314 Richard Howard

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth. 

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Retired Lieutenant Colonel Richard Howard is a leading authority on U. S. federal government contracts. As a career military acquisitions officer, he oversaw over 82 billion dollars in DOD contracts and has advised and trained over 400 companies as a consultant. Richard is the CEO of DOD Contract, which guides, trains, and mentors small business owners and sales executives through the [00:02:00] government sales process.

Richard is also the host of the DoD Contract Academy Podcast and speaks extensively on the nuance of federal contracting strategy.

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. And I have a rhetorical question for you. Would you love to grow your business? And of course you said, yes, Jeffrey, I want to grow my business. How do I do that? Two words, and you're not going to see this one coming, the two words are government contracting. And you're saying, what?

Government contracting? Where do I begin? What do I do? Tell me more about that. And that's exactly what today's episode is all about. You heard it in the official introduction. We have a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the house and very excited about that. So Ricky, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us.

And there's always a story behind the story. So Ricky, what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Richard Howard: Thanks. At first, thanks for having me on the podcast and having me on for a discussion today. Really looking forward to it. Yeah. So my story is relatively simple. You know, I grew up in Massachusetts and I joined [00:03:00] the Air Force after college. I went through officer training school and spent 20 years in the Air Force.

And although the first half of my career was flying reconnaissance aircraft and whatnot, and we had a lot of deploying and whatnot and that. And part of my career, eventually I switched into acquisitions uh, within the Air Force, and acquisitions is the profession of putting companies on contract for the government.

I was flying a seat at this point, but, now I was working with small businesses, large companies, kind of learning the ins and outs of how the government process works. And through that, there were a few things that stuck out. One was, we wanted the best technologies, the best services to, satisfy government requirements.

And usually, that was smaller businesses, small businesses, startups. But a lot of them were unaware that the government even bought the products, the solutions they were selling. A lot of people think weapon systems, right? Aircraft and stuff. They don't think Accounting, or email marketing, or landscaping, [00:04:00] or civil engineering, or even some of the software tech development stuff, cybersecurity, things like that.

And those that did know about the process just, or knew that the government bought what they sold, were very unfamiliar with the process cause it can be frustrating.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure.

Richard Howard: It's something that's been regulated for hundreds of years, and so it's not even close to the process for, that you or I might go out and sell B2B or B2C.

When I retired, I started a consulting practice, helping businesses, small businesses mainly sell to the government. And eventually, just in an effort to kind of democratize what I was doing and getting it out to more companies, and that's, really what I'm doing on here, is I want business owners, entrepreneurs to understand that the government In all likelihood is buying what they're selling and have a way to have access to this, the process, because that's probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks.

So we have our podcast, DoD Contract Academy. We have our website website, dodcontract. com, which is for, training and coaching. We have some higher end services as well, but [00:05:00] that's what we've been doing for the past few years. And that's really the story, just helping businesses sell to the government, bring in additional revenue through government contracting.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. What a terrific background and Ricky, before we get going, I want to take a moment just to thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for doing what you did so we can do what we do. And, sometimes we just overlook that. So I really, a heartfelt thank you for going into the services, making a difference.

And it sounds like you're really out there doing some things and it made all the difference. So a huge thank you for that. Having been on both sides of the table now, so you're in the services, dealt with those things directly, and now you're where our community is. You're a business owner. You're helping other business owners.

I love that. I mean, isn't that, after all, what entrepreneurialism is all about? We find a painful problem, go out there, we solve it, we help people solve that problem, improve their lives, improve the community around them. So let me ask you this, because I can imagine there's some listeners in the community saying, hey, Ricky, that sounds really fascinating.

And yeah, I would love to welcome some government contracts. It's [00:06:00] always a but I'm too busy. It sounds complicated. And the list of excuses just go on and on. Ricky, maybe we can start to dispel some of the common myths that are out there, what people believe. But as we love to say at Deep Wealth, we've got to stop believing and we absolutely must start knowing.

So what are some myths that we can dispel right away?

Richard Howard: Yeah, so there's a few, right? One is that some people have the idea that government contracting is rigged in some way or that you have to have, relationships in place. This is something that's just, hey, general officers are hand dating contracts. These are the things you hear about in the news when someone does something wrong, right?

