fits on those four pallets? And the first question was, what's a Force Lima? Obviously, we Googled, we looked, okay, we start with that. And then there's differences in packing between each force. So Air Force doesn't pack a 463 Lima like army or the Marines. And so it's learning those nuances. And we were. Able to design, manufacture and deliver to the Marine Corps a shelter that we're not allowed to go in because then comes in secret rated material, but we designed it for the process.

[30:11] Ricky Howard: That is interesting. So you do customize shelters?

[30:15] Ron Ben-Zeev: Absolutely. That's really our strength.

[30:18] Ricky Howard: Interesting. And then if they're using those shelters for anything that's classified, like obviously there are parameters that are associated with that, that you're building that that is an extremely not only is it niche, but high value proposition. And I guess for any government people listening, to be able to build a mobile skiff that's actually approved and that you can use deployed, that is a big thing. That's a big win for you guys. I'm curious because it sounds like you've come pretty far. Where are you going from here? What are your goals and challenges going forward?

[30:58] Ron Ben-Zeev: Once upon a time, I didn't know those words, but I've learned since and wouldn't it'd be great to be a program of record or win an IDIQ, to be in the same language or the same conversations as the big players, the Western shelters of the world, the Alaska tents, the HDTS, blah, blah, blah, all of those very large players. We're not even a rounding error on their balance sheet. But we've been able to win a few nice wins over the years. And yes, we can customize we're currently in discussions with an Air Force customer who needs a very specific storage facility based on very narrow environments. And yes, we can customize that, that's the advantage. But at the same time, we want to focus on things that are more standardized so that way we can increase our speed to market, we can reduce our costs and get things moving from that direction as well. But that's really the beauty. We can do everything from tactical skiffing to actually providing ballistic protection while still making it portable by hand and ultimately having the ability to run the shelter off the grid if needed, when needed to reduce the risk and intrusions in the camp and the reliance on fossil fuel, which becomes even more critical right now based on everything that's going to geopolitically. We're all aware of it, right? Everybody that plugs in that goes to put me fuel in their car or even plugs in on electricity that also went up so that becomes even a stronger drumbeat. And that's part of where we really excel and we still look at things holistically. And what I mean by that is we've delivered a Latin system or multiple latte system in Africa, but those latrines are actually designed for longevity as far as taking all the water that is processed through the latrine, putting it through a proprietary modular wastewater treatment system that then provides construction water at the end. So now you can plug it into your sewer treatment plant and use that for roads and dust abatement and whatever else. So thinking about this in a slightly different tack than you may naturally think of. Our roots are still there, right? So when we pivot it, we pivoted at a 90, not at 120. We can still see what our theme, what our ambitions, what our desires were, which was to be green and have provide an impact. Now that it's doing both, doing two things right. It's both providing a better environment for troops when they're deployed, but also having a positive impact on the environment. So it's truly a win win and an honor.

[34:11] Ricky Howard: Yeah. Interesting. No, I mean, definitely. I can see the value there for the different services. So really it's just a case of how to scale up, how to find those vehicles that can make you the go to business to do some of that work. Obviously, you have a lot of past performance, so you're really in a great spot. It's just scaling from here. And how are you going to do that? Do you get a lot of repeat business with your primary customers?

[34:37] Ron Ben-Zeev: Again, yes and no. And I say yes because the rotation within the environment, right. Especially in a remote environment where the rotation is even shorter. So you look at people deployed in sub Saharan Africa or some of the places they rotate every six months. So if we're not touching the individuals all the time, and sometimes we miss the wait, so and so is longer. There this and now this person. And so we are restarting. Hey, are you familiar with us? Let me send you some info. Here's our capability statement. Here's a quad chart. All things that I had no idea that meant when I started.

[35:23] Ricky Howard: Right?

[35:24] Ron Ben-Zeev: What's a quadrat? Okay, let's Google it and then let's see what other companies have done and what appeals to us and also what appeals to others. The other thing that a lot of companies, starting with the DoD, are working with the DoD, don't realize that all the links get disconnected when it arrives on the other side. We forget about that. You can't embed videos. You can embed. This suddenly gets blocked. This can't go through the server. And you're sitting there and you're going, why is Colonel So and So, or Sergeant So and so? And I responded, so you pick up the phone, if you're lucky to have the phone, and go, hey, Sarah. Ma'am, did you get my email? No. So we had to learn the hard way simplify the email. Don't embed PDFs. Right.

