How Do I Sign Florida Banking IOU

How to document type sign profit sharing agreement template florida

this webinar is for those who are new to government contracting and want to know a little bit more it's designed for established businesses that are looking to diversify their markets and expand their capabilities welcome to the Florida procurement Technical Assistance centers doing business with state and local government agencies the goal of this webinar is simple it's to provide you a firm foundation of information and to prepare you for your first meeting with your local PTAC so that first meeting is productive for you and ultimately leads to your growth and success in government contracting so a little bit about the program the procurement technical assistance center program or PTAC was authorized by Congress in 1985 in an effort to expand the number of businesses that are capable of participating in the government marketplace it's administered by the Department of Defense defense logistics agency or DLA the program provides matching funds through cooperative agreements with state and local governments and nonprofit organizations as well here in Florida we provide government contracting assistance across the entire state and nationwide there's over 300 PTAC centers that provide coverage across all 50 states and many US territories as well PTX for the most part are usually headquartered in the university centers or have Circuit write offices and the point is that there's usually a PTAC specialist near you so the PTAC program provides federal state and local government contracting assistance in three basic ways through educational services such as this webinar that you're viewing information services to include contract and technical research and consulting services where you can sit down one-on-one with the government correcting specialists and discussed the specifics of your business the services and compass understanding of contract laws and policies registrations to include the system for award management mentor-protege programs cybersecurity clause compliance and assistance with preferred small business certifications to name a few the presentation today is going to follow our florida six step gateway process to government contracts and it starts off by evaluating the government contracting market to see if it's even viable for your business and if it is where do you start once you've done that sort of examination the next step is to look at establishing a good plan from getting you from where you are to your next customer we'll look at some mandatory registrations that every government contractor must do in order to be eligible to receive a government contract we'll look at some good preparation techniques to optimize your chances of success we'll look at pursuing which most people think of is solicitations right and providing proposals and we'll look at what's entailed in that to ultimately receive that award of a contract or achieving a favorable result so let's start off with some good techniques for evaluating the state and local market for your business now this is more typically referred to as a sled market state local and educational institutions and oftentimes when people think of government contracting they actually think of the federal government however this is often overlooked in the local markets which oftentimes is where a lot of companies that are just getting their start and government contracting start in their own backyard and that's with their state and local agencies in just the draw comparison the federal agencies number around 400 flood markets a hundred and fifty thousand agencies across the United States just here in Florida alone we have over 3,500 agencies bureaus departments and offices so in comparison the sled market is much larger in its potential customer base in spending the the same holds true that in the federal arena generally about five hundred billion dollars in federal spending in the sled market 2.5 trillion dollars in contract spending each year so it is a sizable market cumulatively now the the similarities between the federal and state contracting is that they're both governed by a lot of regulations and acquisition laws and that's just the reality of doing business in the government market sector will look be exploring some of the details of that as well but again many contractors many small business contractors find their their best chances of success and their first contract is often with a local agency so where do you start where's the best place to start well we recommend starting at the end looking at the endgame looking at the customer that you want to do business with and of course that just begs the question of well who's buying what I sell excellent question a good question to address you with your be tax specialist but you have a tool and resource right in front of you that can help you find those answers and that's the internet and by starting off with your search your search engine such as Google Bing Yahoo or whatever you use and a little common sense of who's buying what I sell so for example if you sell law enforcement products then you may want to look at law enforcement agencies if you sell healthcare related products you want to look at state nursing facilities or perhaps even the V so start by opening up your search engine and typing in how to do business with and then of course fill in the blank with whatever agency you think may or may not be buying what you offer so for example if I was interested in doing business with say the University of North Florida I may want to type in how to do business with UNF that will very rapidly take me to their procurement site they're purchasing site where a lot of information is provided and is available online to how they buy when they buy how do they advertise opportunities and that is gonna be your first beginning steps of exploring your next customer if this phrase doesn't work