Don't Duck The Government, They've Got Your Money by IAMKarwannaD

Don’t Duck They’veGovernmentTheGotYourMoney How To Make Millions Pitching And WinningContractsGovernment Karwanna D.

Copyright©2022byKarwannaD. Allrightsreserved.Thisbookoranyportionthereofmay not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher exceptfortheuseofbriefquotationsinabookreview. PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica FirstPrinting,2022 ISBN: 979-888627403-5 Edited&FormattedbyShowYourSuccess PublishedbyKarwannaD.

iii

Iwant

Dedication

to dedicate this book to every small business entrepreneur who’s ever been at a disadvantage in trying to grow and build a business that thrives from the ground up. For every person who has their business as a side hustle who’s looking to ire their boss to build a legacy business. For every business owner who’s ever had to stay up at night trying to igure out how they’re going to pay their bills tomorrow. For those businesses who have always been at a disadvantage, which the banks told no, who has bad credit and has been turned down for inancing and had to igure out things on their own…

And I also want to dedicate this book to every single mompreneur who’s trying to start and build your business with babies, with children because we wear

This book is going to be for you because, hopefully, it gives you hope that there’s a way for you to actually build your own business, to be your own bank, and get your own startup capital by doing business with this number one player that I’m going to share with you in this book. So, this book is completely dedicated to entrepreneurs, especially women, minorities, those who have been disadvantaged, small business owners, microbusinesses, and solopreneurs. You know, the ones that have been traditionally left out.

Dedicationivmany hats. Not only do we run our businesses, but we have to run our households. We have to take care of the kids. We cook, clean, and all those things, and your job is never done. So kudos. I tilt my hat to all the entrepreneurs that are out there. I’m a mompreneur too. I’m actually a new mompreneur again, and I know that the struggle is real. But guess what? If I can do it, you can do it. So, be empowered, being encouraged. And just know that every time that you have to stay up all night trying to igure out your books and all those things, you’re doing it for your children. And that’s the bigger legacy. That’s the biggest, bigger payout for everyone.

v Table of Contents Dedication .........................................................................................iii Foreword AuthorBusinessConclusionChapterChapterChapterChapterChapterChapterChapterIntroductionAcknowledgments..........................................................................................vii.........................................................................ix.....................................................................................xi1Whydogovernmentcontracts?...........................12MindYoMoney........................................................113Determineyourbusiness’sniche.....................274RegisterwithAgencies(Positioning).............435Getacoach.................................................................556Pursuethelistofopportunities........................737TypesOfGovernmentContracts.....................95.....................................................................................109Listings........................................................................117Biography......................................................................119

Karwanna provides an overview of what it takes to win government contracts and how to establish your business as a prime contractor or subcontractor. You will learn about the different types of government contracts, how to find potential opportunities, and the steps needed.

This is one book that will never go out of date; not just because it's written by someone who has been there and done that--but also because these are timeless principles that have stood the test of time. "Don’t Duck The Government" will bring you tremendous value and I know it will be the stepping stone to working directly with IKarwanna.fyouare looking for more in-depth information about how to get started with making Millions Pitching and Winning Government Contracts, then this book is for you!

vii Foreword

just want to say kudos to Karwanna D. for putting this piece of art together. This book is truly going to change your life! In this book, you will learn what it takes to achieve success in the government contracting arena.

Taurea Vision Avant Queen of Book Profiting

Acknowledgments

want to acknowledge my husband, who’s also my best friend, ride or die, and co-legacy builder, Terrell Irving, for believing in me, supporting my dreams, and always being my biggest cheerleader. I also want to acknowledge my children, whom I love more than anything. You are the reason I go so hard to leave a remarkable legacy that you can be proud of. Tylea Eison, Markaila Dyson, Jevon Dyson, and Sir Carter Irving. I want to acknowledge some of the amazing business coaches I’ve worked with who gave me the tools and strategies to elevate my business…Latisha Styles, Kendra Lewis, Joel Erway, Danielle Leslie, Dr. Cheryl Woods, Dr. Sonja Stribling, Chris & Jen of Super Connector Media, and, of course, Taurea Avant of Book Pro its Club, who helped me complete my purpose-driven book to empower other small business entrepreneurs. I want to acknowledge my beautiful mother, Dorothy Davis, who was actually the go-getter and breadwinner of my childhood. Thank you for showing me your strength as a single parent and being my irst example of an entrepreneur. As I look back and remember all the Jheri curls and perms you did at the kitchen table, I can truly see where I got my entrepreneurial aspirations from. I want to acknowledge all of my siblings, Johnnie, Wayne, Willie, Cartez, Cookie,

Sabrina, and Rodney, my late brother Brandon, whom we lost last year, and all the other siblings I’ve never had the chance to meet yet. I know you exist. I love you guys to pieces. Most importantly, I want to acknowledge the God whom I serve. It is by your power that all things are possible, and I thank you for giving me the heart to serve people.

Acknowledgmentsx

So,

this book is going to be about government contracting for small businesses. I know it’s a big concept to grasp, but the reason why I wrote this book is to break it down and make it a little bit easier to understand how powerful this can be for you as a small business, especially for those who are considered a small business concern. If you are a woman in business or a minority business owner, a disadvantaged business or LGBT business, or if you’ve been disenfranchised in any way and you have a business, this is going to be one of the most powerful books you can ever pick up and read. But it’s going to be even more powerful when you actually take action and implement the things that I’m going to be sharing with you in this book. I wrote this book because when I was growing up in the inner city, I always felt like I wanted something greater than to graduate from school, get a student loan to go to College and all those things, and then get a job. Yes, I did all of those things. But that American Dream to me was not the American Dream that I saw for myself, right? To go to school, rack up student loan debt, get a job, buy a house, be in debt for a mortgage for 30 years. I’ve just felt like the American Dream for me was going to be inancial freedom, the ability to get up and do

xi Introduction

So, although I had a college degree in business, I had very little knowledge about how to really go out and physically start a business and make it work. All I had was book knowledge, but applicable, real-world knowledge came along the way. And so, when I irst started my business, I struggled. I didn’t igure it out from the beginning. I didn’t know the irst thing about an EIN or none of the things that I will be sharing with you in this book. I had no clue that those things even existed. I just knew that I had a business license and a service that I wanted to offer. So, like most small business owners, I struggled for the irst few years. And I struggled in a way that it made really no sense for me to have a business. So really, I was in business just to say I had a business, but I was barely making ends meet. I tried many things, but it wasn’t until I actually

whatever it is that I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it without worrying about how much it’s going to cost, without worrying about how I’m going to pay my bills and all those things. And mostly, I started my business because, as a new parent, I began to miss out on those special moments with my children.

Like their irst words and their irst steps and all those things that you have to do when you are a working parent and have to take your kids to childcare. I didn’t want to miss out on any more important moments like that. So, I started my business. And I started it with an idea and the motivation to make it work. And that was it.

Introductionxii

Introductionxiii

was on the verge of getting a divorce and my spouse at the time told me that I had to igure it out because he was not planning on helping me that I realized making this work was necessary. He had been the primary sole provider, and of course, I had my side hustle doing business on the side. But I was barely making enough money to foot the bill myself and provide for my children. So, I had to actually move the needle. And if you’ve ever been in that position, sometimes you have to go through things. But I count it all joy because sometimes it’s those things that we don’t understand why we’re going through them at the time that we’re going through them that actually catapults us into who we are really designed to be. And so, I had to actually igure out a way to make my business work. And I began to pray and ask God to show me how to make this business work. Because I had been chasing individual customers who barely had the money to pay me, it wasn’t enough for me to have a sustainable income. I could barely buy shoes for my kids and clothes for them.Andthey were going through signi icant growth spurts during that time. I remember clearly how it felt to lose everything and to watch my kids literally walk their shoes down to having holes in them and not be in a position to do anything. It broke my heart, but it fueled me to change my story.

Introductionxiv

And so, the one thing that actually saved me from having to move back into my mama’s house was government contracts. I went from barely making $20k a year to winning my irst contract for 28 days of work, and it was a $70,000 contract on a multi-trillion-dollar project. That gave me life. Not only was I able to buy my kids the things they needed, but I was able to replace my vehicle that was previously repossessed due to not having the means, and I paid it in full with no notes. When I landed my very irst government contract, I actually thought someone had made a mistake because it was more than what some people made in a year working 40hr work weeks, and I did it over a 28 day period. But what I learned was that I stumbled upon something that I consider the Trillion Dollar Secret to Government Contracts. And that is exactly what I’m going to be sharing with you in this book. I learned that a client is out there looking to spend money with small businesses that are women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses in general and those traditionally marginalized and left out. That particular giant client is called the U.S. Government and all the multitude of agencies within the government. And so this is the reason why I’m bringing you this book. Because some of the things that I’ve never been able to do when I irst started as a small business, some of the things that people take for granted, such as being able to go to the store and actually purchase something without having to igure out how you’re going to pay for

Introductionxv

it or worrying about a bill declining a check that may bounce because you made a purchase, which snowballs into late charges, check fees, and overdraft fees. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in that situation, but it’s not something pretty. You know how the saying goes. Every family should have at least six months of savings put away in case of an emergency. Well, how can you ever have six months of savings as an emergency fund if you’re never able to get ahead? If you’re never able to even save a couple of hundred dollars a month? If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, that’s next to impossible. Well, here’s how you can get ahead. You can actually use your business and do business with the right client who can help you have surplus income, which changes the game. Are you ready for the game-changer that allows you to be able to do whatever it is that you want to do? Ultimately, of course, there are growing phases to this, but if you do this, you can actually dig yourself out of debt and begin to save exceedingly above that. And Government Contracting is the way to do it. Initially, my goal was to save at least $10,000, period. Today, not only have I saved that, but I was able to save multiple times above that abundantly. And it was because of Government Contracting. And so it’s so very powerful. It’s transformational. Government Contracting changed my life. It allowed me the ability to not only provide for my children once but

continue to provide for my kids and not have to worry about passing down the mindset of lack and settling for being a struggling business owner.

Another reason I wrote this book is that most people think that, and this is what you will hear people say, start this business and know that it’s going to take you two to ive years to really grow it. And if you make it to ive years, you’re lucky. But don’t expect to turn a pro it within the irst two years. I’m sure you’ve heard this too. Well, everything that I’m going to teach you in this book proves just how much that is a lie. You can go into business today and be highly pro itable in the next 30, 60, or 90 days if you’re doing business with the right player. And that’s what this is all about. Government contracting, doing business with the government. The U.S. Government is the number one largest purchaser of products and services in the world. And I’m going to show you exactly how to do business with this big giant client.

So, as you go through this book, I want to make sure that you have a notebook, a piece of paper, a pen, a pencil, whatever it is. you’re going to take notes with. But also I’m going to have a free bonus of some extra tools and resources for you. If you go to bonus. dontduckthegovernmentbook.com, there’s going to be a free bonus of resources just for you to help you actually reach some milestones in your business and get

Introductionxvi

Introductionxviiconnected to some of the resources that have helped me to get along the journey to where I am. So, thank you so much for picking this book and for your support for being a reader. I hope to see you at the top someday, and I’m looking forward to working with you in my program. For those of you who choose to get my help, I can de initely help you with any strategies, systems, and processes that I will share with you in this book. So, cheers to your success as an entrepreneur. Cheers to those who aspire and dare to build a legacy business. So, this book will be for you if you are a small business owner looking to get consistent, sustainable income, regular paying customers, and you’re tired of being lowballed for your prices, and you want to get paid your value. This is for you. If you are serious about growing not only a business but building a legacy and generating wealth, and you want to know the fastest way that you can actually get there, that’s realistic, doing exactly what you’re doing, but just increasing the value of what you’re doing and doing it with a player who’s already spending money. So this is de initely going to be for you, for all entrepreneurs. Whether you’re a service provider or sell products, any entrepreneur can win with government contracts.

1 C 1 Why do contracts?government

That is one of the questions that I think every small business owner should ask themselves. If you did not know, let me be the one to tell you about what I coin the Trillion Dollar Secret to Government Contracting. It was the one thing that helped me go from a struggling business when I started to have a growing and thriving business where I can now hire and employ other

Thepeople.government spends over 9 trillion dollars annually on business products and services just on the federal level alone. Of that, upwards of 23% is actually spent with minority small businesses, women-owned businesses, disadvantaged businesses, and a bunch of different small business groups. That’s over 2.3 trillion dollars that’s actually earmarked and streamlined for small business owners. That’s you if you have a small business. With that said, if you know that there’s a guaranteed customer who has a guaranteed pool of money that they’re absolutely spending with small business owners, then why wouldn’t you go after that? Right? Because even if you decided to hit 1% of that particular budget that is automatically guaranteed for you, you’d still be a multi-billionaire. And that’s just what’s being spent on the federal level. There’s even more when you add the state and local city/county budgets. The opportunities are huge. So the better question is, why not do government contracts? That would be the better question. Now, if you’re in business to make

Why do government contracts?

So, having this knowledge makes the difference between starting and having a struggling business and starting and having a thriving business. Everything that we particularly learned in business school, if you went to business school, everything that you learned at business centers, if you go to business centers, everything that you learned about business traditionally is wrong when it comes to knowing this knowledge right here.

Government contracting is a game-changer because you can be in business for 90 days and be highly pro itable. Six months to a year and be extremely pro itable. You can make your business highly pro itable when you’re doing business with the right person.

So, that is the reason why you de initely want to do government contracting. It’s ignorance that keeps us broke. Ignorance is the lack of knowing. So you de initely want to hone in on the information that I’m sharing. And these are the principles that I teach inside my program, the Trillion Dollar Government Contracts Accelerator. You can learn more about that at bonus.dontduckthegovernmentbook.com.

Why do government contracts?

money, it only makes sense to make money with those who are actually spending money on the services and products you’re selling.

The Government is the world’s largest buyer. When it comes to growing a small business and really positioning yourself to succeed, you must irst know what it is that you’re selling, but even more important, you must know who’s buying what you’re selling. If you can answer that question, then you can de initely succeed in business. Typically, when you ask someone who their target market is or their buyer, they would ideally say a speci ic group of people or an age range or folks from a certain area code with various characteristics. And that’s great. There’s nothing wrong with that answer at all, and you de initely should be thinking that way. But here’s the thing. Most people don’t know this, but the U.S. Government is also a buyer. In fact, they are the #1 biggest purchaser of all products and services in the world. But oftentimes, that will never come up in a conversation where this BIG question has come into play. And the truth is, they buy everything. So, imagine adding this one BIG buyer called the Government instead of looking at the typical demographics of a target market that everybody and their mamas are targeting and going after. Do this, and you will literally kill the game. So, when you ask yourself, who’s my buyer, from here on out, don’t just list off the common description of your target market. Don’t just talk about the men or women of a particular age group with a certain income

Why do government contracts?