Others have maybe tried and just failed over and over again and just, couldn't quite figure it out. So I think the first thing to say is that government contracting. Isn't rigged, okay? It's just a different process and it's, it doesn't have to be overwhelming. Although if you look at, thousands of pages of federal acquisitions regulations, you might have the opinion that, hey, this is just overwhelming and I don't have [00:07:00] time.

Really, you just need to understand how the government buys what you sell. And that is a very focused path. So let's just talk about what the facts are. The facts are that the U. S. government is the single biggest purchaser of goods and services in the world.

Number two, the government is required to buy from small businesses, and that's roughly 23 percent of their contracting goes to small business.

That's set by the SBA, those standards.

The third thing is less than half of 1 percent of small businesses. are trying to sell to the U. S. government, that's really a startling figure. So, If you take the fact that 23 percent of the spending goes to small businesses, less than half of 1 percent of small businesses are trying to sell to the government, and three, the average small business, now this is the 2021 numbers, average small business was making 2.

34 million a year in revenue from government contracting. And that's an average, right? Companies were doing 30 million, 40 million that year. I'm talking small business only. Some were doing, maybe a 100, 000 sale or 50, [00:08:00] 000. But, the point being that there is a lot of money to be made there and they're, relatively speaking, the competition's very low and not many people are aware of that there is an opportunity or the process for it.

So I'd say that's the first piece.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. And just before you go forward, so half of 1 percent of small businesses are throwing their hat in the ring and saying, Hey, I'm here. Let's talk about this. So that to me, there's always two sides to a coin. I mean, on the one hand, that's not such great news, but as I read that, Hey, business owners out there, this is a wonderful opportunity.

It sounds like you don't have a lot of competition when you're going in there to do it. Now, speaking of the contracts, Ricky. And I know every contract is going to be different. You're going to say, Jeffrey well, it all depends on the area and the scope and what's going on with what the government wants.

But ballpark, is there a range of, general amounts of the contracts that we're looking at when we're bidding for those?

Richard Howard: Yeah, I mean, so, unfortunately, my answer is exactly as you predicted, but, you know, if we took an industry, let's say let's take software right, because it's you [00:09:00] know, software can apply to a lot of different things and it's something, by the way, I've also directly sold to the government, so I'm not just advising, I've sold millions of dollars in software, for instance, and that's why I'm using it as an example you might sell a software license for, 10, 15, 20, 000 to the government, right?

But you also, that exact same software tool that you're selling could be a 10 million contract over a couple of years to the federal government, to a different agency. So it can vary wildly. A lot of times, and probably just like with commercial sales, you might sell a small, it doesn't matter whether it's software, it could be accounting services or legal services, you might start off with a smaller contract.

So I would say something under a million dollars. And, for the government, that's a small contract. The government may really love what you're doing and the product or service that you're selling. And that has a habit of expanding into bigger and bigger contracts, provided you're holding up your And you're doing the right thing as far as your sales process, which is really just make sure [00:10:00] your customer is happy with the product or service that you're offering.

Make sure you're following up with them and ask them, do they need more of it? And simple things. Some people forget to do that in the execution phase, but yeah, so it can start small and get really big, I would say is probably a standard thing that happens.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And again, I'm going to ask a question. You can say well, Jeffrey, it's going to vary. It really depends. When we started working with one branch of the government and let's take the position that we're doing what we're supposed to do, not only are we doing it, we're really excelling at it. They love it. We have raving fans.

How easy is it to now get to other branches of the government? Once we're in, I would imagine we've. Really pass through some questions and some screening and all those other kinds of things. And now we're in the door and we're with one branch. Is it easy? Does it happen automatically or how do we work that?

That, Hey, I'm over here, but I would love to get to other branches to do the same thing.

Richard Howard: sure. So I try not to use the word easy for any sales operation, right? Whether it's B2B or government sales, but once you have past performance with the federal government, so [00:11:00] let's say I'm selling to the Air Force and I've been doing that consecutively, maybe just maybe for a year, right? I had my first contract wins.

Now, when I go after other opportunities, I'm not starting from scratch. I'm going in the door saying, look, I'm doing this successfully right now and I have federal past performance. And that is important. And there's certainly strategies if you don't have that to how you're going to win your first contracts, which we help people with.