for you you may want to look at this has also worked well for me say for example UNF purchasing or procurement department that will also usually produce some favorable results as well so try these these two phrases and again deucey take some time do some exploring do some analysis again we're in the the analysis stage right the evaluation stage who's buying what I sell is this market for me and that's all we're doing at this stage is just trying to get a sense of the market potential that's available to our business so once you arrive at those sites once you've identified who that potential customer is one of the things that we highly recommend is download a download one of their solicitations now this could take many forms it could be an invitation to bid a request for quote or qualifications or RFQ an RFP which is request for proposal or an ITN in invitation to negotiate but whatever the acronym whatever it's called take a look at their solicitations and what you're looking for here is a solicitation that is familiar to your business is is somewhat related to what you do so if if if you provide say facilities maintenance you know you certainly don't want to be looking at an IT opportunity but if you could keep it within the janitorial construction realm that kind of basic idea it's gonna be related close enough to what you do because again we're just in the evaluation stage and we want to take a look at those solicitations to get a sense of what are we gonna have to do to bid on work and submit an offer to multum utley win that contract now again we're just in the evaluation stage a very early stage of this journey and so don't get discouraged if the first solicitation you download is is 500 pages I keep looking because many times more complex or larger contracts the solicitations are very large and and nobody starts at the very top everybody starts at a attainable level that's right for their business so perhaps you want to start at a more manageable type of acquisition of perhaps five 10 50 pages before moving into those large complex acquisitions so you start off there and and then you work your way up so but the point of this is that it's always a good idea to look before you leap so before going through the entire process and going through all the registrations and all the mandatory requirements we want to make sure that we're doing that in a smart focused and organized way so that we're not wasting our time and then again we are are connecting where we are to where we want to be in the most efficient way possible so take a look at a few solicitations they're going to be overwhelming at first there's going to be definitely information overload but the point of this is that again in preparation for your meeting with your P tax specialist that you're bringing things to the table you're putting things on the desk that are tangible discussions of okay how does this work what are these things mean is this viable to my business and if it's not we can help you find those opportunities that are more realistic for you but the development and the end of questions through the review of a solicitation is really going to invigorate that conversation and really going to give some traction underneath you towards moving moving forward okay a reality of this business and as I had mentioned earlier and that's the mandatory requirement to have an understanding of government acquisition regulations and that is just again a reality of doing business with any government agency they could be regulation statues codes depending on what sector of government you're you're pursuing work in and they're all going to be different if you're pursuing a state contract then you will definitely be in a state of Florida contract you will definitely be encountering state statute title 19 of public business that will definitely be something that that you will need to have a familiarity with if you're doing local municipality support contracts and many times cities and townships will have a separate set of acquisition regulations that you'll be dealing with and you don't need to know all of them you just need to know the ones that are applicable to the particular contract that you're going to be supporting so how do you know how do you know which regulations are going to be in force going back to that solicitation there are numerous references in those solicitations to the regulations that that are governed over that contract so that's where you start many of those will be identified there now a government Acquisition regulations is are something that are very very important but as small business owners we need to be good at a lot of things but we can't be experts at everything and government acquisition regulations are one of those things I compare it to having an expertise with say accounting topics I was a small business owner we need to have an understanding of how to read our profit loss statement we need to have an understanding of the analysis of the overall financial health and position of our company however that doesn't mean that we need to be certified public accountants or have that level of expertise the same holds true with government acquisition regulations we need to have a familiarity with them we need to have a basic understanding of them but we also need to have relationships built with with experts in these subject areas and oftentimes your PTAC specialists can can can provide assistance with this many times they're gonna recommend that that you have a relationship built with a an attorney or a legal expert who has a specialty in these areas so that there's somebody you can turn to for asking the details and getting getting the in-depth understanding and analysis that you sometimes need so but this is an area again that you definitely want to familiarize yourself with in addition as part of this analysis and and looking at the potential of the market and what's right for you attending workshops is always a