[36:12] Ricky Howard: Yeah, we talked earlier just about when I was in the Air Force, my wife's emails would get blocked from me or C. You're right, of course. She had a bunch of gobbledygook attached to her in her signature block, which probably is why it was flagged. Yes. It's incredibly important, especially in the military, just like you said, when you're selling to them, to keep touching base for a lot of reasons. One, and it's a good point, in the acquisitions world, your acquisitions guys are moving at least at a minimum every four years, but sometimes a lot faster than that. I mean, I had a ten year stretch where I moved every two years and I changed jobs sometimes every one year. So you might have a program manager in charge of an effort for a year and then get somebody else that rolls on in and takes over for them or her. But the other piece to that is this is where a lot of new work comes from is those relationships that you have. So if you are touching base every month with your PM or the contracting guys, whoever they put you with, that's a great way to not only make sure that everything's going smoothly with whatever they're buying from you, but hey, who else could potentially use this? Sometimes they'll just tell you. Sometimes you have to ask, but you should be asking. I recommended companies to different branches because the acquisitions is so huge. Even just within the military, maybe one person has five to ten efforts. Contracting officers put a lot of things on contract, but they don't necessarily own those programs, right? So you want to be talking to the person that kind of owns the effort, and they're going to be able to recommend you to other people that are running their efforts. There's hundreds, thousands of people running different things within the branches. So it's absolutely necessary to stay on top of that. It can take a lot of time. But also if you're very focused on maybe so you're not reaching out to 100 people every week. It could be doable in a small business where you don't have a staff to do that for you. And then you expand as you grow and you can afford to bring somebody on.

[38:15] Ron Ben-Zeev: And also you can do some automation. But again, you have to be careful with what is the originating server and how does it go or does it get through. Those are still things that we struggle with on a daily basis is how to get through and you get their attention. And even if they open the email, that doesn't mean anything. And then the other thing that we chatted briefly about is the fact that if the person is longer there or has retired, the email will not bounce. You will not know that there's an email graveyard sitting somewhere on government servers of retired folks. I mean, I sent an email recently, someone that is on our board of advisors, a retired lieutenant colonel, and I accidentally sent it to his email address in Germany. He's been retired for three years and the email didn't bounce. And then I'm like, wait, why hasn't he returned? And then I went in. I'm like, I can't believe I still had that email to delete the email, keep a civilian email, and then reach out.

[39:18] Ricky Howard: I kind of like to know, I'd.

[39:20] Ron Ben-Zeev: Kind of be able to like to.

[39:20] Ricky Howard: Look at my email address from the Air Force and see how many people have been emailing. That just some tips for you or for anyone listening. So if you do encounter that, there's a couple of other ways you can reach out to the person you're trying to get to. One great one is LinkedIn and it gets overlooked a lot. But I think most of your acquisitions professionals are going to be on LinkedIn. Most of your officers are going to be on there. And I can remember even being in as a PM running a branch. I would have some companies reach out to me. There like, hey Rick, I tried your email but didn't get anything. I'm like, oh, okay, because you're going to respond to that. And I get responses. When I'm going out to people on LinkedIn, I'm usually getting a response if I don't on email. And then the other way that you can do it, and you mentioned a PTAC earlier, you can also use your small business office that's associated with that unit. And so if you're really trying to get to somebody that's running an effort and maybe responding to an RFI or source of thought and you don't have the relationship, that small business can often set up a meeting with you and the PM. And if it's not, if you're ever looking to do it, get a couple of different businesses. Because if you come at them with like three businesses that want to know about a specific effort, you're almost forcing the hand of everybody to sit down with you. Because the government does have a responsibility to meet with small businesses and discuss what is coming up. So it's not that anyone's mean on the other side, but they're extremely busy doing their thing. They're pulling their 14 hours, days trying to just get home to the kids or whatever they're doing. So sometimes you got to make a little noise to get in front of them.

[40:58] Ron Ben-Zeev: One time I flew to Germany, and from Germany we drove to a base to the north of Germany for a meeting. And I literally just landed from the US. It was picked up by one of my colleagues and we drove a nine hour flight and then a three and a half, four hour drive. And we arrived for a meeting and the individual was not there, an emergency had occurred. This is a military, this thing's happened. And I sat there and he actually popped out of a meeting. He said, I sent you guys an email to cancel the meeting. And we're like, you guys need to leave by the last thing you can do is get cranky, right? Because that won't do anything. And people have said to me like, oh my gosh, wait, you flew all the way out there and you didn't have to meet him? That wasn't the only time that happened. Emergencies occur and it's not civilian world and you have to go. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. And when can we meet next? I'm in Germany for a week or whatever it may be, and sometimes it doesn't happen. Let's move to a telecon and try that. Right?