But that's probably the biggest help. you've been on contract, you have existing contracts, you have past performance. You also, again, now there's going to be the things that are a little bit more subtle. Which now you have a little bit of an understanding of how selling to the government works. You are familiar with, hey, is something going to be competed? Is it not going to be competed? What types of contracts are they using? And you're developing contacts and, all of that can really help you in the process.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And not to make any assumptions here, when I'm working with the government, let's assume that I'm headquartered in the U S somewhere. Is it strictly U S based companies that they're looking to work with or am I competing really [00:12:00] internationally? It could be a non U S based companies or a preference.

Richard Howard: So there's always preference. We could talk probably for this entire podcast about preference, right? So first, you don't have to be a U. S. based company to sell to the government.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Richard Howard: Most are. And there are certainly some contracts that are going to be where it's, they're adamantly going to be for only, not only U.

S. companies, but everyone working on the solution will also have to be a U. S. citizen. And that's typically if we're talking about anything that's going to connect to a network especially if there's classification, if it's going to be in our classified system, those type of things, usually you have to be a U.

S. citizen to be involved. They don't want any, anyone talking, and they'll make sure of it, right? So you need to be honest with them. What you're doing, but, the government also buys from foreign companies. And in fact, I, one of my tours was in the Middle East as a foreign military sales officer.

And so we would put other businesses on contract all the time for things like translation services and, laundry. And so the government spends a lot of money on both U. S., mainly U. S., but also [00:13:00] companies that are outside of the United States.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Got it. And so let me ask you this, because there's always a few ways of going about to do something when it's something is new. Just like as an example, let me give a very simple one. I decide to work out. Well, I can go to the gym. I can read the books. I can do a little bit of trial and error, try the different exercises, maybe tear some muscles along the way or take longer, maybe get it right.

Maybe I don't. That's one path. The other path is, Hey, I want to get fit. Let me hire some kind of a trainer who specializes in this area, perhaps for someone who is in my area, my age, my particular physical shape, and with that trainer, I'm going to save a lot of time and effort and just get it done right.

And have that peace of mind and the assurance that, okay, I'm doing what I should be doing as I need to be doing it. I would suspect, and you can tell me, Jeffrey, you're way off base on this, or yeah, you're spot on. I would suspect that as a business owner, I could go out there and begin to learn how to do this on my own, where to find the different bids, how to respond, what that looks like, a little bit of trial and error, maybe a lot of trial and error, [00:14:00] or Ricky, someone like yourself could really streamline that process.

So what would you say to that?

Richard Howard: Yeah, I think it's a good analogy. I'd also probably add something to it. So just taking the going to the gym analogy, right? You can work out in your basement by yourself, right? Or you could get a trainer and go to the gym, right? And you're going to do, what you're getting there is you are getting somebody to show you how it's done, properly so you can see results and not hurt yourself.

You're also surrounded by everybody else in the gym, right? So now you're creating friendships and you're being motivated by those other. Right. So that kinda speaks to our DOD Contract Academy, which is essentially an initial entry for our company. At dod contract.com, our members that sign up, they get on demand training, but they also get some of the tools that we've put together.

But they also get a one on one and group coaching through the process. But that helps. So they get to commiserate with everybody else that's either starting out selling to the government, or maybe they're already doing it and how they're optimizing. So they get access to all of that. [00:15:00] And of course, it's really going to help you along the way what I've seen is, and the reason, one of the reasons I put that together, companies that try to sell to the government on their own, I would say most of them end up.

Quitting, before they ever see the contract. Ones that succeed usually were at it for a few years

Jeffrey Feldberg: Game?

Richard Howard: they figured out what the actual process looked like because, don't think of the government and most people probably aren't, but some think of the government as a cohesive system where everybody's talking to each other and they really have their ducks in a row.

Better way to think of it. would be 10 million offices that don't talk to each other that can buy things, right? So if you're looking for a process on how you're going to sell in that area, there are several websites. None of them really tell you the key things that you need to know.

 so that's what we try to start off companies with. If you have an understanding of where you should actually begin, that's going to generate, and how long it takes, and some of the steps you need to take, that's going to generate a lot better result for you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so when I'm going through this, [00:16:00] I love what you're saying. So really you've set up your own community. Obviously you have the podcast, you have your own Academy. And in that Academy, you're teaching me the ins and outs of, Hey, Jeffrey, do this, but don't do that. Or here's where to look. Here's where not to look.