great idea like the one that you're you're you're listening to today what is is great it's a great first step but there are many many more educational opportunities that are available to you not only through the PTAC program but also through the national organization the app tech which is our national apt AC program also many other peat acts around the country offer on-demand webinars I would encourage you to explore those Georgia Tech offers some great opportunities north carolina PTAC the washington state P Tech also publishes some some very very good online webinars the SBA or Small Business Administration also offers an online classroom of on-demand webinars it would encourage you to review those as well here in the state of Florida my Florida marketplace University is available as well and there are links below that contain all the URLs for the resources that I'm mentioning here vendor orientations are also a very very good way to to look ahead to look at what you're going to be encountering and being required to do to be a government vendor so every or many government agencies offer vendor orientations so this is usually done on a on a monthly or quarterly basis where the agency will essentially have an open house and invite businesses in who are interested in doing business with them they'll publish this information on their website and usually it's a anywhere from an hour to a half a day orientation well they'll discuss what's coming up for the agency how to do business with them various contracts that they have and what they're looking for in terms of the various products and services again good way to get your feet wet to get a sense of what's involved in government contracting at the state and local level connecting with a good business adviser is always an excellent idea hopefully that would be with your P tax specialist but there are a number of other great resources out there for advisory relationships to include score the SBDC the women's business centers and V Bock are also great resources for that many times small businesses that are going for their first contract will find the advisors with prime contractors or other vendors that are already operating at a government site so that's also a good thing to be on the lookout so the point to all this this section this slide in the entire section is cumulative ly to round out your knowledge and your point of view on the state and local market and where you should start centering your efforts and energy towards targeting those opportunities all right so let's move forward and say oK we've evaluated the market we've said that yes this is something that I'm interested in looking at further let's go ahead and develop a plan from where I am now to building that business with my next customer so I'm not going to get into the any of the specifics or mechanics about building a marketing plan there's plenty of information about how to do a marketing plan if you're looking for information and resources for that I would encourage you to connect with score they have a number of great templates and resource resources available through their website and they have a number of counselors who have expertise in the mechanics of developing a marketing plan but what I want to talk about more is maybe some potential content that that you can capture in your marketing plan for doing work with state and local agencies so some of the things to consider in developing this is is to have an understanding of discretionary informal and formal purchasing level activities so what I mean by that is that the government buys in basically in different size structures of the contractor spending amounts so discretionary purchases are usually credit card purchases and there's it's very streamlined there it's it's less paperwork it's more rapid and the purchase threshold usually on your discretionary purchases are or sometimes called p-card purchases those range anywhere between the top threshold on that 2500 up to $10,000 depending on the agency so state agencies city agencies they have different thresholds depending on what what agency you're dealing with the state of Florida discretionary high level is $2,500 so those are credit-card purchases the informal purchases or those mid-level purchases are between 2500 to $35,000 and it is what the name implies it's less formal it's a little bit more streamlined usually there are multiple offers that are that are requested and received from the government agency so you still are in a in a competitive environment however the paperwork and the preparation the size of the solicitations again is a little bit more streamlined on formal quotes and again state of Florida between 2500 up to 35,000 for that competitive solicitations now these are the large complex acquisition activities and this is what you normally think of in terms of a thick request for proposal or RFP and a more rigorous proposal response and those those can go up into the millions and and and sometimes into the billions of dollars so those are anything that are above the informal purchase threshold up and up until the stratosphere there so the point of this is just one to understand that there are differences in the size of purchase thresholds for government agencies and that may be something that you want to capture in your government marketing plan and and it's important to consider many times what is attainable by your business what can you handle in terms of of cash flow and sometimes starting at that discretionary level or the informal purchase level is the best place to start it's attainable it's doable it's a more rapid acquisition activity it doesn't mean that you have to stay at that level forever and ever however it is a good place to get your foothold and get your start and there's gonna be different there's gonna be different scenarios for different businesses depending on what your circumstances are identifying your market is also something that you