[42:03] Ricky Howard: Yes, sometimes you're right. That's going to happen. I would always bring up the fact that you mentioned it already. Yeah, be politeful, be respectful, remind them that you flew out there. I was flying last week at a bunch of meetings and sometimes have to make sure that each of the individuals knew that I had flights in and out. But you're right. Look, especially if you're going overseas or something or some disaster happens or there's a deployment, the military personnel, unlike the other federal agencies, they're not free to kind of go and come as they please. Right? So if the government says you're going here or you're deploying here or you're going to work on this, that's not a choice. That's what they're going to be doing. So you're right. There's definitely some times where you might have to suck up the investment of time and money you made and just be flexible. But I think most people are going to appreciate that and work with you and hopefully things move forward on the contracting side.

[43:01] Ron Ben-Zeev: And again, there's a great lesson in humility and also in understanding how to work with the government because maybe government but still human, right. So you have to treat them with respect and deference and establish a relationship because that's how we started. Really gaining traction is when we had the ability to travel rather than blindly throw our hook in the water and answering questions that didn't matter or not understanding the question correctly. And I've mentioned to you, I think, but I used to in the civilian world, you said to people, say, well, what kind of problems keep you up at night? And I made the mistake of a trade show one time at a conference with the military, and the person across the table from me, as I'm asking that question said, so what's your secret clearance? Okay, you can't tell me. So let me rephrase that question. What keeps you up at night that you can share or be generic or things of that nature? And it can be a little bit off putting, but it makes sense. There are certain things that we don't know and we should not know sure. To protect the country's best in interests. And that's really, again, learning process.

[44:22] Ricky Howard: It is. And I always say this is an art form. This is not an exact science. And I think some of the best art forms are also the most constricted. Right? So you have the federal acquisitions regulations putting some constrictions on the way the government has to do business. But once you learn how to operate within there, there's a lot of art and a lot of creativity and a lot that you can do to ensure that you're successful there and maybe getting a leg up on some of your competitors. So I know I've had you on the line for a while here. Maybe if you could tell us how, if there's a company out there that wants to potentially partner with you on an opportunity, or if the government wants to reach out to you directly, what are some good ways to get to you and World housing solution?

[45:05] Ron Ben-Zeev: So the first thing, obviously, is our website, and it's a little tricky because it's Worldhousingsolution singular. We only have one solution. Just kidding. But that's the website Worldhousingsolution.com, and you can send us an email to [email protected]. There's a lot of data already on the website, and we're always looking for individuals that work in this space that may be interested in collaborating and joining forces, big and small. Right. Join, venture, all those things are always we play very well with others. We love to integrate, and we love to be part of conversations with folks that are smarter and better at this than we are, because there's a lot that we can learn and develop together, solutions that in the end benefit our troops. That's really the drumbeat of what we do.

[46:00] Ricky Howard: Yeah, absolutely. Collaborating and partnering is a huge part of federal sales. So, yeah, that's a big thing. And so anybody listening that wants to reach out, I'll also put all the contact information in the show notes. Ron, it's been awesome talking with you and learning more about your business today.

[46:17] Ron Ben-Zeev: Same here, Rick. Thank you for the opportunity, and let's continue to make a difference out there.

[46:24] Ricky Howard: Absolutely. All right, take care.

[46:26] Ron Ben-Zeev: Thank you. Bye bye.

[46:27] Ricky 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 to the Department of Defense, I have something for you that you're not going to find anywhere else in the world. The team and I created a program that takes everything you need to win defense contracts and put it into one place. Up until now, only large defense companies and a small amount of people in the know have had access to how products and services are really sold to the Department of Defense. I've taken all of that information and put it in a step by step training module that shows you how to consistently sell to the US. Military. If you join our membership, not only do you get the model, but you get weekly sessions with former DoD acquisitions officers for training and guidance to answer your questions and a community of like minded business owners that want to partner on different opportunities to bid for subcontracting and teaming. Or just to discuss general strategy on how to sell to the DoD. You'll have access to every course I've created. Every coaching session I've ever recorded in every interview with an acquisitions professional that I've ever conducted and we 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 interview with Judy Bradt on GSA Schedule to learn some tactics and strategies on Government sales. Thanks.