When it comes to growing a small business, number one, it’s important to know where you have favor because favor gives you access. It gives you access to things that others will not have access to simply because you have that favor, so you de initely want to be able to take advantage.

Why do government contracts?

Government agencies favor small businesses

And so, for you to grow a signi icant business with government contracts…you have to stand in favor. Your past gives you an advantage. And it actually opens up doors for you. And you can ride the boat as long as you can if you can check off a box of all the descriptions, characteristics, and socioeconomic disadvantages that you know the government has for a certain speci ic group. That’s going to get you access to these trillions of dollars that they literally set aside for you. If you can check off that box, guess what? Now you’ve just checked off a box

For instance, if you want to grow your business and your goal is to have more customers or to generate more revenue, and you know for a fact that there’s a giant client who actually favors you simply because of your small business… then de initely that’s the quickest way to your success, right? By taking that route.

and education level who are struggling with XYZ….. include the government because they’re buying your stuff, and they are buying it in mega bulks.

that’s going to lead you to signi icant growth and impact in your business. When your business is impacted, of course, you create economic stimulation in your family, your inances, your ability to build a legacy, and so on. And so de initely that’s why you need to know where you have favor because you want to ind as many shortcuts to success as you can. I used to think that being a part of the middle class and coming from a working-class family was a huge disadvantage. And it is. Until I learned the advantages to those disadvantages. And the advantage is there are pools of money set aside for people who come from that exact background and have a business. Do you want your piece of the pie?

As they say, knowledge is power. The more you know, the more you can grow. If you understand the type of opportunities out there for you, it just makes life easier. So you don’t have to run around waiting for opportunities to come to you because you’re knowledgeable that opportunities already exist. Now, don’t get me wrong. You de initely want to be still able to create opportunities where you don’t see any for yourself. You want to remain optimistic when it comes to that. But when it comes to growing a small

The Government Offers Great Opportunities

Why do government contracts?

government is saying, “we have these contracting opportunities for small businesses, for women-owned businesses, for minority-owned businesses, for disadvantaged businesses….” These are the opportunities. They have so many millions of trillions of dollars in budgets that they want to actually spend with you, and many small business owners don’t even know this. Some of you are too busy scratching your head, looking for a scam to pay attention to, and leaving life-changing revenues on the table. Can I keep it real? It costs you money to let opportunities pass you by.

The Government Spends Trillions of Dollars

Knowing the government spend is important because if you know and are aware of how much money is being spent in your city, in your state, and on the federal government level every single day on the products and services that you actually offer, then you can back into the numbers. Meaning you know what opportunities are out there for you. For example, every single day, when you’re driving down the street, we’re driving through government contracting opportunities.

business, you want to tap into the opportunities that are already existing there, so you don’t have to try to reinvent the So,wheel.the

Why do government contracts?

It’s just that simple. When I say back into the numbers, you can back into the numbers by saying, okay, my goal is to access the $2.3 trillion speci ically on the side for small

We’re driving through a lot of money that’s being spent. We just don’t know it. Right. We’re unaware of what’s going on. So, for example, when you’re driving down the street and come upon a construction site with porta-potties and fencing and scaffolding and workers on the site and food trucks in front of it, those are all small business contractors that are actually getting paid by theAndcity.maybe some of that money is funded by the state to build out that infrastructure. When you’re driving down the street, and you have street construction going on, they’re digging through the holes through the pavement, those are general contractors who maybe do excavation or whatever it may be who may be a large contractor, but even if they are a large contractor, they have an actual small business goal attached to those billions of dollars that they’re getting paid to dig a hole in those streets. Those are contracting opportunities. That is where our taxpayers’ money is going. Those are opportunities for small business owners to participate in the spending going on. You can be the caterer who provides the food truck for those particular job sites. Right? So there’s money going on all around us. And once you know that, you can forecast what you’re going to make for that year.

Why do government contracts? 9

business owners, not just on the federal level. So, there’s even more money when you add the state and local city spending budgets and how much they have set aside for small businesses as well. You can say, okay, my goal is to make $100,000 this year in business. So, if you know you have a business, you set a goal, right? If you know your business service is $50 an hour, and it may generally take you 20 hours to provide that complete service in total and deliver it, if you’re working with individual clients, you would need at least 1000 clients because now you’re making $1,000 per service. To generate $100,000, you need 1000 clients to reach that goal versus a government contract where you can potentially charge upwards of $250 an hour for that same 20 hours of service. Now you’re generating $5,000 per service. And with contracting, what you do is negotiable. So, you negotiate to go out twice a month to provide that same service. Now in 24 days out of the year, you’re generating $120,000 with that one contract with one client. So that’s why it’s important to know the numbers. I have a sixigure GovCon formula that breaks this down. Knowing the number is going to be key. And you can get a copy of my sixigure formula by going to my bonus content at bonus.dontduckthegovernmentbook.com where I will give that to you for absolutely free.

11 C 2 Mind Yo Money

o you want to know the one thing that separates a successful business owner from a business owner that’s just out there doing anything? It’s their mindset. What’s on your mind makes the difference between what you’re going to accomplish and who you will attract. So in this chapter, I’m going to talk about some of the most important things that you can do as a small business owner to begin to attract success in your business.

We all know the greater the success, the greater responsibility, the greater the tax, the greater the bills,

Mind Yo12MoneyD

This chapter right here is really just going to be about thinking and growing rich like Napoleon Hill. Thinking about where you’ve been and where you want to go and thinking about what that looks like for you. De ining what that can look like, creating the action steps and goals to get there. Find out what you want and what it is that you were born to do. And so minding your money, if that’s what’s important to you when it comes to entrepreneurship, you really need to think about how do I keep my mind on my money? My money is on my mind. Whatever it is that you think about, that is what you’re going to get more of. So if you’re spending more of your time watching television, then guess what? You’re going to get more of whatever garbage it is. If it’s garbage that you’re watching, you’re going to get more of that chaos, right? Attracting more of that into your lives.

Mind Yo13Moneythe greater everything. And so you really have to pay attention to your business. You have to pay attention to your mindset because you don’t want to begin to attract failure after you’ve generated all of this traction in your business and ramped up to start winning this number one big paying client. So paying attention to your mindset is going to be key. When I say pay attention to your money, your business is your money. So you want to make sure that you’re mindful of how you treat your business, making sure that you’re in compliance, making sure you have all of your insurances that you need, all your documentation that you need for that business, making sure that you’re totally in alignment with gaining more and building more. For example, I remember desperately wanting to buy a house, and my credit was jacked. So that meant for me, my mindset was not right. I didn’t care at all about paying collectors. I didn’t care at all about paying bills on time. In fact, my motto at the time was catch me if you can or get in line with the rest of them. And so, I had to do a lot of growing to get to where I am. So, in addition to that, I wanted to purchase this house and qualify for a mortgage. But yet, I was spending everything down to zero every single month, every opportunity that I had. I never was able to save more than a couple hundred dollars towards that goal. And so when you’re out of alignment, then it’s really dif icult to get to where you want to be. When you’re out of alignment, you normally end up

Mindset is key, and the right mindset will take you way beyond anything you could ever imagine achieving.

In order for you to save time, keep your mind on your business and where you’re trying to grow. And make sure that you have action steps in place and parameters around and standards for how you do business because you’re going to attract more of who you are. You’re going to attract the type of clients that re lect who you are.

When getting started with government contracts and your whole mindset around that, I want you to think about where you’ve been and how you’ve gotten to where you are. So if you’re struggling as a small business and barely

When you’re minding your money or minding your business rather, and you have this journey to succeed in business, sometimes when we take those shortcuts or that back road, or we think that the back road is a shortcut and we’re trying to cheat our ways at the top, and we’re really out of alignment, sometimes, you end up having to turn around, go back and start the journey again.

Re lect on Where You’ve Been

Mind Yo14Moneyon a default road, basically. You end up going nowhere fast, and before you realize it, time will pass you by. So everyone has a pathway in life, a journey that they’re headed down and they’re destined to reach. And sometimes we take the back roads, and the back roads sometimes are not always the quickest shortcut.

This helps you to evolve as not only a person but an entrepreneur. And it helps you to grow as a CEO. And then that way, you’re not just stumbling or fumbling the ball when it’s passed to you, the ball, meaning success like the success journey or a strategy or system to help

But if you want to do something different and you see an opportunity to really grow your business in a meaningful way, strategically and on purpose, because you’ve identi ied this opportunity called government contracting for yourself, and you know that you can get ahead and, you know, you can change your own narrative… you need to shift. Right. But in order for you to shift, you have to re lect and see where you’ve been so that you no longer go down that road again. But to walk away from that particular pain, to walk away from everything that got you to where you are, you must begin to evolve into the person you need to become to succeed and be that successful entrepreneur you were born to be.

Mind Yo15Moneymaking ends meet or struggling to grow your business, you haven’t been able to create jobs or get ahead, and you feel like you’re constantly chasing customers…

So re lecting is one of the key things you can do because now you have a way to measure your growth, tell your story, and talk about your journey.

I want you to re lect on those things and think about all the things you’ve been doing along the way to get you to where you are now. If that is where you want to remain, then keep doing the same thing.

Mind Yo16Moneyyou succeed. You’re not fumbling, but you’re taking full advantage of an opportunity to elevate your business, elevate your life, build a legacy, and write your story right along the way.

For example, me personally, I take my own story.

When I think about all the things that I’ve gone through in business, I can clearly see the de initive line from when I was struggling in business to where I made the decision to no longer struggle. And that was by getting with a client that spends tons of money on my services. A client that was basically calling out my name the same way they’re calling you out. And that helped me to succeed in business. So when I talk about re lecting, I can look back and say that I can remember when I barely made a dime in business.Iwasbarely getting ahead. I didn’t really know or understand my marketplace. I was looking at individual characteristics such as female or male with certain demographics. I was looking for an ideal client, and it didn’t work. It was a mismatch, a total mismatch. Right. But it wasn’t until I learned about the government contracting opportunities that I began to really see change in my business. So I can now re lect back and see all the things I was doing wrong. Trying to attend networking events. Trying to igure out how I’m going to come up with a marketing budget to market myself. Trying to get my brand out there for people to see. But what I didn’t realize is that

And that shift comes with shifting your mindset. It comes with shifting habits and creating new habits. And that’s something that comes with practice—creating new habits and new thought patterns. But re lecting is a great place to start when it comes to growing in that matter. So just, for example, there’s a famous quote by Einstein that basically says, same practice, create same results.

Mind Yo

If you think you’re going to be able to keep doing the same thing but get different results, that’s the perfect de inition of insanity. Well, we don’t want to be insane. In order to not be insane, you have to re lect on where you’ve been so that you don’t repeat that because it’s just going to give you a repeat deliverable. We are where we are today because of what we’ve been doing repetitively

17Money

So there’s a lot more going on when it comes to entrepreneurship than just selling. There are a lot of moving parts here, but you always want to re lect on what you’ve done wrong so that you know not to repeat those steps. From there, you can begin to think about what you can do differently if you want to get different results. Of course, you have to shift.

all of that was going to be a waste of time for me because you can spend all the marketing dollars in the world if a person doesn’t really understand or know your brand or if a person doesn’t really know you, or if it’s someone out there who has BIGGER BUCKS to market, then, of course, you’re still going to be out there trying to igure out how to land that customer.

Mind Yo18Money

Do you want to know one of the characteristics that most successful small business owners have in common? They found their purpose. So inding your purpose is another great thing that you can do for yourself, especially when it comes to pitching and winning government contracts.

Think of it this way. Ideally, when I tell you that there are trillions of dollars being spent, they’re basically begging small business owners to sell their services to the government, which is guaranteed income, especially when they’re saying they’re breaking it down even further as to even niche it down to women-owned, minorityowned, disadvantaged businesses, LGBT businesses, smallThey’rebusinesses…etc.basicallybegging you to take their money. They’re calling out your name. So ideally, when I say those things, the irst thing that comes to mind to a person of greed who doesn’t really value or hasn’t really found their purpose yet, is let me just sell anything, or they’re reaching for everything and saying, what can I sell? They haven’t really found out what drives them or what they love to do.

Find your purpose

over the last ive years. So looking forward, if you want to be in a different place, you have to adopt a different attitude, a different perspective, do different things, create different habits. You must shift.

Mind Yo19Money

What can you look back and see that has been consistent? What was the constant thing in your life growing up? For example, when I look back over my life, I think about how I’ve always been into the media. I remember when digital media or before even digital media existed. I was editing videos via analog videotape. And I remember that. But that was in College. And even before then, I remember cassette tapes. And I remember when those tapes were pop, and I used to have all of my favorite songs on a playlist on that cassette. I knew how to go in and splice it and stitch it back together seamlessly with a piece of tape. And it would not even skip. And so, not even knowing and realizing that constant thing for me was called editing. It’s called video production and audio production. And so moving forward, when I started my business, that was the thing that I was so passionate about video production, photography, audio production… and those are the things that I did. And those became the things that I now sell to the government. So when I found out about all of these government opportunities for small business owners like me, I wasn’t reaching for it. I wasn’t questioning what I could sell to the government. I wasn’t trying to sell them carpet, lights, toothpaste, or whatever just because other people had success in those areas. I was passionate about selling what I was already doing.

Start with what you’re already doing. If you start there, you can make millions of dollars just doing one thing. There’s a book by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan called “The One Thing.” If you get good at that one thing, or if you realize that you’ve always been good at that one thing…that can make you millions. That is what you want to sell to the government, and you de initely want to make sure that you’re passionate about it because that thing will be your purpose. And when you’re doing business on purpose, it doesn’t feel like you ever have to go to work ever again. You’re just doing what you love, and you’re doing it on purpose, right? So it’s just like having a purpose-driven life, having a purpose-driven business, doing purpose-driven things. Things that help you feel ful illed. And so make sure when it comes to pitching and winning government contracts that you are inding your purpose. So if you ask the question, what can I sell to the government? My question is going to be back to you, what is your purpose? What can you wake up and do every single day and never have to feel like you’re going to work again? When you ind your purpose, you will have found the thing that can take your business levels deep and change your life. That can help you build a legacy and authority. And you will become known by the agencies for doing that one thing and being great at that one thing. And guess what?

Mind Yo20Money

Let’s just say power washing windows.

Take on challenges

How about that? The sidewalks, right? And so it’s still in your same vein. So when challenging yourself or taking on challenges to add more value and more services, you de initely want to stretch yourself. But you don’t want to go from janitorial cleaning to now you do trucking. That’s like two totally different industries. You can do that with government contracts, but then you will have lost your purpose-driven identity of the one thing.