may want to consider in your marketing plan so what sector of government state local educational institutions public utilities prime contractors what sector are you interested in focusing on a perhaps location is something that should be considered do you want to stay in the state of Florida do you want to stay in a regional area within the state of Florida or are you interested in in a broader reach again every business is going to have a different set of circumstances capabilities and constraints some for some businesses it's it's difficult to operate and service a customer that is two time zones away other businesses need to stay closer to to their to their home office so whatever those whatever those those capabilities and constraints are it's important to consider that in your marketing plan and then of course requirements what what does the contract require and what are your capabilities and so these are just just a just a few ideas but the point is to be thinking about really identifying what is a viable market to your business and then focusing on it and again going back to just the size of government of ups of the sled market it's so large there are so many potential customers to try to pursue everything is really ineffective so the importance of focusing in on those customers that are viable to you it really targets your your energies and your efforts in in who you're gonna be pursuing work with so piggybacking is also something that that that you may want to consider as part of your marketing plan and the idea of piggybacking is that it permanent permits state of Florida or associated agencies or entities with the state to piggyback off of other contracts so as long as the purchasing agreement was done competitively as long as that contract was was done competitively and it meets the needs of of the agency then than many state entities universities state offices city governments can piggyback off of other contracts so essentially you pursue one contract you submit a proposal it is accepted you have an executed contract with that agency and then other agencies can then utilize that contract utilize all that paperwork that's already been been done and basically have an extension off of that contract now there are some there are some exceptions to that and that is as long as the contract is not been awarded underneath the consultants competitive negotiations Act contract and those are typically contracts for architectural professional engineering Landscape Architecture and surveying services which are usually pretty large in size and scope so as long as the contract doesn't fall into one of those categories then piggybacking is something that is available to you with state of Florida contracts or state agencies and again these are just ideas that you can start to incorporate into your marketing plan of course that's just the start there's a lot more but let's say we've developed our marketing plan for government contracting we've identified the agencies that are buying what we offer now we were starting to get a sense of what are the required registrations that we're going to need to accomplish here so this section addresses mandatory registrations that you must do now before you can get started you're gonna need to start your business now that is an area that typically PTAC specialists don't support we ask that you have an established business before coming in and meeting with us there are resource partners out there that can help you start your business to include the SBA resource partners such as the small business development centers the Service Corps of retired executives or score Women's Business Center and the veterans business outreach centers all provide business startup assistance now these are no-cost public resources if you're interested in having somebody dedicated a compensated professional I would suggest looking at the Small Business Resource Network or SB RN which is a referral network of business professionals focused on helping small businesses and that network also includes start-up assistance financial assistance accounting assistance and so forth I would encourage you to visit their website SPR n dot org and take a look at the professional services that are available to you there but again the SBA Resource Partners offer business assistance support at no cost to you as well so the point is that before you can start doing anything government contracting you're gonna need to have a business started first now the basics that you're gonna need to have in place for doing work with any state or local agency first of all you're gonna in the state of Florida you're gonna have to have a valid w9 filed with the Department of Financial Services although not strictly required a federal employee identification number is strongly encouraged so if if you have anything but a sole-proprietorship you're gonna have to have a a IM number however sole proprietorships aren't necessarily required you can operate under a social security number however i i highly advise against that you you will be required to provide that identification number and many many registration requirements for government contracting so i encourage my clients to go to the IRS site and even as a sole proprietor you can request an EIN number and that it's something that i would encourage everyone to do regardless of your business structure go ahead and request an EIN number but you will you will need that in some form or fashion you're doing work with the government agencies you'll need a registration in son biz org if you are a Florida based business you'll also want to look at any registrations that are required with the Florida Department of Business and Professional regulations as well and finally there's a plethora of many other registrations that are going to be unique to - each government agency going to that website looking at what the requirements are reviewing those solicitations that's where you're going