Building a U.S. DoD Sales Plan: Personas, Pitches and Growth Strategies

(00:00):
Okay, here’s what we’re gonna cover today. We’re gonna cover the personas, the players and layers at all four or five layers, pitches, what to do and say and ask to meet them. And growth strategies a little bit about. Well, great, we met you. Why are they gonna keep talking to you? And you’re going to get ideas you can use right away. I’m really excited to bring this to you. These, this is our proprietary players and layers methodology. So let’s do it. And we’re gonna finish off with steps for next time and resources. Alright, so data shows that most awards are based on one to three offers. So that is the marker of a relationship Sale buyers have to show they shopped, but they also then narrow the field as quickly as they can by using things like contract vehicles, a type of open jaw contract, or if you’ve done business with P-W-G-S-C, master standing offer, that kind of thing.

(00:58):
Micro purchases, there’s smaller purchases they can make. And we’re gonna be talking about that in the next webinar without big huge proposals. Simplified acquisitions. Similarly, another kind of easier way without massive proposals, contract modifications to make changes or contract that’s already in place so that, um, that they don’t have to run another big competition. They can do sole source through unique source or emergency designation, but they’re under a lot of pressure not to do that. And the justification is long and complicated, but relationship, relationship, relationship, there are not, there are not very many buyers in DOD who have more than 30 bucks for a bucket of bolts who don’t already know who they wanna work with. ’cause especially in DOD, honestly, lives are at stake, not just missions, but lives at some level when they choose you. So they have lots of motivation to stick with the buyers.

(01:55):
They already know unless they’ve got a problem they’ve never solved before. And they’re still gonna turn to people they know and like, and trust requirements are written with a winner in mind. And ways that you can tell that include the, there may be signs or like poker tells you find in the past performance requirements or desired requirements, how they define best value, the evaluation criteria. Gee, does that look like you or not look like you at all? And the technical requirements. Um, is their presentation showing? Uh, can you confirm? Can you see the presentation? Anu?

(02:34):
I can, I can see the presentation. Is everybody else able to see the presentation? Okay. Yes, thank you. So it might just be an individual. Alright, perfect. Thank you everybody.

(02:44):
Okay. And you want to compare the past contract award data as well with the, um, the kinds of requirements that are coming out. And you can get a sense of who they might be looking for or looking at. So do d business is a relationship game first and foremost. Well, great, but what does that really mean? You do business with people who have fears and needs and concerns that aren’t even showing up in the RFP. So sometimes when if you lose in, you’re fortunate enough to get a debriefing and they may, that may tell you you didn’t understand the requirement, that really means you didn’t get to know us. There’s stuff that’s unwritten that we also really care about, that we’re afraid of. And that’s some of those things that we also wanna see. So the, there are five people you need to know every place that you want to win work and you’re gonna build relationships with at least one and often more of them at each of four of these levels.

(03:44):
Right? Here we go first, the end user. So we’ll go through all of these in detail. Second industry or the current prime or incumbent primes, large and small. Third small business specialists. That’s a very interesting role for us. Canadian companies. If you don’t have us subsidiaries, the contracting officer and the stakeholder. So let’s dive in and get to know them all a little bit better. The end user, this is the person who stuck with the consequences of choosing you. That might be a project manager, it might be the director of engineering, it might be the tier one help desk person. It could be the warrior in the battle space. Okay? These folks cannot sign a contract. They do define the requirement and there’s a, a special super end user called a contracting officer’s representative. This person is bilingual, as in they speak end user, but they also speak the language of contracting.

(04:43):
This is the person who gets to write up the requirement in language that can be put through the acquisition process. And they do something. Sometimes people will use a phrase called we’re gonna throw it over the wall, the contracting. And this is the person who writes that thing and then turns it over to the contracting team. So that and the actual acquisition, the competition process can take place. Okay? This is a very rich layer of players and where you want to get to know as many people as you can long before a requirement hits the street. And those are the folks that may have authority for lower level purchases and that can find it easy to go and buy something small product or service from you without a big, huge proposal. Okay? So you wanna get to know as many of these folks as you can in the specific offices you’ve chosen.

(05:35):
Because remember we talked about focus in one of our earlier webinars. So getting to know these players at all the layers is only feasible when you focus narrowly and you plan to go in, get to know them and keep getting to know them. So the end user, their role is to serve the public, but they also serve internal clients, including the stakeholder as well as other departments and other other people and programs in their organization. They’re performing the everyday work in the account. They’re defining requirements. Their job is to deliver the mission on time, on budget and work with the vendors they get. And that isn’t always the ones that want, depending on how the competition got run, sometimes they’re collaborating with other agencies. They want it to make it easy. They’re looking for low risk. They say they’re looking for innovation, but they really want something that somebody else tried first.

(06:24):
They need to make sure that what they’re doing is compliant with rules. They’re interested in improving performance and mission delivery and they’ve only got so much money. So they definitely wanna do it at lower cost, but cost isn’t always the first consideration. They wanna follow the rules. They’re also concerned about what’s gonna happen with them at the end of their career. So if they have a failed project that’s a black mark on their file that can follow them around for the rest of their career and make it hard for them to get promoted, because you’re in the United States, your retire, your retirement benefits are based on the average of your best three years a salary. So you, if you fail as a vendor, you can have a long term impact on whether some on somebody’s retirement, their ability to, to, to, to, to take care of their families as well as the mission. So when they choose you, it’s not just professional in a profound way, it’s personal, gimme a thumbs up if you kind of get that. And they’re going, oh, I never thought of that. Does that make sense?

