Steps involved in the selling process for Government

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hello go con winners and welcome back to my channel my name is kizzy and i'm so excited because today's video is all around how to sell to the federal government we're just gonna jump right in number one you must know how the money works i'm gonna say it again so i really want you to get this how the money works the federal government's fiscal year differs from the private sector it runs one october until the end of september so just like how we are they often will wait until the end of the fourth quarter july august september to make a ton of purchases because they have all this money they need to spend it if they don't spend it guess what they could lose it they could totally lose their funding so keeping that in mind as you either start to look for opportunities or perhaps you're already in this govcon space many opportunities will actually appear toward the summer time because of how the money works now that you understand how the money works second tip involves your marketing materials they don't have to be fancy they don't have to look expensive what they do need to do is communicate who you are who are you as a company which services or products do you provide which makes codes do you fall under also how does one contact you what is your email address what is your website all of this should be communicated to the federal government every single time you engage with them there are things called a capability brief a one-pager and i'll cover all of these topics and more in future videos but for right now your marketing materials are super important additionally we buy because of people we do we buy because of people so therefore you want to be in a position where you're able to communicate your story your why why did you start this business what are your goals what is your mission what is your vision where are your team members located how many team members do you have what pain are you looking to solve all of these questions should be answered in all of your marketing materials be it linkedin website capability brief one pager any and everything this should be very very clear because we like to purchase from those that we know a little bit more around this is why influencer marketing is so huge because we trust the person that we follow on tick tock more than someone you know paid actor not a paid actor in some kind of ad we don't trust them but a tick tocker we trust them because we follow them and we got to know them marketing materials are key when it comes to how to sell to the federal government in addition to the things i listed you also need to have social proof in the form of references or some kind of testimonial you can even pull testimonials from your linkedin page or ask people to provide testimonials for you so you have those on linkedin perhaps you are in an industry like training where you had clients leave a course review you can then take that information and incorporate it into your materials because this social proof demonstrates to the government client that you are capable and you are trustworthy also you must be prepared to hit the sar situation action result when communicating with an agency especially if you do so over the phone or in person or virtually in a one-on-one event you need to be able to explain to them i was involved in xyz situation this is what i did this was the action and this was the result for the client so for instance i would say had a client who had some training it was a bit dated they really wanted to leverage 360 video therefore i brought into my team 360 videographers graphic designers editors voice over as well as curriculum developers to take the existing content that the client had as well as adding new content while working with this government agency to come up with very engaging training they wanted the type of engaging kind of quick training that you would receive on youtube or you could get on tick tock learn or any other type of platform and as a result the course evaluations went up as well as the said government agency and my team members actually received multiple awards because of their efforts that's the type of message you want to communicate to a government agency you want them to see themselves in what you have provided to others very very important third when it comes to how to sell to the federal government are you interested in being transactional or relational one is not better than the other it's about you you're the entrepreneur transactional or relational because the government spends well over 600 billion dollars on federal contracts there are more than enough opportunities where you can offer them notepads you make a profit that's a transaction you can also create a relationship with them which actually leads to higher profit margins and longer term clients as a result my flagship company for instance has had a client since 2013 because of the relationship we formed with them so when it comes to transactional i'm going to walk you through a couple quick things that you can do so just work with me here as i transition to sharing my screen so for those of you that may be interested in more of a transactional relationship you are going to want to go to sam.gov go to contract opportunities you do not need to log in go to advanced search and begin searching for opportunities there's a variety of ways that you can search i cover this in a previous video but this is a great way for you to find immediate opportunities that you can bid on you can literally go to notice type solicitation make sure the dates updated and start bidding if these are of interest it's option number one the second option here is unison this is an awesome marketplace where the federal government is purchasing a variety of products and services they pride themselves on selling the weird to the government through their platform so let's take a look so you'll see a variety here hospitality i t professional consulting services i'm going to click there and we're going to log back in so under opportunities we're going to go to professional consulting services and you see them here so for instance this agency is seeking high-yield black toner printer cartridges if this is of interest and you want to flip printer cartridges because you want to take that transactional approach why not this is an option for you and that's just clicking on professional services let's go to education and social social services there is a need for mentoring skills training courses i believe it may be in thailand see if there's any attachments okay just for you to get an idea mentoring skills tells you who's involved and if this is something of interest to you hey why not this is a platform that's known as a kind of reverse auction where you start a bid the agency will review it if you win confetti time right i think you go on and provide the said service or product what's really cool about unison and largely overlooked is the fact that you can offer a variety of products and services and potentially partner with someone to provide some of these things i mean they're even looking for furniture if that's something for you hey why not the third option for those of you that are really interested and kind of this transactional you want to be able to find bid immediately on different opportunities is to go to acquisition.gov and i will make sure that you have this link and you will see what is known as a procurement forecast so in essence the agency is saying to you this is what we plan on purchasing based on the fiscal year explained earlier and what they believe they need so while the procurement forecast is not 100 it does provide you at least a background into is this of interest for you is this potentially an agency where you can reach out to them get more information about the items here on the forecast and bid on them this is an example of a forecast from the usda it opened in an excel sheet so you can easily manipulate it and i scroll to the section that is of most interest if i were to bid on opportunities with this agency and you can see they list the staffing and recruitment services garbage contract snow removal landscaping there are well over 658 opportunities noted for agricultural research service under the usda so let's say you are interested in one of these typically they provide not only information on the size and the