Mind Yo21Money

Now, the roles will begin to change. Instead of reaching out to agencies, they’ll start reaching out to you because they know your purpose and what you’re known to do.

Now, just because you found your purpose, it does not mean that you want to stay stuck there. You de initely want to be open-minded and take on additional challenges to stretch yourself, grow yourself, add more value when you do this and get this right. Of course, you’re going to make even more money in your business because now you’ve added value. For example, if you have a janitorial cleaning business, and of course, the government does buy that, and you landed your irst sixigure contract.

Let’s say that is your passion. That’s the one thing that you’ve been driven to do. That is the one thing you do best, and you’ve been doing that forever. From there, let’s just say you can challenge yourself to power wash concrete.

Now, was I a photographer? No, I don’t know the irst thing about F stops, about Aperture, about ISO. I did not know those things, what they were, or how to do them. So I literally had to challenge myself to get started

Mind Yo22Money

But what you do want to do is challenge yourself to add value within your same industry to make sense. So janitorial power washing windows is not a far stretch from power washing concrete. Of course, there may be different materials or chemicals you have to use, different equipment you have to use to do those two different things. But it’s still very relevant to janitorial cleaning. So make sure that you begin to take on challenges. In addition to taking on challenges, make sure that some of those challenges include larger contracts, bigger projects, and teaming up with other people, maybe growing your business state to state and subcontracting other janitorial companies to do the work.

Those are the types of challenges that I’m talking about; the type of challenges that make you stretch to help you evolve into even a bigger business, even better contributor to jobs and the economy, and so on and so forth. If you can challenge yourself, you’ll just open up more opportunities for you to make more money.

When I irst started doing government contracting for my own business, I initially started off doing video production because, again, that was my passion. That’s what I initially was selling. However, I saw opportunities for me to add photography services.

So when it comes to pitching and winning government contracts, you want to be goal-oriented. What is your goal?

Mind Yo23Moneybecause guess what? Photography is very closely related to video, right?

It’s easy to just get started, to dive in, to jump in, and just do anything. Right? But when you have a goal, that experience could be a very powerful experience for you.

Don’t play small. This is a big giant client, and you want to evolve to be a big giant service provider or product provider for this giant client because there are a lot of opportunities out there. You want them to look at your business and say, “This person, I saw them grow. I saw them stretch. They’re adding value. They’re doing a great job…”. So they can give you favor.

The only difference is that photography is still, and video is moving images: so same concept, same industry. But now, I’m able to add additional value. Now, when I did that, I literally took my business from winning $70,000 contracts to being able to land multiple sixigure contracts because now there are a lot more opportunities withAndphotos.then, adding the videos to that just increased the value of what I had to offer. So make sure that you take on challenges. Stretch yourself. Hire a coach if you need to do that. But at the end of the day, don’t stay stuck.

Write down goals

For example, you can literally sit down, write your goals to have your irst six igures with government contracting in a 30, 60, 90 day period. And when you write out that vision, just like the scripture says in the Bible, “write the vision, make it plain” (Habakkuk 2:2).

When you create the action steps to make it happen, powerful things begin to happen. I remember when my goal a few years ago was to generate $140,000 in one year with government contracts. At the time, of course, I was winning those 40,000 or $70,000 contracts, and I had not had a sixigure year in revenues collected just as ofButyet.when I wrote out what my goal was and how many contracts it would take me to get there before I knew it, within a year, I literally landed one contract that brought me that $140,000. And I did that over a six-month period. And all the other contracts put me well over that goal. That is the power of writing down your goals and acting upon them because we all know that the money is there. The money is there, no doubt there are opportunities there, and bidding opportunities are being pushed out every day, multiple times a day, and by many different agencies. Limitless! There are budgets that are being written every single iscal year speci ically for you. So the money is there. Don’t worry about the money. But the goal is, how do you get there? You have to write out your roadmap so that you’re focused and you’re not as easily distracted

Mind Yo24Money

Mind Yo25Money

We don’t want to be reactive in our business. We want to be proactive. To be proactive, you have to have a plan, a game plan. A game plan to get you to a goal. And so that is what doing business on purpose and by design entails. It entails goals and action steps. And it entails you taking action to reach those goals. They say you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make

because, of course, we all know that in business, you’re going to be distracted, and it’s easy to be distracted. But when you have a goal written out, and you’re hyper-focused on that goal, and you have action steps to achieve your goal, it’s just easier to achieve them. It makes the line straighter, right? And it’s less frustrating because now you have an end goal that you’re looking at. So when those dif icult times come where you’re bidding on something and the government says no… You still have that goal in front of you. So you want to get through the no’s to get to the yes. So you want to hurry up and get all the no’s out the way so you can hurry up and get to that yes because that yes will lead you to everything you have written on that piece of paper. So live life by design, not by default. That is one of the favorite quotes that I came up with because when you’re writing out your goals, you’re doing just that. You’re living life on purpose and by design. And that is something that you can do in your personal life, your family’s life, and your business. Most importantly, do business by design, not by default.

Mind Yo26Moneythat horse drink. Well, if that horse knows that drinking that water will help him live, guess what? It’s going to be his goal to live, and guess what? You’re not going to have to make that horse drink. He’s going to drink it. He’s going to drink it all day. So when it comes to pitching and winning government contracts, you have to have a goal and a game plan to execute.

27 C Determine3 your business’s niche

Right. So when you’re able to niche down into the thing that you do, it allows you to be able to number one, identify what exactly it is that you want to do. Number two, ind all the complimentary services within that niche to add to your niche. And then also beyond that, ind out exactly how much the government is spending on that niche so you can look up the budgets in your city, state, and federal agencies.

For you to even be able to identify what that is, irst of all, you have to know what you’re selling, who you’re serving, and what problem it is that you’re solving. So it’s no different from creating a marketing plan for any other type of client. Whether it’s an individual, corporation, or government agency, you have to know your niche.

For example, what is your niche? Some people may not even know what that is. Right. This is basically like a very speci ic client avatar or a very speci ic person or agency or Department or problem that you’re trying to solve, and you’re able to clearly identify that. For example, my niche is construction photography.

Determine your business’s niche 28

In this chapter, I’m going to talk about determining your business niche. Why? That’s very important. Of course, we all heard the common cliche phrase that “there’s riches in the niches.”

Now, did you know that the city where you live right now has actual contracting opportunities with budget dollar amounts that they’re spending on your niche?

So not only does that fall under the umbrella of photography, but it also falls under all these other things, like outreach, video production, public relations and communications, construction, and all that stuff, because it’s a related service.

Construction photography is very speci ic because it’s photographs of construction sites. Right. And yes, they have contracting opportunities speci ically for that. That is a niche. So some people do baby photography, infant photography. That is a special niche. So who do youWhatserve?is it that you do? So you want to be speci ic even if it’s like something as broad as, hey, I do trucking and hauling, right. That is a niche. But you can easily niche down even further than that trucking and hauling longdistance or hazardous material. Maybe that could be yourButniche.you want to determine whatever it is that you do and niche it down. So once you know who you are and what you have to offer now, it makes you even more of a productive person when you’re going to those agencies, and you’re looking for opportunities. You know exactly what to look for. You know exactly what to ask for. You know exactly how to market yourself, and you know exactly how to tell them, “this is what I do, and I’ve identi ied that you have this problem that I want to solve.

Determine your business’s niche 29

But it’s not enough just to say you fall within all of these different service areas. What is it speci ically?

Determine your business’s niche 30 And here’s the service. This is how I’m going to solve it for you”. Right?

So de initely, determining your niche is going to be important. And this is what this chapter really is all about. Re lect on your passions and interests

So I get this question a lot, especially from small business owners who are just getting started and they’re not really sure exactly what they want to sell to the government. And they always ask, like, well, what can I sell or what is the government buying, which are really great questions. But the even better question is, what are your passions and interests, right? Because we all know, and I mentioned this earlier, when you’re doing something that you’re really passionate and interested in doing, it doesn’t feel like you’re working at all. And that’s what we want to get to. You want to get to a place where you’re enjoying your business, you’re enjoying the things that you do, and you’re enjoying waking up to do more of those things that you consider to be fun. And so, when re lecting, it’s important to re lect on your passions and your interests when it comes to pitching and winning government contracts so that you can pitch the right opportunities and you can bid on those opportunities that are going to give you more of those things that you’re passionate and interested in doing.

One of the things that you want to make sure you’re looking for when seeking opportunities is, are there any opportunities for me to cater events or cook or do food prep or any of those things in that arena?

If you love to cook and that is something that you’ve done as a side hustle, you’ve catered some events. You love trying new recipes and things of that nature.

Because if that’s what your passions are and that’s what you’re interests are, then now, instead of looking through the millions of opportunities that are out there on every single level, every single day on the government site saying, this is what we need… This is what we’re looking for... These are the problems that we have… now, you can just put in the keyword, cooking or food prep or catering, which makes it that much easier. It makes it that much faster for you to be able to identify the opportunities that are important. In fact, you can also just put in your keywords in the search engine under government contracting for catering services in the city of Atlanta, in the state of Georgia, or wherever. And then, you may ind a link to a procurement website where there are opportunities right there. Right.

Or rather, what should I sell? Right. Sell what you’re interested in, sell what you’re very passionate about, and

Determine your business’s niche 31

So when you’re re lecting on your passions, it just makes it easier for you to write down what you’re passionate about and what you’re interested in. And it makes it easier for you to answer the question, what can I sell?

Determine your business’s niche 32 you will enjoy the work you do and enjoy the money that comes with you doing what you’re so very passionate about doing.

When it comes to pitching and winning government contracts, number one, you want to identify what those agencies’ needs are. And when I’m talking about agencies, we’re not talking about old Uncle Sam, right. Most people think of “Uncle Sam” when they think about the government. We’re talking about the Department of Public Health, Public Works, the city, the Department of Treasury, Department of Forestry. All of these different agencies, whether they’re federal, local, or state, all of these agencies have needs, and all of those needs are met by way of procurement, which means that they’re buying that. They’re going to buy your services, and they’re going to buy the products that they need. And they buy everything. Recently, I saw a procurement opportunity for selling syrup to the government or ketchup packages and things of that nature. You would be surprised at some of the things out there—those opportunities. But you want to irst identify those agency needs, because like I said, when you identify the agency needs, and you know that you have a solution to ful ill that need, then now you’ve positioned yourself to start

Identify agency needs

They have to go through several document methods to get this into a contracting opportunity to go through the procurement process, which is a lengthy process, by the way. But if you can help save them time by reaching out because you’ve already done the homework, then that is when you are winning. That is when you can get ahead of the game. That is when you’ve gone the extra step beyond what most businesses will do to show your

Determine your business’s niche 33 winning those contracts because they have a problem that they want to solve.

They’re clearly identifying how they want to solve that problem. You know that you offer the service that solves that problem, or you have a solution to it, and now it’s a perfect match. So when you identify what the agency needs are, you’re not just reaching and guessing and basically throwing a lot of things at the wall to see which one is going to stick.

You speci ically know what they’re buying, why they’re buying it, how much of it they’re buying, and when. And from there, you can create a game plan around that to help you even be more strategic. So it allows you the opportunity to have a strategic plan or put together a strategic plan of marketing yourself proactively to the government by reaching out to them, picking up the phone, and calling them because you know they have a need and you have a solution. So now it can help them save time and worry from iguring out who will ill this need.

Discover your niche pro itability

It’s like inding a needle in a haystack, really. And you can ind that needle if that needle is strategically placed or if it has a tracker on it, and you download the app to track that. Right?

Determine your business’s niche 34 hunger and thirst for success to show your ability to serve an agency that is right there, whether it’s in your city, whether it’s on your state, or federal level.

So it’s the same. That’s a far-fetched concept. But it’s the same thing when you do your homework ahead of time and the agency procurement of icers and small business advocates, and all those people running these contracting opportunities. These departments put out those opportunities. They appreciate the fact that you’ve done your homework, and they appreciate the fact that you’re basically a solution. You reach out to them, and they don’t have to do all the extra work it takes for them to traditionally get contracts illed.

And that’s what separates you from the rest.

When you know how much the government spends on your products and services and that they spend that regularly consistently and that’s the problem that they’re always constantly going to solve, that is even more con irmation that you’re going to be in business, like forever when it comes to that. Right? Because number one, you can have consistent, regular, sustainable income,

If you go to bonus.dontduckthegovernmentbook.

com, I’m going to make sure that you have that. But anyway, you can put in your speci ic naics code or keyword on this particular resource site. If you don’t understand what a NAICS code is, that’s basically a product code for the service or product you offer that the government uses to identify how much money they will spend on that code.

Consider that to be multiple streams of income. Once you understand the pro itability that you have for your

So when you know your pro it, the pro itability of your speci ic niche, it just empowers you to continue doing that thing and to continue building value around that one thing. For example, there’s a way to look up how much the government is spending on your particular product and service. And I’m going to share with you that resource that I share with my clients inside my program, and I’m going to share it with you as a bonus gift.

And the more codes you have, the more spending budgets that are out there for you, and the more spending budgets that are out there, the more every single bucket has set aside money for small business owners, set aside money for women and minorities, and so much more money that is in there. And so, the more, the merrier.

Determine your business’s niche 35 consistently winning large, multiple, sixigure contracts over a longer period of time, and that you’re consistently going to have this customer that’s always needing what you’re selling.

So understanding the pro itability, you basically not only build out a legacy business for yourself but also each one teaches one. You can create business and be pro itable within the irst 30, 60 90 days from the jump. Right? And sell them. You can get into the business startup business. The business of creating businesses that you know are pro itable and selling them. So that’s a whole other conversation for a whole other day. Understanding the pro itability is encouraging because knowing that you’re starting something pro itable is moving.

Determine your business’s niche 36 business, then basically, that gives you the green light to go ahead and create your game plan. Create your sixigure game plan and how you can easily leverage that to get to the millions and beyond. The sky’s the limit. If you want to have sixigure quarters, you know how to do that because now you know how much the government spends. Now you can create your game plan because you’ve already identi ied that a speci ic agency that you’ve identi ied is spending a whole lot of money on this particular thing over a certain period of time this year. Right. So now you have a speci ic streamlined, clari ied strategy to get right to the money because you’ve done that homework. You’ve done the footwork to get yourself in position.

Do some soul-searching

I already know when you start taking action and doing the action steps and following the information that I’m sharing in this book, you’re going to be blown away. You’re going to be blown away with the opportunity to really grow a thriving business. And you’re going to be shocked by the information that’s been hidden in plain sight. Because none of the stuff I’m sharing is taught in the school, even though it’s public knowledge, it’s not “public knowledge.”