to find a lot of those answers and again the PTAC program can can help you with that so starting off let's say we have our basic business registration is accomplished and now we want to get in to the specifics of what do we need in terms of doing work with those agencies the first thing is you're going to need to identify what your business codes are now primarily in Florida there's there's two types of codes that you frequently will encounter either the unspsc codes or united nations standard products and services classification codes which are generally associated with state contracting or at the city or municipal level your going to frequently encounter nigp or National Institute of governmental purchasing codes now even though the coatings are different the basic theory is the same and that is they are a alphanumeric or numeric association with a product or service so what do I mean by that well best way I can explain this through an example so let's say that you provide landscaping services now the government has a need for that what do you call that how do you advertise that do you call it grass cutting mowing lawn care landscaping there are a whole myriad of terms and terminology that you could apply to that activity well that's not an efficient way for the government to operate so the solution is to applied a numeric code to e to a product or service and that's an efficient way for the government to classify that purchase to advertise that purchase and to locate vendors who are capable of providing that service as well it also provides a conduit for the vendor and the agency to connect with one another through those opportunity postings so it's much easier to look up a number than it is to put in a whole bunch of terminology and and synonyms to to a product or service so that's all it is is it's a numeric association with a product or service so very important to understand that concept because that's something that you're going to continuously use and reuse over and over and over as you explore this market as you identify opportunities and as you build relationships with customers many times the first thing they will ask you is what is your business code and that's the language that the government operates under another registration so this is going to lead you once you have those those codes identified for your business this is going to lead you to some of your primary registrations with government contracting now a typical registration that's often required is a dun & bradstreet Duns registered links to to all these URLs as well below again it's a free registration usually takes about 20 minutes to complete it and usually will have your Duns number issued to you within a day or two when you first visit this page it will ask you to put in your company name and and location information you may very well already have a Duns number that has been established for your company so look that up first and see if you already have one available to you once you have your Duns number in hand then you can proceed forward with some of these specific registrations for doing business the very 8 various agencies now the one that I'm gonna take as an example here is creating your registration with the state of Florida and that's through my Florida marketplace or MF MP the e-procurement system and the specific registration that's required there is going to be the vendor information portal or oftentimes referred to as VIP site once you're at that site and completing the registration it will ask you for your federal employer identification number it will ask you for your Duns number it will ask you for your unspsc right those are those business codes that I had mentioned just a few minutes ago so it's gonna ask you for all that information during that registration process it's not a complex process it's fairly straightforward it will also ask you for a w-9 as part of that registration if you need assistance completing that registration please connect with your local P tech specialists we can help you in completing that registration and doing it correctly is important point to stress that many other local entity registrations I've just been referring to Florida and again to emphasize the importance of really being targeted about what you do here this just mushrooms into more and more and more as you start looking at well if you want to do work beyond the state of Florida you want to expand out into other states there's gonna be other registrations that are gonna be required of you in each of the 50 states there are literally tens of thousands of state and local and educational institutions that are that are available out there for you to pursue work with again the importance of are they buying what I provide do they have a need for it and is it a viable client to me and being focused about which registrations you're completing and leading you to that to that first government customer we don't want to spend all day long completing registrations we want to be operating contracts is is the ultimate goal here so the efficient way of getting there is the best way of getting there the sled markets are enormous so that focus is very very important all right so we've taken a look at the markets we've said yes this is something we want to do we've got a good plan of action put together we've got our registrations accomplished what are some things that we can do to really prepare ourselves for success well one of the first things we can do is look at having a set of marketing tools that are focused on our state and local government markets now government buyers see themselves as different and and they they should they are different they're purchasing activity is different the acquisition process is very rigorous more rigorous than a commercial buying activity and so there should be a different approach to how you market to them and how you communicate to them you're gonna want to have a business card that is specific