Insights on Government Contracting with David Greenberg

We provide services at Protestant Catholic Services every Sunday and this will be going on for the next five years and then we landed another contract at Jacksonville Fort. Our goal is really to put out at least one response a day. People are discounting too quickly their ability to win those. A little hack that I've learned is that I wasn't doing at first for instance is Welcome everyone to a special episode. We have David Greenberg, who I consider definitely a mentor, a friend, and he's president of Parliament Tutors, as well as other companies, which I'll let him talk to you about. And I'm so excited to have him here because he's also in beautiful, amazing Miami, Miami Beach. So welcome, David, to our podcast episode. Thank you so much, Kizzy. Happy to be here on my first podcast ever. You've... Flatter all your interviewees this much? No. I do not. So yeah, I'm excited to share some tips with you guys or answer some questions or just, you know, tell you a little bit about my journey and hope that it can relate to some of your listeners. Oh, great. That's what I know it's going to happen. So one thing I would love to know is. how you got started because I believe when you got started it was was there like a recession in the country when you first got started you know in your entrepreneurial journey? Right so I first started my education company out of college in about 2009. I threw up a website and started matching up teachers with students to do private in-home tutoring. I continued doing that for a few years and expanded to do you know services for schools, non-profits. And I think one day we had a call from a government agency asking for a service and asking us, are you registered in SAM? And I'm like, what's SAM? And did search and discovered the system for award management. And at the time it was FedBizOpps and started browsing some opportunities. Didn't find anything perfectly related to what we offer, but found some services that we figured that we're well positioned to provide. We're a little outside of our traditional offerings. We won the contract and 10 years later, we are providing a range of consulting and education services and technical services to an even wider range of agencies. Which is so impressive. So if I understand correctly, you're already out there, you're providing these services, you started out of school, and then one day... Someone reached out to you and said, hey, are you registered? And then, bam, you registered. And 10 years later, you're providing services to the federal government. Right. At first, our only clients were commercials, private students and families, schools. And then, yeah, when we discovered the ability to do business with the federal government, it lent itself to what we do best. And that's not necessarily sales. It's really... You know, outlining programs, project management, responding to a request for proposals, a request for quotes, and building teams that are uniquely positioned to provide those specific services. All of those are so key, especially the bidding. Like, you know, you hear that all the time. You should bid on proposals, bid on proposals. On average, how many proposals do you bid on in a month and over the course of a year? So we have a little... team uh admin team that actually works in-house and you know and i continue to bid and work on these every day but we have a little team so our goal is really to put out at least one response a day so almost probably 25 a month 20 a month and again these are across so many different disciplines from traditional education services to scientific services to construction related services really everything under the umbrella of, you know, what the government contracts. So while our specialty and our core capabilities still remain in education and training, we're leveraging our ability to partner and identify the right partners and leveraging some of our experience, responding to these proposals and helping other, sometimes less technical companies respond to these proposals and priming everything under the sun. you know, you've mentioned this like full range. So I want to know what is give us some examples. What is like the most peculiar opportunity that you not only bid on, but you won? So when you even look at the spectrum of what we were awarded last week, week it really illustrates the breadth of what we do but we are providing for instance quarantine lodging for 80 soldiers in seattle right now for a couple weeks so they're locked in their rooms in some marriott in downtown seattle and that was a call that we made to the marriott got a price negotiated it submitted a response to the government and lo and behold We put 80 National Guardsmen over there. We were fortunate enough to win another one providing musician services at the First Landing Chapel in Virginia Beach, where now we provide services at Protestant Catholic Services every Sunday for a couple hours, and this will be going on for the next five years. And then we landed another contract at Jacksonville Port where we're shipping... Connex containers or sea cans from Jacksonville, Puerto Rico, full of agricultural supplies. And again, those were some relationships we leveraged that we had at the port in Jacksonville, maybe that new relationships that we manufactured and put together a compelling proposal for, in this case, it was USDA. And for these proposals, do you find that, are they, what is the average kind of evaluation criteria that you kind of come across with these? So yeah, it's important because our really our time is the asset or the commodity rather over here in terms of what we're investing in. So we look for where a lot of people may stay away from LPTA. We take advantage of those LPTA opportunities because we know that the government may not weigh us so harshly. The fact that we don't really do too much. logistics services in terms of shipping containers from jacksonville to puerto rico but if we can show them that we have the experiencing management contracts show them that we've identified the right partner show their credentials we actually have a chance and we're again fortunate fortunate enough to win that lpta contract so the valuation you know criteria again it's it's something that we will obviously take into account very seriously and heavily into whether in our decision whether to pursue something or not but again we're going after everything across a range of evaluation criteria so sometimes you know we take some chances and sell for the consequences because we really weren't positioned to win that one when you're submitting you know 20 