So you want to do some soul-searching? It’s important when it comes to pitching and winning government contracts. You want to do some soul-searching because the irst thing you’re going to do is overwhelm yourself with information.

Determine your business’s niche 37

I say do some soul searching because you want to think about what you want to do when it comes to pitching and winning government contracts. Why is that important to you? Who do you want to sell to? What are youHowselling?are you going to reach out to them? And is this something for you because this is the real deal, Holy ield. Not everybody started a business to be successful. Some people start a business just to believe it or not, just to say they have a business and are okay with struggling. They’re okay with doing things half-heartedly. But for you, if being a successful business entrepreneur is

Well, I’m here to tell you that everything that you’re feeling is the way that you’re supposed to feel. But guess what? It gets easier, and it gets easier when you irst start searching your soul and inding out what your purpose is in the irst place. And knowing that when you’re following what you’re supposed to be doing in the irst place, things will begin to be a little bit easier. And we all know that confused people do absolutely nothing. So, even with the overwhelm, take a step back before you give up, before you throw the towel in, before you abort your opportunity to signi icantly take your business to the next level, do some soul-searching, igure out what will be the irst step and do one thing at a time. And that will be one of the most important and signi icant things you can do in this government contracting journey to ensure that you don’t miss the boat because the opportunities are there.

overwhelming.

Determine your business’s niche 38 something that you want to achieve, and you see there’s an opportunity right here, you’re going to think about all the things that I’m sharing. It’s going to seem a little bit

I mean, it’s already proven this stuff works, right? It’s not like something you try, and it may not work, right? This money is being spent, period, point-blank, whether you’re there or not. Okay. So if you’re questioning yourself as if this is a trend or something that’s going to come today and go tomorrow, like bitcoin or cryptocurrency or any of those types of trendy things. No government contracting has been around

And before you know it, you will have exceeded everything that you destined yourself to obtain.

Write your capabilities

Determine your business’s niche 39 for generations since the beginning of time, and it will continue to be around forever, well beyond you. And so if we know that this works when you do come to those frustrating moments when you’re trying to igure out how to make it work for you, do some soul-searching and search deep and take a deep breath and just know that if this is going to be your decision because it comes with making the decision irst to be great, right?

If this is your decision, then you want to commit yourself to sticking it out regardless of what it looks like until you reach your goal.

It’s important for you to write out every aspect of what you do because sometimes you can unknowingly overlook your value. And sometimes, you don’t really understand or realize how much it is that you do in your business to provide the service or product you’re providing to your ideal client. For example, let’s just say a childcare provider, normally traditionally from a private standpoint, when you think about a person that provides childcare, you’re thinking linear. You think they watch the kids, and they get paid for that. However, when you think about what an actual childcare provider provides throughout the day… In

Now that is copywriting and authorship and writing books. Although it comes from one overall umbrella business called childcare, all of those different things have different codes, industry codes of which budgets are tied, which will lead you to land multiple streams of income. And you can do that simultaneously when it comes to the government. That is a huge game-changer. And so, yes, it’s important for you to write out your capabilities and

Determine your business’s niche 40 their whole business and the complete service they’re providing, not only are they watching your kids, but they feed your kids, so that’s nutritional services. So that is an essential service that the government funds and pays for.

And sometimes those children come from different households. Right. You have parents that are split up, and they’re coming from mom’s house Monday through Wednesday and going to dad’s house Wednesday through Sunday or whatever the case may be. And sometimes that causes con lict in the home and at the actual childcare center. Now you have to become a peer-to-peer counselor. So counseling and peer-to-peer con lict and con lict resolution services are all completely different services you can offer to the government. These are all the services that you truly provide in childcare. And maybe you also, once a year or twice a year, take school photos of your kids that are in your daycare. And I’ve even seen some childcare providers write books about their childcare center and include their actual students inside the stories of those books.

Determine your business’s niche 41 what you’re capable of because it allows you to not only see your true value, but also that list of services is what you will begin to market to the government because now you know that you don’t just offer the one thing, but your one thing has many facets to it. And those many facets are exactly what the government will pay you for.

So that is the difference. Government contracting is the difference between night and day. It’s the difference between getting paid for a part of your value and getting paid for every value you have. And it’s so amazing. Write out your capabilities if you haven’t done so. I highly encourage and recommend that you do that and do that today so that you can begin to see the true value of what you have to offer and begin to get paid. Get paid the true value for the services you are providing.

And so, when you land a contract, you can itemize all of those things. So now you go from maybe getting paid from one family at $500 a month to watch their kid. Now you’re getting paid, maybe $20,000. I’m stretching it a bit, but watching three kids because of who you do business with and your ability to itemize your work.

43 C 4 Register with (Positioning)Agencies

To access the trillions of dollars that they’re spending, you have to, number one, register with the agencies, and registering with these agencies is a great thing.

Number two, it allows them to know that you exist. It allows other contractors looking to partner with certi ied or registered agency businesses to know that you exist, and they can reach out to you. But it also puts you on the list to receive bid noti ications for what you registered and said you could do.

For example, if you’re selling clothes and have an apparel line or something you want to sell close to the government. Now, they do buy that, and they buy it in bulk. They buy uniforms. Just imagine the Navy commissary store. They buy clothes, socks, T-shirts and everything else. Right. So if you want to be on their bid list to receive noti ications when they post that they’re looking for someone to sell them that stuff, then you have to get registered with the agency. So this is what this particular chapter is all about registering with agencies because it allows you to position yourself for success. It allows you to get on their radar and position yourself to receive noti ications.

In this chapter, I’ll share information about how the government across federal, state, and local levels has money for small businesses. They’re buying your stuff, they’re buying the products that you’re selling, and they’re buying the services that you’re offering as well.

Look and see if they meet their goals because every agency has a minimum goal to spend with small business owners locally with small business owners in the state or small business owners who are women or minority or disadvantaged or LGBT or service-disabled veterans. You want to know, are they meeting their goals?

It’s very important for you to research the agencies you’re trying to do business with, the same way you research a person before you get into a relationship. Hopefully, that’s something that you’re doing. So, when you’re looking for contracting opportunities through these agency sites, one of the most important things that you can do is look for what they’ve awarded before.

So, in this particular chapter, I’m going to be talking about registering with agencies and what that looks like through their certi ication program, deciding on what you want to register under, and inding out what programs you need to register under and how to research before you even get started with that.

And that information is public. Are they meeting their goals? That’s the thing that you want to be researching. And also, do they pay on time?

And also, that’s the irst step to letting other people and agency owners know that you’re around and that you’re here, and you’re ready to show up to do business.

Research agencies that buy your stuff

And so you have to do your due diligence just as well, especially as a business owner, it’s your responsibility to do the research. It’s your responsibility not only to research if they’re buying your stuff. But who’s buying your stuff so that you can create your list? Some people, believe it or not, are just submitting things all over the place, and they don’t even really know what they’re doing and haven’t done the homework. Or they’re submitting things without it being solicited for services because they have not done the research. So agencies know. They know when you have not done any research. They know when you haven’t even looked to see how much they spend on those services. They know when you have not even researched past awarded contracting opportunities in your speci ic service area and how much they spent on that. They know when you haven’t looked at if they already have it in their budget, or if it’s something that they’re going to be writing up as a special budget or if it’s something coming down a pipeline or if it’s something that even serves this agency overall.

And how often do they pay? Are they paying 30 days net, or are they known for paying people 90 days late? When you go out to apply for a government contract or submit a proposal, they’re going to be researching you. Some of those agencies will research you and see if you have past performance, who are some of your clients, and can you deliver.

Determine programs & eligibility

You have no idea where you it, and you want to get in where you it in for you to know where you it in. Find out if they have local contracting programs set aside. Find out if they have certain eligibility guidelines so you can know.

And so you have to do your homework. You wouldn’t just go blindly into anything else. So, when it comes to your business, your baby, and you want to be on this road to success, you have to take the time, and everybody wants a fast way to success. There is no fast way to success, but you can de initely get there faster. You have to take one step at a time to get there.

If you’re one of the few who’s doing research, you will be on top. You will become the expert. You will be the one that is knowledgeable about this, and you’ll know how to navigate a lot more than those who are just going at it blindly.

But the great part about all of this is that as you’re going through it, it’s developing you and progressing you to become a better version of yourself. That’s a plus. And all of this research that you have to spend the time to do… it’s your business, right? Nobody is going to do your business the way that you do it. So, how you do some things is how you do everything. So make sure that you do your research. And trust me that it will be well worth your time because you will be on top.

And once you know what those guidelines are, now you have a game plan to get a position. But you do have to have a business to do business with the government. We know that off the top. But for some who are thinking about starting a business and they know that there’s an opportunity here now that you know, to be eligible to do business with your city or with your county or with your state, you have to have a business. You can put that on your checklist of things to do. You need to take action steps to get into contracting with your city, state, county, or whatever the case may be. So, yes, you have to understand what the programs are and what the eligibility requirements are because if they have a program, say, for instance, you’re a woman, or maybe you’re a minority woman in your state, and you want to do business with your state. So now, most states have a woman-minority certi ication program that you can sign up for to qualify you for their set aside budgets for that business demographic. Now, if you know the eligibility for participating in those particular programs, that gives you the green light to go ahead and get quali ied to sign up. So everything that was holding you back before is now out of the way. Now you’re positioning yourself to win for success and participate in the pool of streaming money. That is the fastest way to the money. First, you have to do homework. And then, you have to research what programs are available and participate in those programs.

Just think about the day in the life of a regular person. So when you get up, hopefully, the irst thing you do is maybe brush your teeth, right? They buy toothbrushes, they buy toothpaste, maybe you wash your face, they buy towels, you know, maybe you use soap to take a shower.

Some people use other types of things to take showers. They buy soap. They buy water services. They will buy water treatment services. And then you go out, and you may get dressed. They buy clothes and anything from

Because if you never show up, then guess what? They have these monies to spend, and they don’t have anybody to spend it with. And typically, these agencies begin to call those already in their system who are already eligible and inside their programs. Then they give those opportunities to them because they’re there, right? If they don’t know you exist, they don’t know to call you to give you those contracts.

So one of the great things about doing business with the government is they pretty much buy everything, right? And so when you irst start looking at the opportunities that are out there, you’re gonna be overwhelmed. You’re gonna be also, unaware of what you can sell to the government because they literally buy everything.

And so de initely, once you know, go ahead and go for it. Decide on services

50 tops on down to shoes. If you wear it, they buy all of that stuff. And so when you get in your car, they buy vehicles. You know the pavement that you drive on and walk on? They buy those services, like the people who build that infrastructure. You know, those are contractors, right? And so there is nothing that you do that the government does not buy or pay for. So with that said, of course, there’s gonna be a multitude of things that will come to mind, and you can’t do them all. You may be multi-skilled, multi-faceted…Maybe you’re one of those types of people who can do a whole lot of things, but pick one and build fromThatthere.one thing can make you rich. And so if you get good at that one thing, just start there. You can always add additional complimentary services. Again, adding additional value and things that make sense, but you don’t want to be all over the place because some people start a business and don’t really have a focus, and they’re just in it for the greed. But greed can only get you so far, but when you’re in it for purpose and do business on purpose, that is more sustainable. You have more sustainability that way. And so I would just say decide on exactly what you want to sell to the government. And of course, in this book, I’m going to give you some guidelines and some strategies on how to really narrow down what it is that you want to do. Clarify and identify what that one thing may be, but start there. Once you make the decision, of

51 course, you have the power to expand your bandwidth to be able to go and do even more business.

For example, if you’re a painter, then you can sell painting services to the government, but you can also sell painting products, but it’s all related. You can sell the paintbrushes or sell painted art or all of those related things. You can sell indoor or outdoor paint, building paint, industrial paint, or whatever. Now, if you are that painter, you can go to an agency and look and see how much you will be spending on paint for this year or who has a need within your agency. Or if there is a department that’s going to be spending money on painting services. You can research how much they have spent on painting services before. But you have to have something to begin with. So being decisive gives you that base for what you need to do to get to where you want to go. Right? So it gives you a starting point so that you’re not all over the place.

Some people can say, Hey, oh, you can sell it to the government. Let me jump into that. If you’re really good at that, go do that. But my recommendation will be to really decide on what it is that you want to sell. And think of how you are going to leverage and do the research on just that one thing or that group of things that are all related to exactly what you do.

Agencies (Positioning)

But what’s on the other side is your ability to land multiple sixigure contracts, even million-dollar contracts.

I have a colleague who was discouraged about the paperwork for a few years. And I kept saying, do the paperwork, do the paperwork. And inally, when he actually stepped up to get the paperwork done with my assistance and went ahead to get started with the government contracting in the local city, he landed his irst million dollar contract selling security guard services, which is huge for a black man with a security company. It’s huge.

Now, had he not done the paperwork, then he would not have quali ied for that such amazing set aside contracting opportunity. And let me say this, you can do business with the government, even if you are not a minority. And even if you are not a small business. But you cannot access the set aside contracting dollars that

It’s important to apply for small business certi ications when pitching and winning government contracts. These certi ications allow you to participate in a spend that nobody else can touch. For example, I know that there’s a lot of paperwork involved in becoming a woman certi ied and all of these other minority certi ications, local business certi ications, and disadvantaged business certi ications. There’s a lot of paperwork, and most people get discouraged from there.

are set aside speci ically for those groups unless you have those certi ications.

You can be a woman in business. You can be a minority small business. Yes, you could be at a disadvantaged business. But until you go through the process of registering your business of icially as one of those socioeconomic disadvantaged groups, you cannot touch that pot all day. So having those certi ications is going to be key, so go ahead and go through the rigorous paperwork to get it done because otherwise, you will be still trying to igure it out like everybody else and continuing to chase customers like everybody else.

Now your certi ication gives you access to this pool of streaming money that’s lowing down your street every single day, saying, pick me up or get a bucket and scoop me out. And that’s the difference between certi ied businesses that have those set aside contracting opportunities and businesses that don’t have their certi ications. And another thing is when you do have those certi ications, large prime contractors who may not actually meet the goal of an agency who’s looking to do a % of business with these groups on a larger scaled project will need you so they can meet these goals and get these projects in the irst place.

They have to utilize a certain percentage of women, a certain percentage of local, a certain percentage of minorities on their team. This means now you are in demand simply because you have that paperwork, right? So

that makes you highly attractive to large prime contractors. The agencies need to spend this money with you, but prime contractors need to utilize you to access money for their own business. And so that is the importance of applying for your small business certi ications.

All of those things that lock you out from traditional ways of doing business on the government side, they’re saying that is great. We’re going to reward you for being socioeconomic, traditionally marginalized, and left out. We’re going to reward you because you have been traditionally left out. What we’re going to do for you is give you opportunities to grow and get yourself out of those circumstances and those situations because we know that you have been done an injustice in this society. And so that is the reason why you de initely want to have your small business certi ication paperwork done. Get it done.