So that process, can you walk us through that, Ricky? How long does that typically take and what's involved with that? What would I expect?

Richard Howard: Sure. I mean, well, I guess there's two processes. There's, what you're going to learn at the academy, which a lot of that is just how much time do you have to work with us and to go through the training. But then there's how long does it take to win a contract with the government? And, what I tell people is be prepared to engage for 12 to 18 months before you see a contract.

It's not a short process. This is probably one of the challenges. Can it be done faster? Yeah. Have we seen people on in four months go on contract? Absolutely. But it's not the norm. And a lot of it has to do with what you're selling and how much time you're going to put into it. of the process that would be a good takeaway for somebody to listen to and just to illustrate is If you go to like sam.

gov, for instance, is the place that you would [00:17:00] register your business to sell to the federal government. And when you go there, you'll also see that it's also kind of the repository of where you'll see solicitations. So let's say you're selling, you're an accountant and you have, bookkeeping services that you want to provide.

And you might see a solicitation for bookkeeping services. And is, this is probably the best example of why companies fail. You see a solicitation and it wants you to write a proposal. It's perfect for you. You write the proposal. No small feat. It takes time to do that properly. You submit it and you don't win.

And maybe you do it four or five times. And what you're seeing now that you keep reading these and writing proposals is that you're starting to see maybe some of the same companies winning those. And... It also, now that you've researched those companies, it looks like it was written for those companies.

So it's rigged, or they know somebody that I don't, I can't win, right? Here's one of the key differences, and this is story that I'd want to use to utilize that, is the contracting officer, and this is a big difference between government contracting and commercial sales. When [00:18:00] a solicitation comes out, let's use bookkeeping still, as an acquisitions guy, my handcuffs are on at this point. So the solicitation's out. It means that all the requirements are set, all the parameters for scoring and everything else are going to be in place, the funding. I can't have a conversation with you, the business owner at this point, because that's preferential treatment and that would be grounds for protest.

So even if you ask a question, I'm probably not going to answer it. And if I do, it's going to be through like a public statement on sam. gov. So everyone has access, but you as a business owner, What drives these sales is relationship, influence, and knowing as much about the opportunity as possible. Before that solicitation comes out, and this is where it's hard to even find this, is a key phase of acquisitions is called the market research phase.

So before that solicitation comes out, someone like myself is going to be given a requirement, right? So an acquisitions office, and let's say I'm running the office, they say, Hey, look, Rick, we have a requirement. We need three year contract for bookkeeping [00:19:00] services. And maybe technology that's associated with that.

We want to modernize it, but go out there. This is your budget. This is what we need to do. My expertise is putting companies on contract and those flying planes before that, none of it is bookkeeping, right? And I probably have 50 other contracts that are on different things that I got to figure out.

So I need to be able to reach out as a government to this actual subject matter expert, you, the bookkeeping company, and figure out, Hey, what are you guys using, what tech do you have? And by the way. Are you a woman owned small business? Are you a service disabled veteran owned small business or 8A?

That's going to give me an idea of can I set this aside? Because this happens. We can set contracts aside for different types of businesses. But I also have to write the solicitation. And that's what everything is going to be scored on when we award the contract. So if you're the one telling me what goes in that contract, you're going to be much more likely to win because you helped influence it.

You know the acquisitions team, so I now know you as a company, so you have a relationship there, and then you also have the ability to [00:20:00] ask questions like, hey, who's going to be using this? What are the bookkeeping services for, right? Everything's not going to be in the solicitation, because it's also painful for the government to write that.

If you've learned, for instance, that, although it's not in the solicitation when it comes out, but because you met with me six months earlier, that these bookkeeping services are for civil engineering projects and construction projects, and maybe there's some parameters there that we want to make sure we can measure.

How much further ahead are you going to be when you write your proposal than the company that sees that for the first time, they write a generic bookkeeping proposal, but yours is speaking to civil engineering and construction projects and maybe a few other things. So long winded, but that's really what we're aiming at.

And we're really teaching our students how to find those opportunities early, influence them. And then win.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So Ricky, what you're sharing, I mean, wow, talk about a different lens so really a way to look at things. And what I'm hearing you say is sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes when a request for proposal or a bid comes out, it may already be [00:21:00] in some ways, perhaps too late as a new entrant coming in there because I don't have all the information.