20 proposals a month we're really only expecting to win a quarter of those you Which is still amazing. Great. Gives us access to so many different other opportunities. And then it builds your past performance. Builds our past performance. And again, we then piggyback on our own past performance to bid on more relevant stuff that are similar in nature to those requirements. Or with similar contracting officers or agencies, etc. And where do you find most of these? Is it through Beta.SAM? Is it through other... So yeah, we're using, of course, BATEN.SAM and FedBID and FedConnect, all those traditional resources. A little hack that I've learned is that I wasn't doing at first, for instance, is to respond to all these BPAs and MATOX and sources sought. Because responding to those will give you access to the non-public contracts as well that are obviously more, you know, you're more likely to win when there aren't 100 bidders. That's such a valuable nugget. because I think one of the myths is that everything goes through beta.sam unless it's a credit card purchase, and that's not the case at all. Definitely not the case. And often, you know, they just want to kind of pre-certify, you know, 10 or even 20 companies to solicit these opportunities to on a very much smaller limited competition without using GSA friends. Right. Because I think something else that's really important for listeners is that there's a lot of people who are going to be using the same technology Your main firm is considered woman-owned, correct? No, no, that's my wife's firm. My wife has a company that she set up as well and will respond to woman-owned opportunities, you know, leveraging some of the same strategies that we use for parliament. She'll adopt those as well. I think this is awesome to know because sometimes people are in this rush to get all of these certifications and you're certified as a small business and you're able to win this just variety. of undervalued opportunities which is amazing because there are many that you know are struggling to win their first contract yeah i think people definitely undervalue the you know the leverage You have with the small business, especially if you can actually yourself not just be a broker, but actually perform some of those services. I think people are discounting too quickly their ability to win those and their ability to get paid well on those. They definitely are. There's so many things that the government purchases. You know, I think maybe some that are viewing probably are like, wow, quarantine, you know, housing. I mean, but. But you provided a lot of housing in the past, if I recall correctly. Right, right. It's been probably a year and a half now that we found this little niche doing lodging. It actually emerged from a failure at first. I was trying to negotiate lodging for different types of office properties. Say the post office needed a new post office. They would post that on beta.sam or FBO at the time. and explain we needed you know north of this street south of this street west of this street east of that street we'd identify properties on loop net um that were uniquely positioned for those we'd get an agreement together with the landlord and respond to those to those solicitations what i learned is those really take maybe two years sometimes probably even more until they actually pull the trigger or even decide one way or another Too long for my taste. So we pivoted to the short-term lodging, which was for sometimes for law enforcement personnel in the FEMA disaster, or sometimes, you know, scientists who are, you know, doing a study on this national forest. So we were able to procure lodging on a short-term basis for them, and that segued a little bit into this hotel lodging, which is used for some obvious reasons. Right, which is phenomenal. And what are some other kind of areas? Well, actually, let me take a step back. You know, many people will look at things just like leveraging NAICS codes or looking at past, the past history of what the agencies purchased, whatever you feel comfortable sharing, what strategy do you use to kind of find opportunities? Are you big into NAICS codes? big into key searches? Are you big into what they spent last year? Well, really what we sell and what we've been doing forever is human capital. I mean, even when we started and we're selling tutoring services, I have to find someone, a chemistry tutor in Midland, Texas. And then I have to find someone else, you know, an SAT math tutor in Burlington, Vermont, and then someone else in McAllen, Texas. So the nature of what we did is really recruiting. special development management over hundreds and hundreds of entities or subcontractors. So we're a little agnostic when it comes to what, you know, NIGS code this is for. We're really looking at, you know, can we subcontract this to an individual? Can we subcontract this to a company? Can we subcontract this to two companies and bring those people together? And again, provide that project management service. Is the. project management capability within our scope of what we do. Yeah, I would say that's one of the centerpieces about you and how you operate. Because I think, again, often people are so focused on, I got to win the work, I got to win the work. And then they win the work and they forget they have to manage it and execute it. And there are all these other things that they need to do to make sure it's successful. Right, exactly. Exactly. And you have to know your limitations with that. For instance, I stay purposely away from tech. You know, I've managed tech for my own company and it's always a disaster. So the last thing I want to do is go manage tech for a government agency. But human capital, subject matter experts, these are things that we're perfectly capable of managing and someone quits replacing. I mean, I'm there with you. I purposely stay away from the. So we've read a lot of training. I stay away from the sexual assault prevention response. I stay away from any kind of controversial or trainings where there's a lot of risk involved or there have been failures in the past with that type of training that's been executed. So there's a lot that I also stay away from. Right. Yeah. Recognize your limitations. And again, invest in what you know you're going to be able to perform well and have a shot at winning. So what are some, you know, you talked about the housing, you talked about the shipping, what are some other efforts or some, you know, that you would like to win? Are there any kind of areas where you're like, man, I really wish we could get more? Or in, you know, religious coordinators or I don't know, you