And you de initely want to apply for as many as you possibly can. But start with the one if you’re the type of person that can be easily overwhelmed. And the reason why I say this is so very important. Those things that normally we’re looked down upon for, like being located in an underutilized, basically the hood community or being a poor minority business owner or having disadvantages of not having startup capital or money to really grow your business or get ahead.

55 C 5 Get a coach

In this chapter, I’m talking about getting a coach, especially when pitching and winning government contracts, because it’s not easy. I only make it sound easy. But there are a lot of micro-steps within those steps that you have to take, and what you don’t know can cost you both time and money.

While you’re not making money, while you’re not getting results, having a coach can help you get there faster. Having a coach can help you understand and know what the pitfalls are. So in this chapter, I’m talking about being prepared for getting a coach, right? Because you

There are many things that, if you don’t know about, you will run up against, and it could literally throw you off track or discourage you or make you feel like it’s not going to work for you. But when you have a coach, they actually can push you, help you and hold you accountable. Now, having a coach is one of the best things for me. I even have a coach. Every coach should have a coach. And so should every business entrepreneur.

Get a56coach

Who would you be if you decide that you don’t need a coach in your life, period? Point blank. All the greatest of greats have coaches. And so it wasn’t until I learned how to invest in myself and invest in coaching to help me get there faster, to help me go the straight-line versus getting a lat tire and going off the road and having to pull around and go the back route and come back around and in turn, all those things did nothing but consume time.

For example, when you’re starting a business, you want to get a coach who can help you start that business. And when you’re at the point of being able to grow your business and scale it, you want to get a coach who can help you grow and scale that business. And when you’re ready to start optimizing and duplicating, and licensing your business, then you’re de initely going to need a coach who can help you optimize and duplicate and license your business. As you evolve, your need for a coach and a bigger coach will also evolve.

Somebody’sSelf-sabotage.supposed to show you how to make a million dollars or how to access multiple streams of income or multiple sixigure contracts where you’re winning them and generating that type of revenue over and over. They’re going to show you how to do that for free?

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want to get a coach for every milestone. And as you grow, your need for a different type of coach will evolve.

And, of course, those coaching fees are going to get more and more hefty. But guess what? Those coaching fees are very small when you think about what’s on the other side of it. And the one thing I want to say is most people stop at oh, I got to pay to learn how to make a million dollars. Think about that question. It makes no sense. A lot of business owners are programmed to stay broke. And questions like this only show what a broke mindset can cause you to do.

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Be prepared for the long haul

There’s a real system and strategy for doing government contracting, and it’s a real thing that you can partake in, no matter who you are, no matter how long you’ve been in business, no matter how much experience you have. But you de initely want to be prepared for the longCanhaul.you land a government contract in a very short period of time? Yes, I have a client, Dominica, who landed her irst contract within ive weeks of our six-week Trillion Dollar Government Contracting Accelerator program. Yes, she landed her irst contract in ive weeks. That’s record time.

I also have a client named Sharonda, who sells prosthetic wigs and landed her irst contract within eight

So we have to get our sel ish ways out of the way. The things that hold us back. Because those are the people who never get to their next level, or maybe it takes them ten to 15 or 20 years longer to get there because they allow a small fee to hold them back from their dreams and from living their dreams.

Now, I know that there’s a lot at stake here. There are a lot of opportunities. This can give you massive growth in your business in a very short time. But this is de initely not a get rich, quick scheme. But you can get rich faster than you would if you don’t do this.

Get a59coachweeks of our six-week program. And so de initely, these are very unique circumstances. On average, our clients win contracts within three months. That’s 90 days. But remember, traditionally, most business owners are not even expecting to turn a pro it or generate any revenue in their business for the irst two years in business. So if you can do that in ive weeks, if you do that in eight weeks, if you can do that in three months, then you’re winning. These things can happen for you if you’re diligent, if you’re consistent, if you’re actually doing the work, if you’re taking action, if you’re actually in formation, and you’re following the things that I’m sharing with you inside this book. And so, yes, you de initely can win a contract within your irst 30, 60, 90 days. Yes, you absolutely can. But you also can land a contract within your irst six to twelve months. Take Gloria Miller Epps, for instance, who is one of my clients who started in my program about nine months ago to date. She lost her father that same exact weekend she joined, and she started doing the action steps in her own time. And then she had to get some things out of the way, like, as far as some mindset thing that was holding her back. But when she decided that this is what she’s going to do to retire herself and provide for her family, she landed her irst quarter of a million-dollar contract. And she did that in just nine months. Most businesses will never get to a multiple sixigure business in their irst

Get a60coachyear at all. Some businesses will never get their period. And others may take ive to seven years to even reach thatAndthreshold.so,this can truly change your life. But you de initely want to be prepared for the long haul because once you get that no, sometimes people get a no, and they get discouraged. But you have to know that no eventually becomes a yes, and every no is an opportunity for you to learn what you did wrong so that you can do it right. And if you’re diligent, I promise you will start winning those contracts. But again, it’s not an overnight success. People who have had tremendous success with government contracting have been doing it consistently for a couple of years or at least a few years right before they igured it out.But now, when you have a coach or someone who can help you shorten that time frame, you can get there a lot faster. And this is why my clients are getting there in record time. So be prepared for the long haul. Don’t expect overnight success. Don’t expect that you submit your irst bid, and they’re going to say yes, and you’re going to land that contract.

Just know that this is going to take you some time to grow and build out your contracting business as you evolve and develop because this is a new concept for most of you who are reading this, so take your time and enjoy it and enjoy the journey of becoming a CEO and a

boss and a successful business owner and what typically will be an employer of tomorrow. Enjoy the journey. There are no guarantees. There are no guarantees that we’re going to even be here tomorrow. There’s no guarantee that you may even wake up tomorrow. There are no guarantees for anything. But what I can say is if you do the work, you will get the results. You have to just know that your time will be your time if you are diligent and consistent. There are absolutely no guarantees, because if you have a coach and that coach was to say, I 100% guarantee that you’re going to get this X, Y, and Z result, and they just throw that out there just like that, then you may want to caution that. Unless they’re going to hold your hand and do the work for you, they can’t guarantee that you’re going to do the work. So your guarantee is really you! Right? So, yes, even I can say that by having a coach, you’re going to guarantee to land government contracts, and you’re going to be able to do that successfully for the rest of your life. And although that may be true, I don’t know what you’re going to do with the knowledge you gain, and if you will 100% execute that. It takes doing the work to get the result. So guess what you have to guarantee yourself. Of course, I get that question a lot. What is your guarantee that this is going to work for me? And I always come back

Get a61coach

But if you know for a fact that you have a blueprint and that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to follow that blueprint to a tee and execute and implement, there’s no way that you cannot win. There’s no way that you cannot get the results that you signed up for. And so, absolutely, there is a guarantee that the government is spending money. There is a guarantee that they have money and they’re spending it all the time, and they want to spend it with you. But you have to guarantee that you will do the work to go ahead and get it.

Get a62coachand say your guarantee will be you. The process works, but will you? If you follow the process, the only outcome you can possibly get are the promised results.

Another common question is, have you done this before, or who are some of the people that you’ve helped? And the thing is, are you looking for a reason not to be successful? Because usually, when people are looking for guarantees, they’re looking for someone to blame if they don’t do the work. And so if you know for a fact that we can show you how, if I was to give you a road map to follow the yellow brick road to a goldmine, and you know, for a fact, that you don’t have a way to get there but decide that you don’t feel like you don’t want to skip along that yellow brick road to get there…, then you have already aborted the possibility of succeeding.

When it comes to learning how to pitch and win government contracts, it’s important for you to pick a coach that not only has the experience and expertise but a clear roadmap for you to follow. If they have never been there before, how can they tell you how to get there or what to expect along the way, or the pitfalls to avoid? How can they prepare you for those things? How can they prepare you if they’ve never been there and have never encountered that? So anybody can go Google how to get X, Y, and Z, but nobody knows the real-life experience except for someone who has been there. Google is not your coach. It can lead you down a long and crooked road to confusion. So when looking for a real-life coach, you want to choose a person. Whether it’s looking for a coach to help you write a book or learn how to do government contracting or sell real estate, you want to make sure that that actual coach has been there along the journey and they actually have the transformation that you aspire to have. A good coach shares their stories. They share their ups and downs, the hurdles and the things that they’ve overcome, how they overcame them, and they’re able to give you tips and guidance on how to do that for yourself so that you, too, can have the same results or similar results or even greater results than they actually had themselves.

Get a63coachExperience & Expertise

So another thing when you’re looking for a coach is to ind someone you relate to. What is their background? What are some of the life stories that they share that you can relate to? Because for me, especially when I was picking coaches to help me get to the business level of business where I am today, I try to pick coaches that I felt a connection with. But I also felt like they understood my story and my journey and where I come from because they have experienced pieces of that.

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And ideally, when you are looking for a coach, you’re de initely going to identify something within them that you absolutely admire. And it’s typically because you have that same something within yourself, characteristic-wise or spiritual-wise or whatever it is. That drive that you see in them that attracted you to them in the irst place. What you’re looking at is yourself. What you’re looking at are pieces of you that are screaming out to be evolved and developed into that because it’s already in you. You were born to be great. And so, a coach is only going to help you be more of who you were born to be in the irst place. Experience and expertise are de initely something that you look for. But even beyond that, let’s just say they just have the knowledge. Maybe they just have the expert knowledge, and you just love and admire who they are as a person but have no other connection. If you can get a transformation out of that, I’m not saying don’t work with that coach.

Ultimately you want someone who can help you get from point A to point B. Absolutely. Go ahead and work with and ind a coach who can help you evolve into the person you’re trying to be.So those are the things that I want to share about experience and expertise. Why is it important to ind a coach that can help you learn how to pitch and win government contracts? There are a lot of coaches out there. When I irst started in my business, there were only, like, maybe two or three that were actually in this space. Now it’s an evolving industry of coaches who are teaching people how to grow their business.

And one may not work for you, but another may. So you just have to think about who speaks your language the most. Who do you relate to the most? Who do you feel connected with the most that you want to work with?

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But everybody’s doing something different because everyone has a different signature offer, a different journey, and different pathways to help you get there.

And when I say speaking a language like, are they speaking above your level of understanding to where you got to get a dictionary to understand what they’re saying? Or do you feel confused after they inish talking? Or do you feel like when they open their mouth to speak and encourage and train and empower even in their free stuff? Do you feel empowered that you can go out and do that and make it happen? And even with just a little bit of

Be clear on the problem

hand-holding, you can crush it with that person, and so de initely that’s something that you want to look for.

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So every coach is not for you. Everybody can’t train and teach everybody. But I always say that who God has for you and what God has for you is going to be for you. Some people you were designed to cross paths with, and some you were designed to cross across the path of. You have to just be mindful and prayerful about who you’re working with. But why is it important? The next question is, why is it important for you to be clear on your problem when it comes to inding a coach to help you pitch and win government contracts? When you have clarity of what you’re going after the problem you want to solve, it’s easier for you to ind the right coach that you believe can help you solve that speci ic thing. You don’t want to be unclear. You want to clarify what you want to learn so that you know the right questions to ask.Doing this will help you identify a coach who can help you meet that goal. If you don’t know how to do the certi ications, you would want someone to show you how to speci ically apply for and leverage certi ications so that you can start winning government contracts.

Some people just need that one part. And if that’s a part

Get a67coachof something that they teach in their program, then hey, you have a match. Right?

I’ve often seen small business owners who are disgruntled because maybe they heard a real estate coach talking about government contracts and thought they were going to be learning about government contracts. And this is a real story. But what they learned about was real estate. Well, she may have mentioned government contracting, but she didn’t say she’s going to show you how to do government contracts. She was a real estate expert to teach people how to get started with real estate. You have to be clear on what it is that you’re looking for. Nine times out of ten, when you’re not getting out of a program or a course or consulting service, what you thought you were supposed to get it’s usually because of a communications mismatch. Because an expert knows what their expertise is. They know what they’re teaching. They automatically know what you’re going to get out of that. The person who needs coaching doesn’t always know what they want speci ically. So you de initely want to be clear on the problem you want to solve in the irst place. If you don’t know anything about government contracting, for instance, and you want to learn A to Z, every single thing in every single step that you need to take to go from beginner to a winner where you’re winning those contracts, and that’s what you want to express. You want to be clear.

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I can pretty much guess that you’re not starting your business to offer your services or your products for free. So you have to respect a person’s expertise and know that it’s going to cost you something, but that small fee that you pay to learn the things that you need to learn to access trillions of dollars in government contracting or whatever it is that you’re trying to access is going to be well worth your time. It’s going to be well worth the investment because it will pay you over and over for the life of your business as long as you’re doing business until you decide that you want to quit. This is why the rich get richer, and the poor or middle class stay right where they are.

If you don’t know anything about government contracting, you want to know about certi ications. You want to know about positioning and registrations and agencies. You want to know about forecasts. You want to know about all these things and how to pitch them, win contracts, look for opportunities, and price your services. You have to be very clear on all of those things so that when you go take that need and request to a coach, know that they’re not going to show you all those things for free. So if you have the mindset of thinking you’re going to get that stuff for free, then you’re not in business, and you really don’t want to do business in the irst place.

So who wouldn’t want to make an investment into the right coach when you have clarity about the problem that you want to solve, and you know for a fact they’re

Get a69coachgoing to help you with that because they’ve identi ied the problem. They’ve told you they have the solution for you. All you need to do is execute.

Consume The Free Content First

This is especially important when it comes to learning how to do something that will be so life transformational. And ask yourself, “Is this person easy to follow and understand? Can I easily consume it? And, after consuming their content, whether it be a book or video or training, am I moved and encouraged?” Do they speak my language? Are they speaking above my level of knowledge or understanding? And do I vibe with their personality? Do I feel like it’ll be a personality con lict if I’m working with that person? Are they kind? Are they mean, cut and dry? Do I need someone who’s cut andSodry?all of those things you can discover by consuming their free content, whether they have a YouTube page or an Instagram page, or maybe they have a couple of ebooks or email lists that you can get on to see.

When it comes to deciding on who would be the best- it coach to help you with learning government contracts, it’s important for you to do your homework. Check out some of their free content, podcasts, or free training if they have them.

So if you can get wins and guess what, wins are not always monetary. So if you can get a small win or reach a small milestone off free content, just imagine how much greater it would be if you had their one on one attention or if you were in a group setting with them where they’re helping you speci ically solve your problem. They’re answering your questions personally and intentionally. These are the things that I do inside my program with my clients. I listen to the problem that you have. I already know the problem is normally that you’re tired of chasing customers. You’re struggling to get your business off the ground. You have inconsistent income or some of those things, right?