Sure I can throw my hat in the ring and never say never something could happen. But by beginning that process, going through your system, knowing who to speak to, when the timing's everything, when to speak to them. Between now and the next time that bid comes out, I have an opportunity to play a role in that process.

To have my voice heard, to perhaps craft that future bid more to my ability as a company to get the business. How am I doing so far with that?

Richard Howard: Yeah, and not only that, because you've identified it early enough, you may have something that's really unique technology, a system, training, whatever it is, and the government has the ability to sole source contract to you. Now, that doesn't happen all the time, but that is certainly a potential result, and you will, the longer you're in this, you'll see how you can win contracts without competing, and that's legal, everything.

That I'm talking about is in the federal acquisitions regulations, but just understanding the office you're selling to and what, how they want to go about it.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Got it. [00:22:00] Okay. And so Ricky, again, you're going to say more than like, well, Jeffrey depends on the contract and there's a broad range here, but generally speaking, what's the length of period of time for a contract? So I want a contract today. Paperwork is signed. Boom. Off we go. When is that coming back out for bid?

Richard Howard: Yeah. So if you have, and you can see this too, this is another great thing about selling to the government is it's all public information. So for instance, you could go to usaspending. gov. And it's kind of the clearinghouse for all the government contracting actions. And you can see what the lengths and the terms are for contracts.

You could look at a competitor and see all the contracts they have, who they're selling to, reverse engineer what they're doing. And that's a lot, a big part of what we're doing, but I might have a service contract for three years, right? With the government doing anything landscaping with option years on the backside of it.

So an example is I could win a three year contract and then have the ability to Continue for an additional two years.

I might have a one year contract with the same thing. I might have the option years to [00:23:00] just add on to is provided the government likes what I'm doing to keep going for a couple of years.

Now, of course, the government also buys commodities. So trucks, you know what I mean? 10 guitars, it's a one time deal. You deliver the product. But you certainly now have the ability to keep selling to the government, even if it's a product versus a solution.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So really what I'm hearing, it could be as short as one year. It could be as long as five years, maybe more than that. But generally speaking, it sounds like somewhere between one to five years. I'd even narrow that down to say probably more like three to five years, generally speaking. There's always exceptions, but generally speaking, three to five years.

Richard Howard: Yeah, I haven't crunched the numbers on all of it to get the exact number there, but, is common to have a multi year contract, and it's also, if you have a small business, it's, it, that's one of those things that can really increase the valuation of your company if you want to go sell to sell your company.

And we do get a lot of students that are interested in just that. I'm selling my company in five years. I want to build my contracts. I know that's going to increase the value. Let's go.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And for our listeners, just to really put the proverbial carrot out there for [00:24:00] you, Ricky, when I was going through your website, doing a little bit of the background research, I may be a little bit off, but my numbers are not far off. I want to say you had testimonials from business owners who had somewhere between 10 million to close to 15 million.

In a government contract. So we're not talking small quantums here. Those are huge numbers that are really available for us as a business owner to throw our hat in the ring. It's not going to be tomorrow, but I'm hearing you say, Hey, have some patience, learn the ropes, put your time in, and if you're doing things right, you have a better than good chance of really making that difference.

And getting into the government contract business.

Richard Howard: Yeah. And, you know, uh, actually I need to update my website. one of those testimonials that you saw was from a woman owned small business cybersecurity business. When we started working together, she had a small team and she recently won a 200 million blanket purchase agreement.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Oh my

Richard Howard: So I didn't even add that there, so now she's building a large team and, Has more options. And, there's a lot of different ways to sell to the government, prime, subcontracting, you can use your set asides, sole [00:25:00] source, competing, but regardless of what you're selling, there are a lot of different ways that may be interesting to you that you could take advantage of.

And that's a good example of what happens when you do it for a while and you are persistent.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So Ricky, let me give you a scenario and there's always two sides to a coin, but let me set up the scenario for you. In our 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery, this is where business owners come in and they learn exactly how they can prepare to number one, increase their profits. While they're doing that, they're preparing for a future liquidity event.

It could be two years away. It could be 20 years away. And then what they're also doing is preparing for a post exit. That's really happy and joy and fulfilling and all those other wonderful things easier said than done. We show them how to do that. So what you're talking about here, government contracts, the ability to win government contracts year over year, to us, that would be very squarely in step two X Factors.