to the government contracting market and what I like to have on the back of my business card is I like to have my business codes again that's the language of the government contracting professional are those unspsc codes if there's any small business certifications that I may have I want to have those identified on my marketing information I want to have my Duns number identified there anything that communicates who I am what I do and more importantly by having those components on my marketing materials it immediately communicates to the customer that I have everything in place and in order to do work with with their and with their government agency word of mouth is always a positive thing many people start off in this business and say I don't know anybody in government contracting well maybe you do and maybe you don't one of the best places to to spread the word is your professional relationships if you have a relationship with a lending institution a banker accounting professionals bookkeepers any vendors let them know that you are expanding your business into government come into the government contracting market you never know who somebody might know and so by getting those that referral system going is always a favorable thing social media the the people who are the acquisition professionals on the government side are people just like you and I and they're no different and they frequent social media sites so having a presence a smart presence in the right social media platforms is is also important on your website having a dedicated tab or page that is focused on government contracting is important I'm not suggesting that you completely revamp your site and overhaul the entire site however having one little tab that leads to a page on your website that specifically addresses government contracting again tells that customer that government customer that that you acknowledge that there are some specific things that are focused on them and and that your business is geared to supporting their requirements having something called a capability statement is is something a little unique to government contracting you may hear that requested from time to time it's a one-page resume of your company it's usually pretty simple and straightforward it identifies who you are what you do your past performance your experience it is a leave behind or an introduction piece that you can share with the potential customer again that reiterates who you are and what you do as a business so having a variety of marketing tools focused on government contracting very very important to develop those and have those at your fingertips and they're not one-size-fits-all here they are they are tailored they are unique to each business and to each market and each market sector so again working with your PTAC can help you develop a level of professionalism and polish to those materials okay also in preparation for pursuing opportunities you should consider any small business certifications that you might be eligible for and there's a whole variety of these that that are available to you here in the state of Florida for example if you're a Florida based business and you're interested in doing work with Florida agencies then there are three primary certifications that are available to you there are the minority-owned small business enterprise or MBE women-owned business enterprise or WBE veteran-owned business enterprise our vbe are the three that are available for state agencies and then it goes on and on if you're interested in doing work for city agencies for example the City of Jacksonville Florida offers something called a Jacksonville small and emerging business certification or J sub and that is a certification that's preferred by city agencies if you're interested in doing work with a Department of Transportation related agencies such as a such as a bus company or an airport or a port activity than or of course a highway contract then a Department of Transportation disadvantaged business enterprise or DBE certification may be of interest to you and then it even gets sometimes into even more granular certifications with even individual agencies will sometimes have certifications available for example the many public school systems will have their own small business certifications so the question is well which one should I get should I try to get all of them some of them none of them the first thing to answer that question is that it depends if you're eligible for it or not for starters if you are eligible for them and you meet the qualifications then the next focus point is going to be well which agencies are you pursuing work for because if you only want to obtain and secure those certifications that are applicable to the agencies that you're doing work with are pursuing work with so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to go out and get every certification across all 50 states when you're only going to be doing work with say your local school system so again going back and and getting that focus on which agencies you're going to be doing work with or pursuing opportunities for vitally important and going back to the very beginning of this presentation when I when I said it's important to do those searches for how to do business with and then look at the solicitations from there those two initial steps are are creating a lot of the answers that you're going to be looking for downstream in this process and save you a lot of time and energy and really keep your efforts focused on winning opportunities rather than just going after certifications so we move on we've made good prepper now we're ready to actually pursue some opportunities and take a look at we want to look at solicitations now way beyond just sort of looking at them for the sake of evaluating them but we want to look at them in terms of actually producing a proposal some good procurement sites where you can identify opportunities the first