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In fact, quite a few people who follow me on my YouTube channel, which will be on my resource list that you can get at bonus.dontduckthegovernmentbook. com, were able to get results because they were ready. They may not have been at the beginning of getting started and trying to igure things out, but just that one thing I may have said helped them tweak their perspective or tweak what they were doing wrong to help them go ahead and be successful, get those certi ications complete, land their irst contracts, even for some right off the free content.

What type of information are they putting out there?

And is it helpful, right? Because I give tons of value away for free. I give tons of steps.

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These are the problems that I solve. I help you solve them with government contracts because that gives you consistent, sustainable, long-term income where you don’t have to worry about any of those things, even if your problem is you don’t have money to spend on marketing. Well, with government contracting, you don’t have to spend a single penny on marketing. All you have to do is list your capabilities, which we talked about earlier in the Sobook.there are systems of strategies and things that you can do to excel and exceed as a small business. And so when it comes to inding a coach, inding the right coach, especially when it comes to government contracting, you want to do all of these things that I’m sharing, including consuming the free content and also not only just consumption, because information overload leads you to nothing, right? You can have all the information in the world. And if you don’t do anything or take action to do anything to execute upon that, then you’re just a very smart person who has consumed a whole lot of information. So action steps and executing the information you’re receiving will be very key. That’s the only way to know if it helped you get from point A to point B or point A to point A.1 whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve if it helps you to be a little bit more knowledgeable in the areas that you’re grey about and you don’t really have very much knowledge, so de initely consume the free content, all the free content.

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Because making investments into yourself is actually what changes lives, not free content, right? If free were the answer, everybody would be googling on YouTube, and they will all be rich off free. So free helps you get small transformations. Sacri ice is what helps you get life-changing transformations.

But don’t just stop at free. If you want big transformations, it’s going to require you at some point to make a big investment and take the big leap to just go ahead and do that so that you can get there faster.

73 C 6 Pursue the list opportunitiesof

Every agency has a list of opportunities that they’re either posting on their website they’re forecasting, of course, again, what they’re looking to spend. And sometimes, if you don’t see anything on the list, you can reach out to an agency. If you believe you have something that will bene it or bring value to the agency, you can reach out to them and ask them, “here’s what I’m thinking to do. According to your mission and purpose statement, here’s what I have packaged together, and I want to know who I can talk to.” So you can pitch them, too. So, don’t just look for what they’re putting out and say this is what we need. Sometimes they don’t even know what they need. But if you can come up with an idea that you believe will help them, move the needle to whatever direction they’re trying to get according to what they have posted as their purpose statement. You can bust down doors and create opportunities for yourself. But outside of that, you de initely want to continue to look at the list of opportunities.

Pursue the list of opportunities 74

And when I say there are millions, it’s even beyond the multiple millions of opportunities listed every single

It’s important to pursue the list of opportunities that are out there. And there are tons of them. In this particular chapter, that’s exactly what we’re going to be talking about. Because if you’re not looking for opportunities, then you’re not looking to grow your business. And so, this is one of the most important chapters. Getting to the money.

There are also federal agencies across every state, across the U.S., and in other countries that also list out opportunities they’re looking to solicit to small businesses or even just businesses in general. And here’s the thing. Now let’s just say you sell products. When we think about the product space, we think about those big guys in that space, like companies like Amazon, Walmart, or whoever is doing things right now. What we don’t know, and here’s the biggest kept secret that blew my mind, and the reason I’m writing this book and why I created my program to help small business owners is because these big players are doing business with the government. Yes, companies like Walmart have contracts with the government. Amazon has contracts with the Companiesgovernment.likeUber has contracts for transportation and drop-off services. They have contracts with the government. We have some of the big brands in the stores. And this is for those who have food products you want to sell to the government. Or maybe considering or didn’t even know that companies like Starkist Tuna, Canon

Pursue the list of opportunities 75 day. And when you think about opportunities in every single state. Across every single state, there are lists of opportunities. Now within every state are cities. And there are multitudes of cities within every state. And every single city also lists contracting opportunities as well. And then you break it down from there.

Guess what? That levels the playing ground. That literally levels the playing ield for you to be able to make millions and even billions of dollars. Here’s the thing about covid, when the pandemic irst hit, there was a young man named Wesley Ross. When covid irst hit, of course, the government was looking for a solution to slowing down and killing the virus so that we could all get back to normal.

So one of the things that became most highly in demand was hand sanitizers and face masks, surgical masks, and N 95 masks. So this young man, just like in the movie War Dogs, where Jonah and his best friend landed a contract, saw that same type of opportunity, according to the Small Business Act, where you can also, as a small business or individual sole proprietor sell services to the

Pursue the list of opportunities 76 cameras, and Apple, all of these big players, these 500 Fortune companies have contracts with the government. How do you think they built their brands so huge? So, not only are they selling to us as individual consumers, but they’re also selling to the government, and they’re also selling to corporations as well. And so when I say pursue the list of opportunities, that is exactly what they’re doing. So if you decide that you want to become one of the big brands or whatever, then you have to follow suit. So if they can sell to the government and the government is saying, hey, we have this set aside for small business owners to sell to us, too.

Pursue the list of opportunities 77

Thisthat.young 16 year old landed his irst contract selling to the government and generated millions of dollars selling masks and hand sanitizers. So if you think a kid can do it, then guess what? Anybody can do this. If a 16-year-old kid can do this, then guess what. You can do this too. And this is the exact reason why I’m so passionate about helping small business owners learn about this concept. To learn about this big kept secret that has always been hidden in plain sight. Because if you look up the Small Business Act, which talks about small business concerns, a percentage of every government contract has to go to small businesses. That’s upwards of 26%. They also have to do this for a % percentage of surplus real estate.

government and level the playing ield and do big jobs like

Contracting Vehicles

There are various types of opportunities for you to pitch and win government contracts, and you have to understand the different types of vehicles out there, so you can know how to drive them. Basically, for example, you’ll see a lot of acronyms.

So there are a lot of opportunities. There are a lot of opportunities out there, and you have to pursue them. But you have to be looking through those opportunities to proactively go after them and position yourself to win.

Just know that an RFP stands for requests for a proposal, which basically means they want a full proposal of what it is that you’re responding with, right? RFI is a request for information. They basically are just asking for information. RFQ is de initely a request for quali ications. In some cases, it’s a request for a quote.

And Solicitations are basically soliciting for a response. They’re soliciting information, and they want you to respond to that. So there’s a bunch of different types of contracting vehicles. There are purchase orders and simpli ied acquisitions that I’ll talk more about towards the end. But I want you to know that and understand that there are different ways that contracting opportunities are rolled out. The more familiar you can become with them, or at least two to three of them, and just work that so that you’re not overwhelmed with different de initions of different things or whatever. Just work the basics, and then start having a clear focus on what you’re doing and how to start winning contracting using your knowledge based on the examples that I just gave.

Pursue the list of opportunities 78

There are a lot of acronyms, ABCs, L M N O P’s, and it’s easy to get caught up and distracted by those. But here’s why you want to understand what those acronyms mean when it comes to looking for opportunities. There are going to be multiple types of opportunities that you ind. There are RFPs, RFQ, RFIs, and Solicitations. You don’t want to get caught up in all of those things.

So, for example, two of the most common types of contracting opportunities or vehicles that I use are either RFPs or RFQs.

You de initely want to respond and look at requests for information because that allows you to get ahead of an opportunity at the information stage when they’re just gathering who they want to set this aside for. If they’re going to set it aside, how much they will spend on it or create a budget for it. And they’re wondering what could the scope of work be. That’s normally when they’re soliciting that information. So if you can get on top of that, then you’ll head to the game. So when they do put it back out as a Solicitation or an RFP, they’re looking for a proposal at that point. They will be putting in that information based on the information they solicited and who responded. And so that way you are more quali ied if you participated at thatAstage.request for proposal or a request for quote. Those two basic ones keep my calendar illed with opportunities and my business with a consistent, sustainable income. So if you can master that, then you can master government contracts.

Pursue the list of opportunities 79

The irst question that people ask when they go through the process of getting in position and getting certi ied is… “what’s next?”. The next step is to start bidding.

Navigate beta.SAM.gov.

Ideally, when you get federally certi ied in beta.Sam. gov, that’s also the site where you want to look for opportunities from federal agencies. This site is a one-stop-shop for all federal agencies contracting opportunities. Now be mindful that when you go to this site a lot of times, you’ll see a lot of things that are in the past or have already expired or have already been awarded, and you want to be mindful that this particular site can be more than just looking for “right now”

Pursue the list of opportunities 80

To start bidding, you want to look at the different types of bids and become familiar with the different types of bids out there to know how to respond appropriately.

Thisopportunities.isareallygreat site for doing research, inding out who the procurement of icers or the point of contacts are for particular types of contracts that were put out for that particular scope of work, and start building out a list of people that you can reach at the agency because they list their phone numbers. They normally list their emails, too, so you can just say reach out to them and say, “Hey, I saw that you put out a particular type of contract, or you’re the point of contact on this particular type of opportunity. I provide that service or can sell that product or whatever. How do I get on your list, or how do I know when the next time you’re looking to spend in that area?”. So it’s all about building relationships that just goes right

This is the one-stop site where you can Ping off of that to go to acquisitions, which is a site where you can look at the forecast and what’s coming down the pipeline. You can also go to FPDS to look at past performance history.

Now, it is important to start seeking out subcontracting opportunities when it comes to pitching and winning government contracts irst because it’s a great way to get started, get your experience to build your portfolio and

So this is a really great site, even if you were to go directly, which you can do on the state and local levels. Go directly to the agency website and look up bidding or RFPs or procurement. However, they list it out on their site. Look up those opportunities directly on their site. Normally, when you go to a federal agency site, it will automatically redirect you right back to beta.Sam.gov. That’s the home turf for federal contracting opportunities, so become very familiar with that. Know what you can do. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see anything open, use it as research and leverage the information you are coming across on that particular site.

Seek a subcontracting opportunity.

Pursue the list of opportunities 81 back to what we should be doing in the irst place, which is building relationships. So navigating beta.Sam.Gov is not only for proactively looking for contracting opportunities that may be open but what has been closed, what has been awarded, who the contact is. It’s a really great site for just information.

Pursue the list of opportunities 82 past performance. But also, you can learn the business right before you even try to become a prime contractor, which is when you’re the main person or the main contractor performing on that particular project. And so sometimes that’s the best way to get started. And I must be honest, about 95% of my contracts, which leads me to having a multiple sixigure business, are subcontracts.Andmyvery

irst contract was a subcontract. And it’s awesome because even for my own story, the very irst contract that I landed was a $70,000 contract for 28 days of work, and it was actually on a multi-trillion dollar transportation project. So a prime contractor landed multiple trillions of dollars, and they subbed out a huge part of that. And one of the goals of that project was to utilize local small businesses, especially local women, smallAndbusinesses.sothat’s how I got my part of the pie. And so I always ask the question, with all of this money that’s being spent on your local, state, and federal levels, are you getting your piece of the pie, and if not, start with a subcontracting opportunity because they need to utilize you, you can easily begin to get big wins. That is one of the most powerful ways to get started. And here’s the other thing, with subcontracting, you can land as many contracts as you can handle. There’s no limit either way, but you also won’t be responsible for all the reporting

It’s a lot more responsibility. And if you’re brand new and are not used to having that level of oversight or responsibility, then that probably would not be the best way for you to go. However, there are some smaller projects that you can prime on that may not require a lot. For example, I’m a videographer.

Pursue the list of opportunities 83 and responsibilities that come with prime contracting when you are just getting started.

I can land a contract doing video production and prime on that as long as the scope is not too big for me

I’m not saying don’t prime on contracts. I’m just saying as a newbie, this can be a great way to start winning. And you can land multiple contracts simultaneously. And that will happen as long as you’re doing the work. As long as you’re bidding, as long as you’re being diligent and consistent, you will eventually lead up to having multiple contracts simultaneously. And that’s the beauty of it all. So when it comes to subcontracting, don’t look at it as like you’re just one of the little guys. Being a little guy is a great thing. And it can also reel in big bucks for you. So when it comes to priming on a contract, which means that you’re responsible for all the paperwork, you’re responsible for meeting the goals for building the team. If you need to have it, you’re just responsible for the entire deliverables and managing all of your subcontractors: insurance, payroll, and a boatload of other things depending on the contractspeci ic requirements.

And there’s no real de inition of or rules around where you start. You can start as a prime or start as a sub. That would be up to you. It’s your business. It’s your decision.

If you want to shorten the learning curve, subcontracting could be the way to go. Also, it helps you to build relationships with the main contractors because maybe they have the capacity to go after a lot more contracts and a lot bigger projects or whatever. And so, if you do great work, they’ll always be willing to utilize you again. And so that’s a great way to start.

Market directly to agencies

Pursue the list of opportunities 84 to do by myself and as long as I can meet the minimum requirements as a stand-alone solopreneur. I can go after that as a prime, or I can also decide to team up with a larger video production company and just go after a small scope, which can be graphic and titling. That could just be my scope of work, graphic and titling on this project as a sub. So that’s the difference between subcontracting and priming. And that is why it’s important to understand the difference between subbing and priming on the project. So you know which way to go and that you have options.

I think it’s important to market directly to agencies so that they know you exist. Now, I always share with my clients. There are multiple ways to land contracts. When you irst become a government contractor and get yourself in position, there are multiple ways that you

Pursue the list of opportunities 85 can begin to land contracts. And I want you to identify those various ways and do a mix of each. So there’s going to be some passive ways that you’ll be able to land contracts. Once you’re in the system, you will receive noti ications that this opportunity is coming down the pipeline. But you’re also going to receive some phone calls from certain agencies who have what’s called a purchase card to spend under a certain dollar amount. And they’re going to call you and say, hey, we have this contracting opportunity, or we have this scope of work that we need to ful ill, and I see that you’re registered in our system. Can you do the work? And if so, can you submit us a quote?

So those are called purchase orders or micropurchases, and normally those are really easy, simple one and done types of opportunities. But they are passive opportunities as well. So, in addition to having passive opportunities, there are proactive ways to reach out and start winning contracting opportunities, which is number one. You can look for bid opportunities or procurement opportunities.FindSolicitations on these agency websites and respond to them. And you want to do that. You want to have a regiment where you’re doing that regularly. Also, in addition to that, you want to proactively market your capabilities to the agency.