know, is there a particular area that you're just looking to expand into? So religious coordinators doesn't excite me so much, although it's something that we do. We recently, like I was explaining earlier, you know, started positioning ourselves to hopefully one day win some of these construction contracts. And I really see those as kind of the gold standard trophy contracts where, you know, in terms of at least dollar amount. and bang for your buck. So what we're really trying to win is those auxiliary services surrounding those, like I mentioned earlier, paving or small engineering contracts, so environmental work, electrical work, things that can support and eventually complement these construction opportunities. That's excellent to know because there's a lot of people and companies that want to get into that space or maybe they're into this space. So This also provides a great platform for them to connect with you because I'll have you at the end share your contact information and I'll make sure that the information, your contact information is below too. Because I know there's a lot. There's always some kind of construction, something or other just going on. And I think it's just opens up this whole new world of opportunities. And for these construction opportunities, I think, you know, no matter who is doing it, there's teams involved. People are responsible for different parts of the project, which again, won't lend itself perfectly to what we do. But hiring a project manager and then providing oversight over that, you know, could make perfect sense for us. Yeah, definitely. I'm also curious, you know, for especially those who may be watching and maybe they're new to government contracting or perhaps they're seasoned. Who knows? You know, if you could offer kind of like your top three tips. to those in this government space, just based off of your 10 plus years of not only being successful, but you really understanding how to maximize all of the buying opportunities that are out there in the federal space? Well, I guess my arrow, if I have tips in order, but one will definitely be not to wait for an opportunity that is exactly what you do, because you might be waiting a long time. So you're going to have to. find some flexibility in your offerings and again determine what you're well positioned to do within you know the scope of what you already offer and look for similar opportunities see how you might be able to pivot or you know extend some of your resources to respond to those and those can hopefully open up you know relationships for you with that agency which is obviously you know relevant to your space or will have other needs in your space so that's really number one and number two is also like i remember when i was responding to my first proposal i had no idea what i was doing and you're reading over this 60 page document so really just don't be intimidated by the size of that document you learn how to navigate navigate those and read those really quickly to the you know to the tune of where you're just churning this out and looking at the statement of work or you know the evaluation criteria or instructions to offerors or whatever you determine is going to be that most important section to you you're going to be able to really quickly churn these out so you know a lot of that is just government repeat jargon that you'll learn you know is template in every single one of these and tip number three might be something also that i recognize the importance of early on although you hear about it all the time is just teaming and again you're not going to be able to do all this stuff independently Just find the right team. And even if you're thinking to yourself, why the hell is this person in a team with me? Hey, they don't probably don't know about this opportunity. So at the very least, you brought it to them. So you might just find yourself just being some contractor or broker, taking a little piece on top of what, you know, what you're offering to your counterpart. Those are awesome tips, because it's especially the suggestion about not waiting for that perfect opportunity. I think that's what happens is someone says, You know, I ran into someone who was like, oh, I provide like health care services like they do. And I'm like, OK, well, that's great. But, you know, the government's going to want to buy staffing. They're going to want to buy supplies. You know, it's like they may not want to buy those main services that you do outside of the federal government. You have to be creative. You have to pivot. And maybe you don't even offer anything in the medical space. Maybe you offer something completely different. I mean. I saw an opportunity for Scopes to help with the hog population and I was going to bid on those. I mean, why not? It's an opportunity. Just hire a hunter. Exactly. And especially if you're a hunter in Miami, that hog opportunities in West Virginia. Yeah, you're probably not going to be able to do it geographically. But hey, you'll know how to speak the lingo with a fellow hunter in West Virginia. And you know what the rates are. You'll have to do less market research than, say, me. You'll know the market better than me. You'll know how long it takes. to kill a hog better than me so hey y'all ready to step up or if you're competing with me for instance yeah definitely you'll also and you know i don't want you to give away too much and and i think this is a just something to explore because people are also wonder like well what would i charge like i can i can i put myself in the shoes of somebody viewing who may think Okay, I provide tech services, but hey, shipping containers, shipping things, that sounds intriguing. How does one kind of even figure out like what to even charge in these spaces where they're not as familiar? I mean, again, I think that's a large looking to have to be, especially when you're doing what I do across so many different disciplines. You're really good. First of all, I just have to make sure, number one, you're not taking a bath. Number two. how much work is this actually going to take is this a subcontract even if it's a subcontract you're going to find yourself filling out weekly mods or you know at the very least going to wide area workflow and submitting your monthly invoices there is a time investment and how long do you have to put up your money for do you put up money what kind of payment terms you have so i think these are all considerations that have to go into your markup but at the end of the day you know when i when i'm ready to submit I'm always thinking, you know, I already did all the work or I did 90% of my work in terms