The Business Fixer Blog by Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer®

Start Your Government Contracting Adventure With Richard Howard

Written by Wes Schaeffer | Aug 03, 2023

Richard Howard 

[ LISTEN NOW ON ITUNES ]

 

Professional Sales Tips you'll learn today on The Sales Podcast ...

  • The government is required to spend money with small businesses
  • A small business is defined by NAICS
  • If you have 500 employees or less or maybe $25 million or less
  • A lot of commodities go to the low-cost provider
  • Goal-setting, leadership, etc.
  • The government uses SFDC in both federal and state
  • Be focused and deliberate
  • CRM needs
    • Recruiters
    • Human resources
    • Cloud-hosted software must meet certain requirements
    • Fedramp dictates the cloud-hosted needs like CMMC

Related episodes and posts

  • You must register at Sam.gov to sell to the government
  • You can see most opportunities there
  • "Does this customer buy what I sell?"
    • Go to USASpending.gov
    • See what the government is buying
  • Government contracting is the long game
  • Plan on 12-18 months of consistent effort
  • It's a relationship business
  • Target an agency and nurture them
  • One way to fail is to go to Sam.gov, find RFPs and submit your bids, fail, and say it's rigged
  • Once the solicitation goes out, the hands of the government are tied
  • Before that, the government wants to talk to you
  • You can help write the solicitation
  • Get in during the market research phase
  • You can be sole-sourced and beat the competition
  • Innovative research funds (SBIR.gov) can pop quickly

 

  • Base security is using SBIR a lot
  • Maybe a biometric scanner...write up a 5-page report and win a "Phase One SBIR" to validate your solution
  • Phase Two is up to maybe $1.3 million (can take about four months) 
  • It can be dual-use, i.e., civilian and government
Government acquisitions is a couple hundred thousand offices that don't talk to one another, and they buy their own stuff."
  • Learn about government contracting
  • Entry-level program and get advice from experienced procurement people
  • Monthly membership
  • Weekly group calls
  • Program 2 is professional advisory services, and they may help you sell
  • If you're looking for the easy button and don't have an existing business with a team, pause and focus on your commercial sales efforts
  • Longterm government contracts help you sell your business
  • He did not have a seamless transition from a career in the military
  • Helped his wife with her real estate career for about six months
  • Spent time learning about sales
  • He has had a podcast for a couple of years with 100+ episodes
  • Also has an outbound sales team
  • Gets a lot of traffic from LinkedIn

 

 

 


Sales Growth Tools Mentioned In The Sales Podcast

  • Hire The Best Speaker for your sales meeting or marketing conference
  • Take The CRM Quiz: get a free consultation with me
  • Donate: because you like the show and its no-bullshit approach, and you don't want to buy a book, software, or The Make Every Sale Program.
  • The Sales Agenda: take control of every sales opportunity like a pro.
  • Leadferno: Turn lurkers into leads
  • Founders Card: Get $20,000 in free processing from Stripe, save 15% on Bose, and save on hotels, travel, car rentals, you name it.
  • Send Drunk Emails: ...that get opened and get you paid!
  • Phone Burner: work the phone like a machine so you can be a human when you connect.

GUEST INFO:

  • Guest Site: https://www.dodcontract.com/
  • Guest Podcast: https://www.dodcontract.com/blog 
  • Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickychoward/

PODCAST INFO:

SUPPORT & CONNECT: Check out the sponsors above; it’s the best way to support this podcast