Work with a bid-matching service

Now, if you market yourself to those agencies, you can just really call and ind out who the buyer is at the agency or look at the solicitations available online. Who’s the point of contact? Let them know, “Hey, here’s what I do. Here’s where I am. Here are the certi ications that I have, and I’m interested in being on your list for when you have more work like this. Or I’m interested in attending events as well.” And you can market yourself directly to the agencies with your capability statement. Let them know this is what I do again. So we can talk till I’m blue in the face about that. But marketing yourself directly to agencies is going to be de initely key. It’s a proactive approach to getting started, and it’s one of the fastest ways to get your business name out there and get yourself known for what you do so that eventually, it will be likeYouautopilot.canput that thing on autopilot, so they know where you are, that you exist, and that you’re ready to start winning Government Contracting opportunities. You can take the same proactive approach with prime contractors.

Now, irst, I want to say one of the things you want to look for or be aware of is once you get started with getting yourself registered as a government contractor,

That goes back to the capability statement. What are you selling? What is your proposition or marketing proposition? And who do you serve?

Pursue the list of opportunities 86

Pursue the list of opportunities 87 going through your certi ications, registering as a vendor, you’re going to automatically start receiving emails from third parties. And some of this stuff is going to be quite scammy. But not all of them are scams. There are real third-party businesses and companies that are looking to sell you a service. And some of them may even look like they’re related to the government, but they are not. So be aware of that. But they’re not all scams. Sometimes there are some scammers out there, and you want to be aware. But the way to just know whether it’s a government agency or a third party trying to sell you something is the email would either say dot.gov or dot. mill if it’s government or military. Anything that comes over with a dot.com, dot.us, dot. biz is legitimate. All those other things are third-party private companies looking to sell things to you. Now, I said all that to say, it is important also to ind out if you feel like you don’t have the capacity or the time to really start looking through solicitations and opportunities through all these different databases across local, state, federal, it’s a lot of work. So a shortcut and one of the things you can do is companies out there who do the curation for you and a small nominal fee.

A monthly fee to be a part of their community, search their database for opportunities or receive automatic opportunities via email through their system. For example, there’s a bunch of them out there. So I’m not

And so they do the work for you, as opposed to you having to maybe hire someone to consistently look through these opportunities, especially when you know you are the business owner. You are the person who prepares your tax, you are the CPA, you are the person that does the work and goes into the ield, the networker, you’re everything, and most small business owners wear the hats of every position in their particular business.

Pursue the list of opportunities 88 going to list anything in particular, but you can Google bid-matching services or bid-matching sourcing services. But anyway, what they do is you register for their site, and many of them have a free version of their software as well.You register, you let them know what NAICS codes, or what industry codes or what services, basically that you’re looking to sell, what state, what city you can dig down deep in what it is that you want them to send you. And you can say, send me more of these. Send me these types of opportunities or whenever there are bids in this state on this particular scope of work, send that to me.

And so with that said, if you’re busy doing the work, sometimes you don’t have the time to look for more work, because when it comes to government contracting, you’re always one contract away from being broke, which means that you always have to have them coming down the pipeline. But the great thing is, these contracts are typically long-term, like two to ive years in length.

Prepare Your Proposal & Bid

Government contracting is all about responding. It’s all about bidding and submitting proposals. Of course, there are some strategies and some passive ways that you can land a micro-purchase agreement or something like that where maybe they could swipe up to $10,000 at a time. However, for something more consistent, longterm sustainable, it’s going to require you to submit a proposal and submit a big response or a quote or your quali ications in response to an opportunity out there.

And that’s de initely not a strength that many small business entrepreneurs have. But you can learn it.

But you don’t want to wait ive years to start looking for a new opportunity because it may take you several months to secure your next contract, which means that you always want to have consistent work coming down the pipeline so that you don’t have that gap.

Pursue the list of opportunities 89

And then the great thing about it is once you already have your bid and you’ve bid it before, now you have a shortcut way to respond to those opportunities that are coming your way.

And so, a bid matching service can help you shorten the timeframe of looking for your next opportunity by doing the work for you. And it makes it that much easier.

And it’s de initely something that anyone can do. If I ask you the question, what do you sell? And you can answer that question. Then you can submit a proposal. You can write a bid. If I ask you, how much do you charge per hour or how much do you charge per quantity or whatever, and you can answer that, then you can respond to a bid or submit a proposal or a quote. If I ask you, what is your background and past performance, your experience, and you respond…. You could write a proposal. So often, people are discouraged by the formalities, and yes, sometimes these solicitations are huge. They could be up to hundreds of pages or 20-30 pages, and you’re automatically discouraged. I don’t know the reason why it’s rolled out that way, especially knowing that we are small business owners, especially knowing that we’re disadvantaged business owners. And that is daunting. The paperwork can be daunting. Maybe one day we’ll have a solution to how everything works. However, right now, we have to deal with it where it is.So the best way to respond and prepare your bid proposal is to read. If you can read and answer questions, then de initely you can succeed. So just take one page at a time, take one paragraph at a time, and be very responsive to what they’re asking because that is the only way that you’re going to start winning those contracts, especially when you’re thinking about all the monies that are on the

Pursue the list of opportunities 90

Pursue the list of opportunities 91 table for you as a business owner. You decide to have half a million dollars within twelve to 18 months. That’s very doable. It’s very achievable. But you have to understand that it will require you to submit paperwork to do that. And so, if you’re looking at a big number, just know it’s going to require big work and a big commitment. But anybody can do this.

It’s important for you to prepare your proposal and not just throw anything out there as well. I remember, and literally, this is my real-life story. When I irst started doing government contracts, I knew absolutely nothing about submitting bids and proposals. In fact, I did it all wrong the irst time, the irst few times. In fact, for the irst couple of years, I was doing it all wrong because I didn’t know exactly what it was that I was doing. So there will be these huge contracting opportunities contracts that will come up. And I know that I’m not a prime contractor, but I didn’t know the difference between a prime and a sub at that time. I just knew that I could do that scope of work they’re listing on this particular contracting opportunity, so I would just respond, here’s what I can do, that’s it. But not knowing that the actual contracting opportunity was for a prime contractor in construction, and a small scope of that work that I knew I could do was for a subcontractor and that I was not supposed to submit a proposal to the agency, but submit that proposal to the general contractor that’s going to go after that. You may

Pursue the list of opportunities 92 have to read that a few times to understand what I just said. But that was my story. It was just like that.

And so once you learn those things, when and how and what you’re supposed to do something and kind of navigate through that, it just makes it easier. But de initely, it all comes back down to being prepared, right? Being prepared to answer the questions that are at hand, and that is going to be key to pitching and winning contracts.

And it’s so possible. So when you take a look at all the things that I’m sharing here, of course, there’s a lot of information that is out there, especially if you’ve googled information and know that when you google information and constantly look on YouTube university for information, you can be easily overwhelmed with all the information out there. And this was the thing. When I irst started all that information out there, none of the dots really connected. And everybody says something different, and it’s easy to just get not only overwhelmed and discouraged because of that con lict of information. And there’s no real roadmap that was out there, which is why I created a step-by-step road map and a guide to help people navigate getting started with government contracting so that it’s easier for them so that they understand these things and know how to prepare and submit a bid and all the other nuances to think about and consider along the way in the process so that you can be successful.

And it doesn’t take you a long time to be successful. You don’t have to have, and you will probably never have 101% of the information. But with the strategy and the system in place, you can 100% start winning contracts. And that is the most important thing. Not to be the 101% expert in how everything is supposed to work together because information is always evolving. Things are always changing. So you’ll never know. I am still an evolving student myself. I’m a student forever. So I’m always learning about new things, changing laws, and new agency rules. And so just know that you don’t have to know it all to get results. You just have to be willing to do the work that gets you faster results.

Pursue the list of opportunities 93

95 C 7 Types Of ContractsGovernment

So in this chapter, I’ll be talking about the various types of government contracts available. And this is going to be good for you, whether you’re a service-based business or product-based business. But I’m also going to be sharing some of the types of contract approaches that you can make to start winning contracts faster. But understanding what types of contracts out there is one of the irst steps to knowing where you it. And you want to get in where you it in.

Types Of Government Contracts 96

So when I irst learned about government contracting, I had absolutely no idea that I could pretty much sell anything that I was already selling to individual people,… to the government as well. So like I said, I started off with a video production company, and little did I know that even just with that alone, there are multiple streams involved with that. For example, not only can I sell video production, but I can sell the editing services as the editing part as a scope, the graphic and titling part as a scope, video captions as a scope... etc. I could sell different types of videos like short form; there are animated videos, digital animation, training, podcasts, marketing instructional, and all different types of videos that I could offer. But then, eventually, I also evolved and expanded into selling photography services. And so in this particular chapter, I’m going to talk about some of the goods, but just know that that’s not the limit. So if you want to know more about goods and services that the government buys,

the best site to go to is NAICS.com. And all the services that you see on that industry list are all the services and products that you can really sell to the government. And that doesn’t leave anything out. If you can sell it, they will buy it. So just know that you’re in the right place and whatever it is that you’re selling, there’s a way to sell it, and you just have to learn how to be creative and think outside the box. So enjoy the information I’m sharing with you because it can change your life.

You also want to know about the type of contracts available so that you can understand where you get in and where you it in as well. Also, be sure to not X yourself out because they may not exactly say what it is that you do if you’re trying to identify word for word. If it’s in your lane, then there is a creative way that you can sell that thing or service or whatever it is that you’re selling to the government. It just takes a little bit of strategy. So this chapter is really just about some of the examples of things that you can sell to the government, whether it’s a product or service, and then some of the other strategies of ways that you can start winning contracts faster.

Types Of Government Contracts

Goods There are various types of contracts that you can land for various types of things that you’re selling. So one of the types of contracts you can land is a contract for various goods. And goods could typically be anything tangible

And we think about the navy, the military, the army. They have what’s called commissaries. They have grocery stores and clothing outlets—all these places where military and navy people can buy and purchase

Types Of Government Contracts 98 that you want to move off your shelf to get in the hands of aThatuser. could be food items. It could be PPE gear, like safety items. It could be medical items. It could be anything from of ice supplies to maybe certain trade industry supplies like looring or concrete or lighting or any of those types of things or even sheetrock.

Typically we think the government is someone sitting at a desk at the White House or whatever. Right?

But ideally, the government is nothing more than a building made up of people who need things. Individual employees and people who need stuff. They eat, and they wash their hair, and they go home, and they drive just like the rest of us. They breathe air just like the rest of us.

So if you can sell the “one thing” to the government, you can get rich. You can sell lotion, of course. So when you think about goods and what they’re buying, let’s just say you have shampoo. Of course, you have to go through a certain process to sell it as a brand to the government.

And it doesn’t even have to be that big. You can sell pencils. In fact, I know a young lady who actually got rich off selling $1 toothbrushes to the government making millions and millions of dollars. So again, getting good at the “one thing.”

literally everything. I looked up dog treats and found that you could sell dog treats to the government. It’s so crazy. But the commissary is where you buy goods. So don’t think for one second that what you have, you can’t sell it to the government. You just have to know how. Here’s another example. I know a lot of people who are in the business of selling T-shirts, and they have their brands. And these days, we can do T-shirt brands without even footing the bill of having inventory upfront because they have these print-on-demand services. And you can create your logos on apps to go on your T-shirt, and there you have a business. Whala!.

And it’s so amazing, and it’s powerful what you can do. But back to what I was saying… if you have a T-shirt brand, let’s just say your brand is Booboo Kitty. Okay. Well, it’s great that you have a Booboo Kitty brand. And Booboo Kitty may sell to your neighbors and sell in the local stores to individuals. So now we’re thinking of growing from that perspective of depending on individual foot traf ic to get those Booboo Kitty T-shirts off the shelf to selling T-shirts, uniforms, and accessories to the government. Because they buy it, and they do not just buy 1. They are buying boatloads of it at a single time. So just imagine if another pandemic or some future pandemic hits and now nobody can come out the house or all the stores are shut down, and there goes your individual foot traf ic.

Types Of Government Contracts 99

This book will de initely be the game-changer, especially for those who are irst-time hearers of this phenomenal thing called government contracting. If

Well, then you have to think about taking your business online and buying Facebook ads and all that stuff or ads in general for online marketing. You have to think about all that and how much money you’re going to put into it. And if you’re going to get money back and then have this personal brand called Booboo Kitty. How are you going to move that inventory? The government buysGovernmentit.

Types Of Government Contracts

going to broaden my scope of what I can sell and sell it to the government. Yeah, they may not buy your Booboo Kitty brand, but they do buy t-shirts. With this, you can go from selling individual t-shirts selling for about $5 or so to selling a million t-shirts at one time in one purchase to the government. Gamechanger. So take that knowledge about goods and what you can sell. And if you’re selling goods, even if you’re selling earrings and accessories, which I also know people who do that, you can sell that to the government.

100

contracting is a way to safeguard your business.Sonow I want you to think about, okay, it’s a T-shirt, and the government buys goods, and t-shirts are included in goods, t-shirts, uniforms and clothing items and accessories.SonowI’m

So position yourself.

Because the government is a customer, that’s what it is. It’s a potential client that you can land who will be the number one, largest paying client you can ever acquire.

But it’s not for everybody. I must admit, it’s only for those who are serious about doing their business. It’s only for those who are serious about putting in the work and serious about being hyper-focused on being successful at this.

There are a lot of people who coach. There are de initely coaching services that you can sell to the government. It may not be called coaching services.

you take the knowledge and tips that I’m sharing in this book, you can actually transform and change your life and change your business and start getting government contracting within 30, 60, 90 days that we talked about.

Maybe it will be more consulting services, which is the sameSothing.ifyou help business owners, the Small Business Development Center is a part of the government agency.

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Services Services are another thing that you can sell to the government. Everything that you sell does not necessarily have to be tangible. You can also have a hybrid business where you’re selling products and services. But when it comes to selling services, of course, that extends the opportunities beyond everything.

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And so you just have to really be strategic. I remember when I was a part of this networking group, which was just like last year. And I was trying to help them understand how they can sell their services to the government because people don’t really understand how it works unless you give them real-life examples. And so there was a man in there who had an optometry business. And he didn’t realize that he was already a government contractor because once we had a phone call, and I was breaking down that you can sell eyeglasses or optometry services, of course, to the government. He said you know what, you’re right because I always get the military or the Navy contracts to provide eyeglass services and eye exams to them. And I was like, well, you’re already government contracting. You’re already a contractor and didn’t know it.

Well, they hire consultants to help small businesses. And so service is something that you de initely don’t want to overlook or undermine or discredit because whatever your service is, let’s just say you’re a taxpayer. You know, you can have a contract with the Department of Treasury or with the agency that serves a community that needs help with tax services.