of getting this team together, getting the proposal together, our response. You know, as a project manager, that's a lot of what we do. I don't want to lose this because I'm bidding too high. So yeah, our margins are often quite slim. But again, as you see, we're taking a little bit of a volume-based approach here. Many other companies probably don't have the stomach for it. But the great thing is it pays off. You know, I know of those who have taken the volume-based approach, and I don't really know if it's necessarily paid off for them. But with you, it definitely has. And I commend you because then what's great is it buffers you. If something happens in one sector or one kind of agency, you're not going to really feel the impact because you're in so many agencies. Right. Well, paid off is definitely relative. Um, so some people are probably paid off dollars, I'm probably broke, and that's perfectly fine. But yeah, no, there are, uh, what you say is absolutely right. Some of the services, you know, that we offer and, you know, account for a significant portion of our revenue did take a huge hit during the coronavirus. For instance, we offer a lot of sign language interpretation service services, something that was a very natural extension of our tutoring services in terms of coordinating. And now with, you know, bases closed to a lot of contractors, our interpreters aren't going to base every day to help their deaf employees who are working remotely. So fortunately, yeah, we are leveraged in a lot of environmental services and a lot of lodging services, some auxiliary construction services. And yeah, that's proven very valuable because if we were... fully invested in our sign language interpretation, probably would have seen a much starker drop than the drop we already experienced over the past 12. And you're not alone. I mean, I had some work that was stopped because of COVID, and especially for those who may have cleaning services or any kind of services or products that involved at a physical location. I mean... There wasn't much that could be had or anytime in the future if something happens with a national, a natural disaster, things of that nature, or there's some kind of shutdown. Yeah, I mean, it has that impact. And so it's part of that lovely path of government contracting to always get ready for those bumps. Right. We're definitely not alone with that little rollercoaster ride we took. Although the cleaning companies, I'm sure, are cleaning up, no pun intended. Yeah, I mean, I've seen this influx of opportunities and run across many who are like, we're out for cleaning. You want a partner? And I'm like, I don't really want to get in that space. It's just not my thing. It's just, yeah, exactly. It's just not exciting enough. And you know what? It's probably super. lucrative but uh you know you gotta there needs to be some balance i think yeah there definitely does there definitely does well you know we're we're kind of here to this segment where i am you know i i kind of this this question for you for those who are listening and perhaps they're they already have a contract or maybe they subcontract what can you offer them that you to help them take things to that next level? So if you already have a contract, some of the natural answers might be, look at extensions of that contract in terms of what office is it for? Who is the contracting officer for that? He or she already awarded you one contract that I hope you're doing well on. Do a little search in beta.sam for their name and see what else they're soliciting. even again if it's something outside of your traditional offerings this person knows your responsible offer so you know at the very least you have some connection there yeah so it's a little another little hack that you might not hear on your traditional channels no definitely kizzy kizzy radio oh i love that you're so sweet david yeah you never do i mean because it's it nobody ever talks about that and that's vital because they know you and it helps with they trust you So why wouldn't they be open to giving you other work? I mean, I know we've grown often and into all different spaces as a result of that. And that can definitely happen for others because clearly it continues and it will continue to happen for you. And I and I appreciate you and sharing all of this. So, David, as we as we kind of close here, where can people find you? Where's the best way for them to get in contact? Right now, maybe the best place would be it. fedcology.com is my newest uh my newest company that's really kind of memorializing some of this um out of wheelhouse work that we've been winning you know again to give us some sort of image and real footprint out of web so specifically when contracting officers and teaming partners etc look us up you know they see that very least we have some real past performance doing these things that you definitely wouldn't think we do right which is awesome and i'll also um i'll put a link to that below and i can't thank you enough for being here because these are super valuable tips and i hope everyone i know everybody walked away with at least one nugget that they can implement immediately because it's a it's a long road but it doesn't have to be such a bumpy road i know well uh kizzy if they keep listening to you they'll be learning from the best so uh you're so kind And I'll have you back because you got to do more because this is just scratching the surface. And I just wanted to give everyone a little introduction, a little taste, because this is definitely you're hearing different approaches and you will hear from 99.9% of the rest of individuals. Perfect. I mean, it would be fun and what some of your audience might like to hear, just because this is something that, you know, was a kind of an obstacle for me as I was first getting started is you actually want to see someone. you know to do it like how do i copy them and maybe we can uh walk them through the entire life cycle of a contract you know from search conducted or performed to find that contract on whether it was fed bid or beta.sam you know how does the proposal look how did you get your team together you know how was it submitted how was it evaluated and whether you win or lose it why you know why you won it why you lost it I think that's spectacular because then people can see reality. They get to see it and not just hear about it. You know, the whole lights will turn on and they'll go, oh my God, I could have done that. Yes. Yeah, that'll be fun. Okay, I say we definitely do that. We definitely do that. So again, I thank you for being on. All right. Thank you, Kizzy. Let's catch up soon.