An X Factor is an area that you are world class in, you're different than your competitors, you're very unique in doing that. And as a potential buyer or an investor, the more X Factors [00:26:00] you have, the more I get excited. The more X Factors you have that are world class, the more I'm willing to pay. So the enterprise value goes up.

So on the one hand, when you get a government contract, I imagine you can take this to the marketplace and say, Hey, look at this, we are good enough for the government. They hired us and we got this contract. It's really like a seal of approval out there. And that does a lot for goodwill and boasting for the profits and the future value and all those other kinds of things.

But the flip side of that, if I were a buyer or an investor, I'd say, Hey, Jeffrey, that's great. You've got this contract, but you know, how do I know you're going to win it again? Because it's an open process and it's a fair process. Just because you won it this year, perhaps you're not going to get that next year.

So what would you say in that kind of scenario?

Richard Howard: Yeah, that's a fair question. And when you're looking at a company and cause, and this is what's great. I mean, if I was going to put myself in the position of I'm buying a company, right. and part of their revenue was government contracting which as you mentioned is great because now if you have a commercial source of revenue and a government source of [00:27:00] revenue, they can offset each other if one falls and the other.

doesn't, right?

But I can see what their government contracting history is. So very easily and very quickly. So we can go in and we can see, okay maybe the first company in that scenario, they've only won a government contract. So we don't know if that's going to repeat itself versus company B. They have Maybe five years, 10 years of government contracting history.

And they have 35 different contracts and they're in seven different agencies and we can see they're recurring. Just like in commercial sales, if you have redundancy and you have multiple endeavors, one can fall off and the others will continue to keep going.

And with the government, that tends to be the case, as long as you're doing good work. And you have a great solution. Maybe you're updating it. If it's a technical solution, you tend to see those keep coming in. And I guess one other point to that, just the power of a government contract and the trust that institutions have in it.

You know, If you think, and I talked to a lot of businesses, probably not as many as you, but I talked to a lot of businesses where, [00:28:00] they have, potentially they have orders from big companies for a commercial product, but they need to figure out how to get the revenue together to actually, Put everything together for that order before they even get paid because they get an invoice.

With the government, for instance, you win a government contract. And let's say it's a big one and you have a, maybe it's a staffing project and you have a hundred people you're putting on into government building to do a particular service.

You're going to have the same problem, right?

You're going to have to pay those people and invoice the government, right? It can take 30 to 60 days or so for the government to reimburse you. There are financial institutions and banks. That are set up just for that process. And if you talk to any of them, they're going to tell you the government contract is all they need in order to give you the money and make that deal with you.

So they look at, and we've interviewed them on a podcast as well, a few of them, the government institutions, the banks and whatnot, look at that government contract as one of the most secure sources of funding coming in because the government's not just going to cancel a contract on you. And if they do, they're [00:29:00] required to reimburse you for every single thing that you've done, all of the effort you put into it.

So, And all that happens in rare occasions. It does happen now and then, but you'll also, you know, you're going to get paid. So eventually.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, so it's really like a promissory note in some ways, when you get awarded a contract, you have some insurance, I guarantee, if I can call it that, for whatever reason, if the government backs out or they cancel it, you're going to have your cost reimbursed. And if you're saying well, listen, I really run a tight ship here, and this is a huge order for us to be able to fulfill.

So because it's the government, what I'm hearing you say is there are already different institutions or organizations set up very specifically for this that will help me through that process financial wise so that when I get paid, I can pay them back and everyone wins. Am I on base without off base?

Richard Howard: Absolutely. Absolutely. So you don't have to go through the process of trying to convince a, financial institution to invest in you. That, whoever your supplier, whoever you're sold to is going to actually pay you you just show them the government contract.

And, for a lot of them that's what they're going to need.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. So what a way that [00:30:00] the government has really, it sounds like gone out of the way, but once you understand the rules, like anything else, there's always rules. When we first got into business, we didn't know things we had to learn and you figure it out. It takes time. But once you learn things, it sounds like the government is really going out of their way to work with us.