location but most importantly they provide a contact and i'll share in just one second what you will need to do but this is vital all of these contacts that we have here so for those of you you've been so patient maybe you're more relational you want to take the approach where you want an agency to really get to know you because you too want a client for 10 years opposed to one and done or you fulfill the need for paper and now you have to find more contracts for paper the best way to handle that is to number one go to a variety of outreach events the best way to handle this is number one to go to a variety of outreach events i've put together this excel sheet that lists various outreach events and i will make sure this link is shared with you what's cool about these events is that typically a government agency is holding the event the purpose of the event often is to provide information one-on-one events a mixture of both and or for you just to learn more information about them what they're looking to purchase how they purchase and just for them to get to know you and vice versa these events are quite amazing and as a result of one of these events is how my flagship company was actually connected to ibm and i have a cute little clip around that uh that's available on tick-tock and instagram maybe one day i'll make a longer video about it you let me know in the comments if you want to hear more so what you're going to do is sign up for the event and get prepared to just learn experience is very similar to a typical networking event often in the government space because there are thousands and thousands upon thousands of small businesses in this arena they don't know who we are they don't know you they don't know me they don't know all they know is who is going to remove our snow who's going to provide the hr need we have who's going to handle the garbage requirement we have so the more that you engage with them through events through emails through phone calls it is so so so important you want to do that all the time is have these different touch points with them there's a section here on acquisition.gov and it's labeled small business and literally the contact information for all the small businesses are located here so you're going to want to reach out to a small business introduce yourself share the information that i noted before in the marketing segment of today's video so that they get to know you they form a relationship because when we know someone we like them we start to trust them and guess what we do we advocate for them because we want them to win i know you're going to win i know you're a winner you're a govcon winner and just like me they want to advocate for you too they do so this is a great place to go next is going back to sam under notice type let's change that we're going to put in sources sought an agency only will get to know you if you respond to a source of thought notice request for information basically an agency is saying we need this support can somebody provide it if so answer these questions uh follow the instruction that we provided so then we the customer can determine how we want to proceed no different than when you're trying to get quotes maybe for car repair or to buy a car or buy a dress or you're shopping to get the greatest deal it's no different because behind all of this behind the govcon curtain it's people people everyday people so what you're going to want to do is find a source of thought notice and respond that's what you're going to want to do because that's how they're going to get to know you then you're going to want to do one better you're going to also ask them if you can meet with them to provide a capability brief that's what you're definitely going to want to do as well as all of those that you reach out to at a bare minimum i would contact them once a month once a month because we remember those who reach out there's a reason there are certain companies you purchase with or maybe certain people you've purchased maybe a course or what may have you from because they email you every day or they email you every two weeks or you receive a notification every time they release a video please subscribe to my channel please turn on that notification bell too please please please uh there's a reason for that it's no different in government contracting you're going to want to do the same thing hi i'm just checking in i last responded to a source of sought notice that was due february 22nd just checking in to see how everything is going do you foresee any other notices like that or like this you're going to want to do things like that keep in mind they may not respond to you that's not good it's not bad they're busy they have other requirements for their job they're really busy so so don't take it personal it's okay it's okay on to number four and that is what are your goals yes we all want to sell to the federal government and you're learning how to do that because of this amazing video that's only because of you because you're here watching because i already know you're a govcon winner i know it what are your goals this is the time to set goals are your goals to make a certain amount of money every month is it to make two thousand dollars a month as a government contractor is it to respond to ten opportunities a month is it just to win a contract is it to contact a certain number of people a month what are your goals entailed is there a certain profit that you're interested in a certain client that you want to do work with it's very very important that you have a list of goals because the energy flows and will go where our focus is so if you focused on those goals that's where the energy will go awesome you must evaluate you must evaluate how you are doing what should you stop doing start doing continue doing stop doing start doing continue doing in this govcon space no one is perfect so please don't strive for that please don't tried it did it did nothing for me but gave me lots of stress lots of stress and acne i remember being lied to i was told that after you hit puberty like you wouldn't have acne anymore oh yes i was i digress you need to evaluate you must evaluate so the way that you do this is you can accomplish it weekly you can do so when you're communicating with government agencies you can ask them questions like hey you know i'm really new to this are there any tips that you could give me would you wish more small businesses would do that they're not doing if you were in my position what would you do if you were me you can start doing things like that for those of you that are interested in that kind of transactional approach or you're already at that step where you're bidding all the time always ask for a debrief they may not give you one regardless if they're required to do it or not doesn't mean that they're going to do it because remember behind the curtain people people but ask for feedback the feedback is so valuable i remember one time received feedback on an e-learning opportunity that we've been on we were technically acceptable but we just didn't score high enough to win the opportunity our pricing was on point because you may also ask them to rank your pricing in terms of where you fell when it when it came to all of those who bid on the opportunity so i knew that our pricing was on point during the debrief they elaborated and stated that they wanted more information on our how they wanted way more information on our how and i have never forgotten that advice and ever since then i spent so much time and energy making sure that we had my flagship company clear-cut processes and procedures in place to then match with our how and to be able to articulate the how because it's easy to say i provide cyber security i provide amazing training i can meet your staffing requirement how how are you going to do that break it down and it's just vital to constantly get that feedback especially given the federal government is paid for predominantly by taxpayer dollars and one of the key attributes of being an amazing entrepreneur is being a forever learner and that's why you're here today so i want to thank you all for watching this video on how to sell to the federal government you're amazing you're a govcon winner and until next time please subscribe set the notification button and check out all the links that i provide to you take care and one more thing don't forget everything is possible [Music] you