We have David Greenberg, who I consider definitely a mentor, a friend, and he's president of Parliament Tutors, as well as other companies, which I'll let him talk to you about. And I'm so excited to have him here because he's also in beautiful, amazing Miami, Miami Beach. So welcome, David, to our podcast episode.

Thank you so much, Kizzy. Happy to be here on my first podcast ever. You've...

Flatter all your interviewees this much? No. I do not.

So yeah, I'm excited to share some tips with you guys or answer some questions or just, you know, tell you a little bit about my journey and hope that it can relate to some of your listeners. Oh, great. That's what I know it's going to happen.

So one thing I would love to know is. how you got started because I believe when you got started it was was there like a recession in the country when you first got started you know in your entrepreneurial journey? Right so I first started my education company out of college in about 2009. I threw up a website and started matching up teachers with students to do private in-home tutoring. I continued doing that for a few years and expanded to do you know services for schools, non-profits.

And I think one day we had a call from a government agency asking for a service and asking us, are you registered in SAM? And I'm like, what's SAM? And did search and discovered the system for award management.

And at the time it was FedBizOpps and started browsing some opportunities. Didn't find anything perfectly related to what we offer, but found some services that we figured that we're well positioned to provide. We're a little outside of our traditional offerings.

We won the contract and 10 years later, we are providing a range of consulting and education services and technical services to an even wider range of agencies. Which is so impressive. So if I understand correctly, you're already out there, you're providing these services, you started out of school, and then one day... Someone reached out to you and said, hey, are you registered? And then, bam, you registered.

And 10 years later, you're providing services to the federal government. Right. At first, our only clients were commercials, private students and families, schools.

And then, yeah, when we discovered the ability to do business with the federal government, it lent itself to what we do best. And that's not necessarily sales. It's really... You know, outlining programs, project management, responding to a request for proposals, a request for quotes, and building teams that are uniquely positioned to provide those specific services. All of those are so key, especially the bidding.

Like, you know, you hear that all the time. You should bid on proposals, bid on proposals. On average, how many proposals do you bid on in a month and over the course of a year?

So we have a little... team uh admin team that actually works in-house and you know and i continue to bid and work on these every day but we have a little team so our goal is really to put out at least one response a day so almost probably 25 a month 20 a month and again these are across so many different disciplines from traditional education services to scientific services to construction related services really everything under the umbrella of, you know, what the government contracts. So while our specialty and our core capabilities still remain in education and training, we're leveraging our ability to partner and identify the right partners and leveraging some of our experience, responding to these proposals and helping other, sometimes less technical companies respond to these proposals and priming everything under the sun. you know, you've mentioned this like full range.

So I want to know what is give us some examples. What is like the most peculiar opportunity that you not only bid on, but you won? So when you even look at the spectrum of what we were awarded last week, week it really illustrates the breadth of what we do but we are providing for instance quarantine lodging for 80 soldiers in seattle right now for a couple weeks so they're locked in their rooms in some marriott in downtown seattle and that was a call that we made to the marriott got a price negotiated it submitted a response to the government and lo and behold We put 80 National Guardsmen over there.

We were fortunate enough to win another one providing musician services at the First Landing Chapel in Virginia Beach, where now we provide services at Protestant Catholic Services every Sunday for a couple hours, and this will be going on for the next five years. And then we landed another contract at Jacksonville Port where we're shipping... Connex containers or sea cans from Jacksonville, Puerto Rico, full of agricultural supplies.

And again, those were some relationships we leveraged that we had at the port in Jacksonville, maybe that new relationships that we manufactured and put together a compelling proposal for, in this case, it was USDA. And for these proposals, do you find that, are they, what is the average kind of evaluation criteria that you kind of come across with these? So yeah, it's important because our really our time is the asset or the commodity rather over here in terms of what we're investing in.

So we look for where a lot of people may stay away from LPTA. We take advantage of those LPTA opportunities because we know that the government may not weigh us so harshly. The fact that we don't really do too much.

logistics services in terms of shipping containers from jacksonville to puerto rico but if we can show them that we have the experiencing management contracts show them that we've identified the right partner show their credentials we actually have a chance and we're again fortunate fortunate enough to win that lpta contract so the valuation you know criteria again it's it's something that we will obviously take into account very seriously and heavily into whether in our decision whether to pursue something or not but again we're going after everything across a range of evaluation criteria so sometimes you know we take some chances and sell for the consequences because we really weren't positioned to win that one when you're submitting you know 20 20 proposals a month we're really only expecting to win a quarter of those you Which is still amazing. Great. Gives us access to so many different other opportunities.

And then it builds your past performance. Builds our past performance. And again, we then piggyback on our own past performance to bid on more relevant stuff that are similar in nature to those requirements.

Or with similar contracting officers or agencies, etc. And where do you find most of these? Is it through Beta.SAM?