And to create a win, let me ask you this. And again, you could very easily say Jeffrey, it all depends. Tough to say. I could be somewhat cynical and say, Ricky, I'm hearing you talk about this. And it sounds like if I'm doing my diligence and I see in this one area, that's my area of business. I have a competitor and they've won the past five, six, seven years or the past five, six, seven contracts they've won.

They have a terrific record of success. It seems like it's going to be hard for me just to knock them out and for me to become the winner. What would you say to that? How do I deal with that? Because I'm sure you must bump into this with your clients. So what's

Richard Howard: Sure. You know, I think you're actually pretty accurate there. That's something I'm going to ask myself as well. So we call it the go no go process in the federal side. It may, I'm sure it exists in one name or another on the commercial side. Let's [00:31:00] say I find a contract opportunity early, right?

So I know that let's say your, Bookkeeping company is coming up for renewal on a contract. I know it's going to be competed at the end of 24, FY 24, and you've won it the past three times. So what does my P win look like on something like that? Am I going to I know there's an incumbent.

It's public knowledge. I need to figure out, and there are ways to do this, is the government agency happy with your service so far? Probably are, if they've awarded you the same contract over and over again. I think the way to think about this is not in a cynical way like, well, this company's been there three times now, so I can't win it.

You may say, and I probably would advise you to score that opportunity lower, but the point I guess I'm trying to make is, just because that bookkeeping opportunity May not be the one to go after, because there's an incumbent on there. There's going to be 75 others, that have no incumbent, or have an incumbent that the government's not happy with, or their brand new [00:32:00] opportunity.

So when I said the government's millions of offices that don't talk to each other, It's not like one office is going to buy what you're selling. If you were a landscaping company, you would have basically every single military base is going to need a landscaping company to take care of their services.

So, I mean, you're talking about potentially hundreds of different people you'd be selling to. What I would say is, yeah, you may want to move on to another opportunity, but there's plenty of them out there.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Got it. And so Ricky, what I'm hearing you say, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Even if I decide to bid on what may be a low percentage opportunity or a low likelihood of getting that bid, there's likely other bids out there that by and large are going to be the same. Maybe it's 80, 90 percent the same.

I'm just changing 10%. And so if I do the heavy lifting once. Because this is what I do in my business. This is all I do. That future bids aren't going to be that much more time because I've already put the time investment right up front and I can make changes and modify for future bids, but I've already put that investment right here today and I'm set to go.

On base, off base, what would you say [00:33:00] to that?

Richard Howard: I think it's, some of it is on base. I mean, writing something like a proposal takes a lot of time, but once you do that a couple of times, you're going to have a good, and you're going to get better at it as you write a proposal which is a, An exacting science, right? you don't take big leaps, you know, the government's going to tell you what font and how many pages and, you're going to need a compliance matrix.

So there's a few things that go into proposal writing, but yeah, much easier to do the second, third, fourth time, because you're going to have all that to work with. There's also AI tools out there for government contracting that you can use to help develop a proposal.

And then there's also something called a source of sought, which is a great thing to respond to.

Cause that's a, that's during the market research phase of government contracting, it's a much less rigid structure and a lot easier to put together. So it might be a five page white paper. And that's really up to you to decide how you want to influence, but hopefully that answers your question.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Oh, absolutely. And, you know, as we're talking about this, I'm reminded of that Woody Allen quote, 80 percent of [00:34:00] success is showing up. So yes, there's an incumbent in there. Maybe they won the past three, four bids. Who knows? Maybe that business owner is retiring. Maybe they didn't do such a good job that it's going to be awarded to someone else.

So you never know. Sometimes just showing up, doing your best.

Richard Howard: and I didn't mean to cut you off, but there's also the government can change how they want to procure something, and that happens all the time. They could say what contractors hate to hear, which is, hey, we're moving to lowest price technically acceptable, so now it's all going to be based on price.

Or they may change to say, we want to use a different contract vehicle.

Or you may have influenced this and that was a large company, but you convinced that office to set it aside for a woman owned small business. And now that company can't even compete. So there's still a lot of different ways that you can get yourself in there.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And again, that proverbial carrot out there for all of our listeners. You heard it from Ricky straight from the horse's mouth, as they say, between 10 million up to 200 million. This is where his clients have scored in terms of some of the government contracts that working with Ricky and [00:35:00] going out there through the procurement process.

So Ricky, before we go into wrap up mode, are there any questions I haven't asked or any topics that we didn't cover, or is there anything you'd like to share with our audience that we haven't spoken about?