one in the state of Florida is through my Florida marketplace when you do complete your registration through the vendor information portal or VIP site you're automatically going to start receiving opportunities through my Florida marketplace but there are also opportunities that are available through that site so that you can query the system yourself earlier I had mentioned my Florida marketplace University that was in the early stages of evaluation that was something that you could do to help evaluate your pathway and that activity is more than just evaluation but ultimately at this stage now you've prepared yourself for how to utilize that site how to research opportunities how to find contracts and ultimately identify things that are viable for your business so here's where you start connect here's where you start sort of assembling the puzzle pieces of of this entire picture and those earlier steps that you made actually are are very very productive in the later stages here now my Florida marketplace is just one potential opportunity first for state and local opportunities each city town village may run its own separate procurement platform many public utilities will publicize their opportunities on their websites public institutions like colleges and universities and even prime contractors will publish opportunities to their website and again going back to some of the previous initial preparations are gonna provide many of the answers and resources for what you're looking for here and again meeting with your P tax specialist these are good questions to bring to the table on that first meeting are where are there opportunities specifically for my business here's what I've done so far here's what I've found so far here's some of the difficulties that I've encountered all good things to bring to that first meeting and your P Tech specialist can it can provide a demonstration they can bring up sites for you they can walk you through the mechanics and the strategy of the process as well there are many many many other procurement sites there are over 3500 different procurement sites just in the state of Florida alone it's it's very easy to get lost in the noise so be focused about it some good sites to to look at though initially you may encounter something called the man the star and that is actually a public-private partnership service and what it is is it's a commercial service for publicizing acquisition opportunities they offer a free access option they also offer a subscription fee based option as well I would encourage you to look at that but many smaller municipalities counties cities school systems will actually utilize that site because they do not have the resources to field a large robust procurement online procurement system so they contract with companies like the man star - to take care of the the mechanics of publicizing procurement opportunities so that may be something that that that you may need to familiarize yourself again depending on what agency you're pursuing work with us a bid is also a good jumping point for opportunities and that's available through outreach systems I've provided a link to that below as well and USA gov is also a good site for looking at opportunities that are across the country with state and local government entities so now that we've identified opportunities we've downloaded a few solicitations we've we're focused in on what acquisitions we are competitively viable on we're going to have to submit an offer that is a reality of doing business with any government agency so again this is a little bit of a repeat from the earlier slide but now we're actually in the mode of submitting an offer now you're going to encounter typically one of four types of solicitations and that could be an invitation to bid which is usually a firm fixed price low price type of structured acquisition usually it's associated with construction activities but that is an invitation to bid an RFQ or request for quote sometimes it's called a request for qualifications that's it your mid-level purchase if you remember from the earlier part of the presentation where there's a mid-level purchase that's usually an RFQ RFP or request for proposal or invitation to negotiate or itn those are your large more complex acquisition activities so you're going to encounter these four as you submit your offers again this is an area where your P tax specialist can help walk you through the bid and proposal process they can help review your your offer and critique it for you and check for issues like compliance and things of that nature so good people to know good people to have on your side and utilize as a resource so when you're bidding you want to make sure that one you're you're meeting all pass/fail requirements so I'm what I mean by that is in in most solicitations there are certain things like past performance requirements or they may require resumes of key personnel or there may be certain insurance or bonding requirements or registrations that are required to make sure that as you're looking at that solicitation you are checking all those boxes and that your offer is compliant with all minimum pass/fail requirements there's that's an area that that you definitely need to be fully compliant in all your responses then from there it's always a good idea when you review your proposal I say to check the three C's and that is making sure that one your offer is compliant with all solicitation requirements that it's clear it's easy to read it's easy to understand and then finally is it compelling is are you giving that evaluator reason to select you and award the contract so always a good idea to review every solicitation and your offer against that solicitation in terms of is it compliant is it clear and is it compelling okay so we have gone through almost all of our steps we are at the final stage of we have submitted our offer we have been awarded our contract and now we have achieved