Is it through other... So yeah, we're using, of course, BATEN.SAM and FedBID and FedConnect, all those traditional resources. A little hack that I've learned is that I wasn't doing at first, for instance, is to respond to all these BPAs and MATOX and sources sought.

Because responding to those will give you access to the non-public contracts as well that are obviously more, you know, you're more likely to win when there aren't 100 bidders. That's such a valuable nugget. because I think one of the myths is that everything goes through beta.sam unless it's a credit card purchase, and that's not the case at all. Definitely not the case.

And often, you know, they just want to kind of pre-certify, you know, 10 or even 20 companies to solicit these opportunities to on a very much smaller limited competition without using GSA friends. Right. Because I think something else that's really important for listeners is that there's a lot of people who are going to be using the same technology Your main firm is considered woman-owned, correct? No, no, that's my wife's firm.

My wife has a company that she set up as well and will respond to woman-owned opportunities, you know, leveraging some of the same strategies that we use for parliament. She'll adopt those as well. I think this is awesome to know because sometimes people are in this rush to get all of these certifications and you're certified as a small business and you're able to win this just variety.

of undervalued opportunities which is amazing because there are many that you know are struggling to win their first contract yeah i think people definitely undervalue the you know the leverage You have with the small business, especially if you can actually yourself not just be a broker, but actually perform some of those services. I think people are discounting too quickly their ability to win those and their ability to get paid well on those. They definitely are. There's so many things that the government purchases.

You know, I think maybe some that are viewing probably are like, wow, quarantine, you know, housing. I mean, but. But you provided a lot of housing in the past, if I recall correctly. Right, right.

It's been probably a year and a half now that we found this little niche doing lodging. It actually emerged from a failure at first. I was trying to negotiate lodging for different types of office properties. Say the post office needed a new post office. They would post that on beta.sam or FBO at the time.

and explain we needed you know north of this street south of this street west of this street east of that street we'd identify properties on loop net um that were uniquely positioned for those we'd get an agreement together with the landlord and respond to those to those solicitations what i learned is those really take maybe two years sometimes probably even more until they actually pull the trigger or even decide one way or another Too long for my taste. So we pivoted to the short-term lodging, which was for sometimes for law enforcement personnel in the FEMA disaster, or sometimes, you know, scientists who are, you know, doing a study on this national forest. So we were able to procure lodging on a short-term basis for them, and that segued a little bit into this hotel lodging, which is used for some obvious reasons. Right, which is phenomenal.

And what are some other kind of areas? Well, actually, let me take a step back. You know, many people will look at things just like leveraging NAICS codes or looking at past, the past history of what the agencies purchased, whatever you feel comfortable sharing, what strategy do you use to kind of find opportunities?

Are you big into NAICS codes? big into key searches? Are you big into what they spent last year? Well, really what we sell and what we've been doing forever is human capital. I mean, even when we started and we're selling tutoring services, I have to find someone, a chemistry tutor in Midland, Texas.

And then I have to find someone else, you know, an SAT math tutor in Burlington, Vermont, and then someone else in McAllen, Texas. So the nature of what we did is really recruiting. special development management over hundreds and hundreds of entities or subcontractors.

So we're a little agnostic when it comes to what, you know, NIGS code this is for. We're really looking at, you know, can we subcontract this to an individual? Can we subcontract this to a company? Can we subcontract this to two companies and bring those people together?

And again, provide that project management service. Is the. project management capability within our scope of what we do.

Yeah, I would say that's one of the centerpieces about you and how you operate. Because I think, again, often people are so focused on, I got to win the work, I got to win the work. And then they win the work and they forget they have to manage it and execute it. And there are all these other things that they need to do to make sure it's successful. Right, exactly.

Exactly. And you have to know your limitations with that. For instance, I stay purposely away from tech. You know, I've managed tech for my own company and it's always a disaster.

So the last thing I want to do is go manage tech for a government agency. But human capital, subject matter experts, these are things that we're perfectly capable of managing and someone quits replacing. I mean, I'm there with you.

I purposely stay away from the. So we've read a lot of training. I stay away from the sexual assault prevention response.

I stay away from any kind of controversial or trainings where there's a lot of risk involved or there have been failures in the past with that type of training that's been executed. So there's a lot that I also stay away from. Right. Yeah. Recognize your limitations.

And again, invest in what you know you're going to be able to perform well and have a shot at winning. So what are some, you know, you talked about the housing, you talked about the shipping, what are some other efforts or some, you know, that you would like to win? Are there any kind of areas where you're like, man, I really wish we could get more?

Or in, you know, religious coordinators or I don't know, you know, is there a particular area that you're just looking to expand into? So religious coordinators doesn't excite me so much, although it's something that we do. We recently, like I was explaining earlier, you know, started positioning ourselves to hopefully one day win some of these construction contracts.