Richard Howard: A couple of questions that often come up. One is how does the government define a small business, right? And typically that's 500 or less employees or. A annual revenue mark, and that just depends on your industry. So you can look that up if you're in construction. That's one thing. If you're in software or IT, it's probably in 25 million range somewhere. that's the first thing. And the second I would say is people do ask about certifications and set asides a lot like, Hey, you know, do I need a woman owned small business certification in order to win contracts? Do I need an 8A or HUBZone certification? And the answer is no, you don't. And I can tell you in the audience, I have never, ever once.

In my career in the government, awarded a contract because someone had a certification.

Always based on, can you solve the problem that I need to solve? [00:36:00] Does your solution work there? Your certification could be the the carrot or the icing on the cake. It could be something that we use to eliminate competition, right?

But, don't focus on the certification. I'd say focus on the fact that you want to be the best at doing whatever it is that you do. Make sure you're solving the government's problem set. That's the best way to approach that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Some terrific advice and a lot to think about. And again, the big takeaway that I'm hearing, yes, this is available. Yes, you can do it on your own. There are some ways that you can accelerate your ability to go out there and win contracts, have some peace of mind, and having been on both sides of the table, being in the services, having awarded contracts, now being a business owner, working with business owners, Ricky, you've put together a system that can really.

Help get the results quicker. No guarantees, of course, but help get the results a whole lot quicker without some of the heartache and the pain that goes into that.

Richard Howard: Right.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so all you business owners out there, I mean, who doesn't want a new area of growth? And as you think down the road for your liquidity event, I mean, what an X Factor to [00:37:00] have, yes.

We are experts at government contracts. Look at what we've done. We've won the past seven, five, three, 10, however many bids that they've had. We've won this time over time, and this is where we're unique. And look what it's done to our bottom line. It's a great news story. That's where we want to be. Ricky, we could go down so many other rabbit holes.

That said, we're bumping up against some time. So let me go into wrap up mode. It's a really fun question. Let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time. So Ricky, the fun part now is tomorrow morning, you look outside your window.

Not only is the DeLorean car there, the door's open. It's waiting for you to hop on in what you do. And you're now going to go to any point in your life. Ricky, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time that would be. What would you tell your younger self in terms of life wisdom or life lessons or, hey, Ricky, do this, but don't do that?

What would that sound like?

Richard Howard: that's a great question. Definitely one I've never heard before and yeah, you know, I have a lot of wisdom I think I would give myself as a disruptive teenager, but [00:38:00] really I think going back and saying to myself. Why don't we start looking for what motivates you in life and what you're really passionate about and focusing on that instead of raising hell.

It's in the Boston area. That's probably what I would have told me, but yeah, that persistence and determination and the different opportunities that are out there and just, being passionate about something and if it's exciting and legal and it helps other people, maybe that's where you should focus your attention.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Some great advice. Find what motivates you, find out what you're passionate about. Go for it. Once you do that, I mean, after all, that's where our success comes from. Our joy, fulfillment. So some terrific advice. And Ricky, before we wrap things up, if someone has a question, they want to learn more, they even want to speak with you, where would be the best place online that they can find you?

Richard Howard: Yeah, so I think going to the podcast, so you can look up DoD Contract Academy, if you're looking to just learn more about it without having to make an investment easy, listen to other business owners talk about their success, listen to me talk about strategy until you fall asleep, if you have a specific question, I would say, go to my LinkedIn [00:39:00] profile.

If you just type in Richard C. Howard I'll come up and if you are interested in, learning and maybe an entry level way to start taking some courses and do some group coaching and whatnot, maybe use our CRM and pipeline tool, which we just rolled out, which is, I think really great.

You can go to dodcontract. com and check us out there.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And the great news for our listeners, it is so easy. It's a point and click. You don't have to remember the URLs or this or that. Just come to this episode, come to the show notes, point and click, boom, off you go. We'll take you all there. Ricky, this is official. It's a wrap. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while remaining healthy and safe.

Thank you so much.

Richard Howard: Thank you. And you as well. 

Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me. 

Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions. 

Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity 

Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever [00:40:00] taken. The money was very well spent.

Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix. 

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Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended. 

Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The [00:41:00] stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

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Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

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Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just [00:42:00] deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table? 

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