Types Of Government Contracts

And there was another young man who contacted me and was like, hey, I want to learn how to do government contracts. I’m like, what is it that you do? He was like, well, he does something. He said something about he sold

Not only musicians but speci ically ministers of music. Like sixigure contracts that I’ve seen where you’re coming out twice a week to do a rehearsal, and you’re doing a Sunday service and a couple of times a year you’re doing a special rehearsal for like Christmas or

Types Of Government Contracts 103 the home testing covid kits to FEMA. I said, well, FEMA is a federal government agency. So you’re already doing it. Just do more of what you’re doing. Right? And so sometimes people don’t realize that the services or the products or whatever it is that they’re doing… Sometimes you can already be doing government contracting and not realize that that’s what you’re doing anyway.

So getting back to services, even if you have a daycare service, you can sell childcare services to the government. Yes, you can because there are several city contracts for daycare centers to serve low-income areas. And so daycare is something else that you can sell in addition to carpet cleaning, or there are so many different types of things. So we talked about hairstylists. We talked about maybe you are a musician. So here’s another one. So that was another thing that blew me away because I have friends who are musicians and have been in church and have been underpaid and undervalued in the church. And it even came to the point where a lot of musicians are church hopping for gigs, and it’s crazy to be in that particular space, but little did I know that they have government contracts for musicians.

When it comes to simpli ied acquisitions, if you can master this concept and understand the rules that regulate this and how it works, you can kill the game. And here’s the exact reason why a lot of times, when you go to beta.Sam. gov, you won’t see many open opportunities there.

New Year’s or something like that and winning multiple sixigure contracts as a Minister of Music. That’s amazing because when you go individual private churches, a lot of times, those musicians are struggling paycheck to paycheck, and they’re barely getting paid or barely making it. Or maybe you’re on a salary to where you’re not even getting $60,000 for the year, and you’re coming almost three to four times a week, burning yourself out. But this is a total complete game-changer.Soevenif you are a band and provide musician services, you can do that with the government. They have special events all the time where they’re hiring and contracting and looking for musicians, entertainers, and eventDon’tplanners.limit yourself to individual people and just know that whatever you’re selling, again, if you can sell it to a person, you can sell it to the government because the government is a body of people that buys everything.

Acquisitions

Simpli ied

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Types Of Government Contracts

It’s a small business set aside policy that governs simpli ied acquisition. So anything above $10,000 but under $250,000 is a federal rule that governs acquisitions and regulations how government contracts are paid out.

Okay, so for simpli ied acquisitions, they’re saying that this money, this budget right here, is only set aside for small businesses. No big players can participate in this pool. And this is the reason why there are trillions of dollars that are out there because of this particular FAR regulation. In fact, my client, Gloria Miller Epps, landed her 1st $250,000 contract simply because of this particular FAR. I mentioned her earlier in the book. But this is the game-changer. This is the information that I share inside one of my programs. And I share this

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Most of the opportunities have already come and passed or expired because people are now leveraging what’s called simpli ied acquisitions. I’m going to share some information. Now, this information that I’m giving you is the game-changer. Normally, this is the money move right here to understand the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 13.3.

When it comes to the federal level, anything that falls within that threshold shall be set aside for small business concerns, which means that a small business concern is a woman minority small business…etc. Those certi ications that I talked about in an earlier chapter. If you fall within the small business threshold, you’re considered a small business “concern.”

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Another great thing about this FAR is with simpli ied acquisitions, it’s less competition. So normally, they actually can give this contract to you as long as they solicit about two to three other quotes. If they have a minimum

with my clients because if you can land $250,000 contracts and land four of those, now, you are a millionaire. Four is a very more than doable number. Right?

Because right now, at this time, at some point, I was managing about six, seven contracts simultaneously. So just think about four at the size of $250,000; you are a millionaire. And you can do that this year. Providing services. And again, we’re not talking about providing full-time, 40 hours workweek service. We’re talking about something very part-time. Maybe about ten or 12 hours a month. Doing a particular service gives you the capacity to land at least four to ten of them before you’re in a position where you need to hire a bigger team to expand your capacity—hypothetically speaking. It’s all possible. And so this is the reason why it’s important that you understand the FARS and that you know how to do this because it’s the simple way to fasttrack your way to millions. Instead of only trying to go after those million dollars or multi-million dollar contracts where you have to compete with bigger businesses, which you can do too, you can strategically just go after the things that are set aside speci ically for small businesses and go after those that are $250,000 and below.

I always talk about micro-purchases and purchase orders, and I shared stories about purchase orders earlier in this book. So here’s one of my clients. Her name is Tiffany. She has a video production company and was selling her services for very low. If you are a video producer, then you know about producing and editing and all the work and hours that go into even producing a 1 minute or ive-minute project—a lot of time. And if you’re not selling your services at a hefty rate, then you’re really not making money. You’re out there with a hobby. That’s where she was in her business. And so, I helped her get started with government contracts. And she landed her irst contract with the government agency passively.

Micro Purchases

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Types Of Government Contracts

of two to three quotes, they can go with the lowest bidder or the best technically quali ied package that they receive a response on. So this is a great way to get started, and it’s a good plan of action to win contracts faster.

The DPH agency picked up the phone and called and asked her for a quote. She gave him a quote, and just like that, boom, she got her irst contract that way. And that was a micro-purchase, because anything $10,000 or less, each agency has a purchase card (p card) where they can swipe and purchase whatever they want as much as they want, $10,000 at a time. Those opportunities

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are not bidded. They can look through the database, see who’s registered under that scope as a small business or minority or local, whatever business concern they want to utilize.Andthen they can just reach out and ask you, hey, can you give me a quote for that? So do you know that you can get rich $10,000 at a time? So ten of those is a sixigure business. Right? And so, she landed her irst contract because of the micro-purchase rules that govern that. Anything under the $10,000 mark you can bill through a micro-purchase contract. In fact, if you are proactive about reaching out to agencies, you can pick up the phone and say, hey, are you guys looking to make any micro-purchases over the next three to six months? Here’s a scope of work or product that I offer. Make sure that you reach out to me, or I’m going to stay in touch just to see what your needs are. You can do that. And once you understand rules that govern the amounts of contracts, the dollars amount, how the dollars are played, and then you can literally play by the rules and make it work to your advantage. And so that’s super awesome. I’m super excited about sharing this knowledge with you and sharing it with you so that you can take action to begin to get results in your business. And guess what? Yep! I’m going to add a link to those rules to my list of free resources you’re going to get when you go to bonus.dontduckthegovernmentbook.com.

Types Of Government Contracts

Congratulations on taking your time to get through this amazing, powerful book that I put together speci ically to give you an impact. And hopefully, you are empowered to take a look at government contracts and igure out if this is going to be something that you want to do to take your business to the next level.

In fact, levels deep. Now, not everybody will take action after reading something so powerful. But the few of you who do understand this and get the concept that there is money being spent, whether or not you are participating in that spend and they’re spending it on the services and the products that you are selling… you will win. If you’re in business to make money, it only makes sense for you to land this giant client as one of your clients. And so, the next step is to get started with government contracting. Of course, this is something that my team can help you with. We give you the step-by-step blueprint and the strategy so that you can get started and get to your irst contract faster. And you have support every step of the way. We give you the exact blueprint that has helped me generate millions of dollars in government

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contracting as a minority woman business owner and helped me to help over 200 small businesses generate upwards of 3 million dollars and growing. So it’s not for everybody. But even here’s what I want you to look at. This is not going to be for everybody. There’s a bigger picture here. The bigger picture is your business. We’re in business not only just to make money, but we’re in business to change our lives. This right here is a game-changer, a life-changer, and a situation changer. This can allow you the opportunity to leverage your business in this matter, to change your life drastically. So when it comes to generating wealth as a small business owner, government contracting is something that can help you get there. But I want you to think about what you can do with the money. So for many of you who come from where I come from, maybe you come from an urban community or the inner city, or you come from a life of living paycheck to paycheck. This gives you the opportunity to be the change in your community. So if you’re looking for superman, just know that superman and superwoman is looking at you in the mirror and waiting for you to get your business off the ground so you can come back and save the people and save your community. This is so powerful because now that you’re winning or you’re on your way to start winning those multiple sixigure contracts or even for some of you million-dollar contracts, now you can be the solution to gentri ication

when it happens in your community. Now you can have the power to buy your block back. And you’re able to do that because you’re leveraging your business to generate wealth. And now, this is just the beginning because a business is only one of the many vehicles that you will learn. And these are some of the things that I share inside my program. But business is only one of the vehicles that you can leverage to generate wealth. Outside of that are business credit, real estate and building assets, life insurance, and other things. But start with the one and get good at that. And then start adding those other components.

Conclusion111

Because what you will ind is that as you’re building out your business and starting to get some traction and begin to build yourself into a whole new bracket, then you’re going to have to ind ways to protect your assets, to grow your assets, to make your money, and so much more. But this is just the beginning. Just know that I created this book because I want to see you win. I want to see more people from the inner city, the urban community, who have a business or are inspired to start their own business to know that you can win. You don’t have to struggle in business. You don’t have to chase individual customers. You don’t have to spend a single penny on marketing or advertising, and you don’t have to wait 2-5 years to turn a pro it. All you have to do is go where the money is already being spent and get yourself in the way.

Conclusion112

But he wanted to toot so big, just like the trains he had seen. And so that’s the same as a big business showing their success. And there’s a small business owner looking and desiring and desperately aspiring to have that same type of success.

But that little train believed that one day he would be able to drive down that same street with those same big

If there’s a problem that needs to be solved and you know that you have a solution to that problem that can make you money. Okay. And so with government contracting, there are a lot of huge problems and the agencies are looking for solutionaries. That’s a word I madeThat’sup.

one of the words that I like to say. In conclusion, I just want you to remember this story that I love to share. And I typically share this story whenever I’m doing a live event or something like that. I want you to remember back to childhood about the little engine that could. Most of you remember Thomas The Train. Most of you remember the story about the little engine that could. So this is my own version of the little Train That Could. So there was a little train who saw big trains, right? Small business, big business, all those things. So just imagine yourself being this little train who saw bigger trains, who had a toot that was amazing and very powerful. And so these big trains would go by, pass by this little train every single day, tooting their horns, and a little train barely had a toot.

Conclusion113businesses and tootooed its horn just as loud, and so the little train began to speak life into his situation, and that’s exactly what I want you to do. Speak life into your situation.

And that little train begins to say I think I can, I think I can, I think I can you guys remember that I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, but the evolution of a business owner who is supposed to be on this journey to success you’re going to go from I think I can to I know I can and begin to know that whatever it is that you aspire to do that you can do it if you’ve put the action steps to place. That little train began to say, I think I can, I think I can. You guys remember that. And then eventually he began to believe because he thought, just like the book Napoleon Hill, you want to think and grow rich. It all starts with a thought. So what, whatever you think about that is what youSobecome.hewent from I think I can to I know I can because now he’s empowered with his thoughts. He was not telling himself, I don’t think I can do this. He said I think I can do this until he was empowered to say, I know I can. He was encouraged by himself. Sometimes you have to speak life into your own situation, because if you pay attention to everything that’s going around you, maybe you may be discouraged, maybe someone is telling you, I don’t know why you’re reaching so high, because this is not going to be for you. You’re never going to be anything, or it’s not going to work for you. But if you speak your words, speak louder than the words of other people

Conclusion114because guess what? You can speak to yourself even without opening your mouth. It’s all in your mind. And that’s one of the most powerful things that you can have. So that little train went from, I think I can to I know I can until I will. Now he gave himself permission. You don’t need me to give you permission. You don’t need anyone to give you permission. You have to give yourself permission and say that I will do this. He went on to say, I will do this too. I did it. And then from that point, after you’ve done something and you’ve done it successfully, and you can look back and see the steps that it took, taking you to get to where you are, no matter how many tears you had to cry, no matter how much that it hurt it or no matter what it is, the hurdles that you had to overcome, the struggles you had to go to, it was all for the purpose of getting you to where you are. And then now is your chance to look back and say, I’m going to teach someone to show them exactly how to overcome the hurdles and the strategies, what to look for along the way along this journey. How I got to where I am, because success leaves clues, and that is exactly where I am today.

I was that little train that said, I think I can, that I thought I could rise above my situation and my circumstances that I thought I could rise above. Growing up in the inner city and strongly not wanting to be a statistic, I thought my way to thinking that of course, I’m

Okay, so with that said, thank you so much for your readership. I appreciate you. I applaud you for taking the time to get through these chapters. Not everyone reads the book, and not everyone is going to take action, but the few of you who will take action, I’m going to see you at the top. I can’t wait to hear your testimonial of how this book empowered and encouraged you to get started with government contracting. Don’t duck the government. Don’t hide from the government because guess what, they got your money, and I’m going to show you how to get it. And so, if you’re asking yourself, what’s next? And for those of you who are ready to take this information and take and implement it into your business so that you’re able to fully optimize and maximize this opportunity and want to know what’s next. What’s next is to book a free strategy call with my team by going to the free resource page at bonus.dontduckthegovernmentbook.com so that we can help you get started with pitching and winning government contracts.

going to do it, I think I can. I knew I could, and I began to encourage myself that I would do it, and then I did do it.

Now I’m telling you and so after you’ve gone through this journey of success inding out the step by step strategies from me and this is going to be the next step so we can actually help you. I can help you personally do this step by step to be successful in the fastest time possible.

It’s going to be your turn to turn around and help someone else to go through that success journey, just like Thomas the train.

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117 Business Listings

Karwanna

D. is an award-winning small business expert, the founder of She’s Got Goals, LLC, author and the Trillion-Dollar Government Contracts Accelerator™ As a 20+ year business vet who has successfully built two small businesses of her own, she teaches women and minority small business owners how to grow their business with government contracts so they can have consistent, sustainable income and get paid top dollars by the #1 largest purchaser of services in theOverU.S.the past couple of years, this Government Contracts Strategist has helped over 200 business owners generate upwards of 3 million dollars in governmentKarwanna’scontracts..beenfeatured on CBS, NBC, FOX, Star Tribune Business, Best Business Digest, The List TV, Ticker News and more and has shared the stage with major leaders including Les Brown, Trent Shelton, Dr. George Frazier, Stacia Pierce, and others.

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Author Biography

Author120BiographyFollow Karwanna on Social Media @KarwannaDSpeaks on IG & FB and Watch free trainings at Youtube.com/ Karwannad

Don't Duck The Government, They've Got Your Money

Articles inside

Author Biography

Chapter 3 Determine your business’s niche

Conclusion

Chapter 6 Pursue the list of opportunities

Chapter 5 Get a coach

Chapter 2 Mind Yo Money

Chapter 4 Register with Agencies (Positioning

Chapter 1 Why do government contracts?