And I really see those as kind of the gold standard trophy contracts where, you know, in terms of at least dollar amount. and bang for your buck. So what we're really trying to win is those auxiliary services surrounding those, like I mentioned earlier, paving or small engineering contracts, so environmental work, electrical work, things that can support and eventually complement these construction opportunities. That's excellent to know because there's a lot of people and companies that want to get into that space or maybe they're into this space.

So This also provides a great platform for them to connect with you because I'll have you at the end share your contact information and I'll make sure that the information, your contact information is below too. Because I know there's a lot. There's always some kind of construction, something or other just going on. And I think it's just opens up this whole new world of opportunities. And for these construction opportunities, I think, you know, no matter who is doing it, there's teams involved.

People are responsible for different parts of the project, which again, won't lend itself perfectly to what we do. But hiring a project manager and then providing oversight over that, you know, could make perfect sense for us. Yeah, definitely.

I'm also curious, you know, for especially those who may be watching and maybe they're new to government contracting or perhaps they're seasoned. Who knows? You know, if you could offer kind of like your top three tips. to those in this government space, just based off of your 10 plus years of not only being successful, but you really understanding how to maximize all of the buying opportunities that are out there in the federal space? Well, I guess my arrow, if I have tips in order, but one will definitely be not to wait for an opportunity that is exactly what you do, because you might be waiting a long time.

So you're going to have to. find some flexibility in your offerings and again determine what you're well positioned to do within you know the scope of what you already offer and look for similar opportunities see how you might be able to pivot or you know extend some of your resources to respond to those and those can hopefully open up you know relationships for you with that agency which is obviously you know relevant to your space or will have other needs in your space so that's really number one and number two is also like i remember when i was responding to my first proposal i had no idea what i was doing and you're reading over this 60 page document so really just don't be intimidated by the size of that document you learn how to navigate navigate those and read those really quickly to the you know to the tune of where you're just churning this out and looking at the statement of work or you know the evaluation criteria or instructions to offerors or whatever you determine is going to be that most important section to you you're going to be able to really quickly churn these out so you know a lot of that is just government repeat jargon that you'll learn you know is template in every single one of these and tip number three might be something also that i recognize the importance of early on although you hear about it all the time is just teaming and again you're not going to be able to do all this stuff independently Just find the right team. And even if you're thinking to yourself, why the hell is this person in a team with me? Hey, they don't probably don't know about this opportunity.

So at the very least, you brought it to them. So you might just find yourself just being some contractor or broker, taking a little piece on top of what, you know, what you're offering to your counterpart. Those are awesome tips, because it's especially the suggestion about not waiting for that perfect opportunity. I think that's what happens is someone says, You know, I ran into someone who was like, oh, I provide like health care services like they do.

And I'm like, OK, well, that's great. But, you know, the government's going to want to buy staffing. They're going to want to buy supplies.

You know, it's like they may not want to buy those main services that you do outside of the federal government. You have to be creative. You have to pivot. And maybe you don't even offer anything in the medical space. Maybe you offer something completely different.

I mean. I saw an opportunity for Scopes to help with the hog population and I was going to bid on those. I mean, why not? It's an opportunity.

Just hire a hunter. Exactly. And especially if you're a hunter in Miami, that hog opportunities in West Virginia.

Yeah, you're probably not going to be able to do it geographically. But hey, you'll know how to speak the lingo with a fellow hunter in West Virginia. And you know what the rates are.

You'll have to do less market research than, say, me. You'll know the market better than me. You'll know how long it takes. to kill a hog better than me so hey y'all ready to step up or if you're competing with me for instance yeah definitely you'll also and you know i don't want you to give away too much and and i think this is a just something to explore because people are also wonder like well what would i charge like i can i can i put myself in the shoes of somebody viewing who may think Okay, I provide tech services, but hey, shipping containers, shipping things, that sounds intriguing.

How does one kind of even figure out like what to even charge in these spaces where they're not as familiar? I mean, again, I think that's a large looking to have to be, especially when you're doing what I do across so many different disciplines. You're really good.

First of all, I just have to make sure, number one, you're not taking a bath. Number two. how much work is this actually going to take is this a subcontract even if it's a subcontract you're going to find yourself filling out weekly mods or you know at the very least going to wide area workflow and submitting your monthly invoices there is a time investment and how long do you have to put up your money for do you put up money what kind of payment terms you have so i think these are all considerations that have to go into your markup but at the end of the day you know when i when i'm ready to submit I'm always thinking, you know, I already did all the work or I did 90% of my work in terms of getting this team together, getting the proposal together, our response.

You know, as a project manager, that's a lot of what we do. I don't want to lose this because I'm bidding too high. So yeah, our margins are often quite slim.