success what's next well earlier one of the I had emphasized the importance of understanding government acquisition regulations when you're supporting your contract it it doesn't stop at the bidding proposal process it continues all the way through contract operations so you'll want to make sure again that you're complying with all applicable regulations statutes and codes again that are referenced in that solicitation the solicitation will eventually become the contract the contract is what you sign and what you're obligated to fulfill so having an understanding of what is being required of you is critically important here and again to echo what I had said earlier not necessarily a hard requirement that you that you have a legal in-depth understanding of course you can if you want and the more understanding you have the better however you should have as a business owner a functional understanding of how to operate that contract how to fulfill every requirement within the rules and regulations and when you get into the specifics of sometimes many gray areas in the regulations that's where you want to turn to your experts and have that bad team around you of expert resources who you can turn to for asking those questions so I think the understanding again here is to to have a grasp of them but more importantly to understand when you need to ask questions and and when you to recognize I met the limitations of my understanding on this subject I need to turn to an expert reporting requirements also very important in every government contract usually that's going to encompass things like record-keeping timekeeping payroll records cybersecurity reporting is becoming increasingly important on government contracts every contract is going to be different with what the reporting requirements are again going back to that solicitation looking at that contract that is going to provide the guidance on what reporting requirements you are obligated to fulfill so review that carefully and it goes on and on with more contract performance requirements so every contract is different contracts are like fingerprints no two are the same and so even within one agency even very very similar contracts will have things that are different so important to review what those requirements are for things like insurance certifications registrations to understand what those are for each and for each of your contracts and make sure that you're operating them compliantly so if you haven't noticed already one of the things that I have not referred to very much in the course of this presentation is the actual performance they actually doing the work whatever the service or the products that you provide and that's intentional the large part a large part of government contracting is dealing with the contracts it's dealing with the regulations the reporting requirements the paperwork all the ins and outs of the contract itself that's a large part of this doing the work you should successful business as a well-established successful business you should know your business you should know how to how to provide do the work so not to be overlooked or not to be diminished in any way shape or form very very important that once you're in there you're doing a good job and you're delivering it on time you're delivering it with the quality expectations that are outlined in the contract that it's being done within budget and so on you're meeting the objectives the requirements of the contract very very important to obviously fulfill all that in concert with meeting the contract requirements the reporting the contractual obligations and and all of those things as well those the two of them need to be done in unison and they need to be done correctly and to the best of your abilities in order to be a long term success in this business and to ultimately lead to growth both of those things need to be done well so that we're winding down towards the end of this I want to emphasize a couple things here one I want to congratulate you on lasting this long the other thing is that I want to also emphasize that there was nothing that was addressed during the course of this presentation today that the Florida procurement Technical Assistance Center cannot help you with everything every topic every every every strategy every technical subject are areas that we can help you with in the pursuit of state and local government contracts so whether you're a prime contract or a subcontractor whether you're a large business or small business if you're interested in doing work with the government I would encourage you to reach out and connect with your local PTAC P tax can be found at this website address WWF pthe org that's the state site some things that you can do to prepare for your first meeting with your p tax specialist would definitely encourage you to identify an agency that is potentially buying what you provide so doing that search of how to do business with and then fill in the blank download a solicitation from that agency take a look at it it's gonna be overwhelming it's gonna be if you've never looked at one it's gonna be very foreign to you at first but that's okay take a look download one bring that to the table bring your questions is is is the number one thing that you can do for preparing with your first meeting for your p tax specialist bring those questions to the table and prepare for it go through the steps in this webinar review them again you may want to fast-forward through some of these sections take a look at the links below but do a little bit of homework before you go in and visit it will make that first meeting productive for you it will make it focused for you and it will provide you some traction for moving forward please visit us online again at F P Tech org this procurement Technical Assistance Center or PTAC is funded in part to a cooperative agreement with the Defense Logistics Agency and thank you for your time have a wonderful day