But again, as you see, we're taking a little bit of a volume-based approach here. Many other companies probably don't have the stomach for it. But the great thing is it pays off. You know, I know of those who have taken the volume-based approach, and I don't really know if it's necessarily paid off for them. But with you, it definitely has.

And I commend you because then what's great is it buffers you. If something happens in one sector or one kind of agency, you're not going to really feel the impact because you're in so many agencies. Right. Well, paid off is definitely relative.

Um, so some people are probably paid off dollars, I'm probably broke, and that's perfectly fine. But yeah, no, there are, uh, what you say is absolutely right. Some of the services, you know, that we offer and, you know, account for a significant portion of our revenue did take a huge hit during the coronavirus.

For instance, we offer a lot of sign language interpretation service services, something that was a very natural extension of our tutoring services in terms of coordinating. And now with, you know, bases closed to a lot of contractors, our interpreters aren't going to base every day to help their deaf employees who are working remotely. So fortunately, yeah, we are leveraged in a lot of environmental services and a lot of lodging services, some auxiliary construction services.

And yeah, that's proven very valuable because if we were... fully invested in our sign language interpretation, probably would have seen a much starker drop than the drop we already experienced over the past 12. And you're not alone. I mean, I had some work that was stopped because of COVID, and especially for those who may have cleaning services or any kind of services or products that involved at a physical location.

I mean... There wasn't much that could be had or anytime in the future if something happens with a national, a natural disaster, things of that nature, or there's some kind of shutdown. Yeah, I mean, it has that impact. And so it's part of that lovely path of government contracting to always get ready for those bumps. Right.

We're definitely not alone with that little rollercoaster ride we took. Although the cleaning companies, I'm sure, are cleaning up, no pun intended. Yeah, I mean, I've seen this influx of opportunities and run across many who are like, we're out for cleaning.

You want a partner? And I'm like, I don't really want to get in that space. It's just not my thing. It's just, yeah, exactly.

It's just not exciting enough. And you know what? It's probably super. lucrative but uh you know you gotta there needs to be some balance i think yeah there definitely does there definitely does well you know we're we're kind of here to this segment where i am you know i i kind of this this question for you for those who are listening and perhaps they're they already have a contract or maybe they subcontract what can you offer them that you to help them take things to that next level? So if you already have a contract, some of the natural answers might be, look at extensions of that contract in terms of what office is it for?

Who is the contracting officer for that? He or she already awarded you one contract that I hope you're doing well on. Do a little search in beta.sam for their name and see what else they're soliciting.

even again if it's something outside of your traditional offerings this person knows your responsible offer so you know at the very least you have some connection there yeah so it's a little another little hack that you might not hear on your traditional channels no definitely kizzy kizzy radio oh i love that you're so sweet david yeah you never do i mean because it's it nobody ever talks about that and that's vital because they know you and it helps with they trust you So why wouldn't they be open to giving you other work? I mean, I know we've grown often and into all different spaces as a result of that. And that can definitely happen for others because clearly it continues and it will continue to happen for you. And I and I appreciate you and sharing all of this. So, David, as we as we kind of close here, where can people find you?

Where's the best way for them to get in contact? Right now, maybe the best place would be it. fedcology.com is my newest uh my newest company that's really kind of memorializing some of this um out of wheelhouse work that we've been winning you know again to give us some sort of image and real footprint out of web so specifically when contracting officers and teaming partners etc look us up you know they see that very least we have some real past performance doing these things that you definitely wouldn't think we do right which is awesome and i'll also um i'll put a link to that below and i can't thank you enough for being here because these are super valuable tips and i hope everyone i know everybody walked away with at least one nugget that they can implement immediately because it's a it's a long road but it doesn't have to be such a bumpy road i know well uh kizzy if they keep listening to you they'll be learning from the best so uh you're so kind And I'll have you back because you got to do more because this is just scratching the surface.

And I just wanted to give everyone a little introduction, a little taste, because this is definitely you're hearing different approaches and you will hear from 99.9% of the rest of individuals. Perfect. I mean, it would be fun and what some of your audience might like to hear, just because this is something that, you know, was a kind of an obstacle for me as I was first getting started is you actually want to see someone. you know to do it like how do i copy them and maybe we can uh walk them through the entire life cycle of a contract you know from search conducted or performed to find that contract on whether it was fed bid or beta.sam you know how does the proposal look how did you get your team together you know how was it submitted how was it evaluated and whether you win or lose it why you know why you won it why you lost it I think that's spectacular because then people can see reality. They get to see it and not just hear about it.

You know, the whole lights will turn on and they'll go, oh my God, I could have done that. Yes. Yeah, that'll be fun. Okay, I say we definitely do that.

We definitely do that. So again, I thank you for being on. All right.

Thank you, Kizzy. Let's catch up soon.

Transcript for:Insights on Government Contracting with David Greenberg

Transcript for:
Insights on Government Contracting with David Greenberg