(07:27):
Awesome. So these are personal. So next layer industry, the prime, there’s the federal go. Most of you are not in the aircraft carrier business. That means that the person who is doing the buying is probably already buying something like, or related to what you do, buying it from somebody else. And they’re probably paying too much money for it and not getting the service you could provide. But those are the guys that they know and like, so even if you could do something better and wonderful and for a better price, they have no idea how to know for sure how it’s gonna turn out when they wake up in the morning. They know exactly your, your end user knows exactly what kind of miserable day they’re gonna have. And somehow that’s more comfortable than somebody who promises the moon. But who knows? And these are your industry or competitors, I want you to think of them as competitive mates.

(08:21):
The large primes have layers that can include somebody called the supplier diversity professional. There may be an account manager, a contract manager, the people in procurement or supplier management. There might be a mentor protege manager. If you’re dealing with a smaller company, you might be dealing directly be the CEO or the business development people. So they have their own mix of players and layers. There’s not just one person. You’ll be meeting multiple people in the industry layer. And so you’ve gotta figure out, gee, could you be bringing them more business? Could you be, or are you gonna have to nibble something off their back porch when they’re not looking? So they wanna win new work, they wanna unseat other incumbents, they gotta deliver top performance. So when they’re reluctant to meet you, it’s not just that they’re concerned about whether you can deliver, but if you don’t deliver, that puts a black mark on their relationship with their buyer and they really don’t want that.

(09:12):
So they’re the second most risk averse life form in the federal ecosystem. They wanna deliver on time, on budget, they wanna win recompetes, they wanna expand their revenue and profit, which means that the win the buyer has a budget. You’re not gonna get all the budget if you’re subcontracting the prime is gonna take a slice off the top. There’s no free lunch. They respond to opportunity. Bring them opportunity and you’ll always get a conversation. Okay? They wanna keep the client happy, low risk compliant, high performance, low cost. They’re terrified that something will go wrong and it’s gonna be their fault, not yours. Buck stops there, it really stops. They’re concerned about high risk. They’re concerned about losing business. Okay? Next up, small business specialist. They are everywhere. Be aware that if your company is solely in Canada and you don’t have a US subsidiary, the mission of these folks is to help the primary mission, to help American small business to win up to 23% of the dollars of the contracts that are awarded and to help large business meet their small business subcontracting or compliance requirements.

(10:25):
If they help you, they’re just being nice to you as a Canadian company, you, you’re generally gonna be considered other than small in government speak. So no matter whether you’re two guys in a garage or CAE, you’re gonna be considered a large business in the US procurement system. Okay? So the small business specialist might help you navigate, they might help you locate small businesses that you can team with, okay? But their primary mission is to help the agency, the DOD agency meet the goals they’ve negotiated with the small business administration, help end users, find qualified suppliers, answer questions from American small business advocate to expand opportunities for American small business. Now you can team with an American small business if the work has been set aside for a small business they really like it’s more complicated relationship, relationship, relationship. So they can help other than small companies, including you meet small business subcontracting goals.

(11:30):
If you as a Canadian company win a contract that’s worth more than $700,000, then you must have a small business subcontracting plan. Okay? So you’re gonna need the small businesses and be able to do business with them. The small business specialist responds to opportunities to provide service opportunities to achieve their goals. They’re afraid of not meeting their goals. And, but you know what happens if they don’t meet their goals? Honestly nothing. If they can, their file is filled with good faith efforts to show they tried. That’s the deal with small business specialists. They can help you navigate. You need to be real clear that you’re an other than small business, but you wanna beat the smalls. The contracting officer. Contracting layer includes the contracting officer, which could be called CO for short or in DOD, they could call ’em the KO because in the military the CO is the commanding officer.

(12:28):
So get used to that nomenclature. They may have a contracting specialist or purchasing agent works with them to help dot the i’s cross the T’s and identify proposals that aren’t compliant. The contracting officer has the power of the president of the United States does not have. And that is the power to award a contract to legally bind your company to these United States in an agreement to provide products and services and to pay you for those products and services. So this is Josephine Cobb. Josephine Cobb worked at Travis Air Force Base for over 50 years. Can you imagine all the things she’s seen? You do not wanna mess around with Josephine. But retained trend is also a general engineered journeyman with defense contract management agency in Boeing’s Mesa contract management office. And she’s also, that’s also the face of contracting. They have, they have pets, they have personalities, they have things that they’re doing.

(13:25):
They have special assignments. They’re people always keep that in mind. Their role is to serve the end user, their customers, the end user to help the end user get legally compliant, best value, best price contractor to do the job. They conduct market research, which they have to do when they’re deciding whether or not to set something aside or reserve it for small business. They have to make sure that they have achieved maximum practicable competition. They’ve done their best to shop around, give everybody a shot, they award contracts and administer them. They’re on the hook to make sure they’ve spent the money by fiscal year end fiscal year end in the US federal system is September 30th. Keep that in mind. In Canada, it’s March 31st. Tangent in 46 of 50 states. If you’re doing business, the state government fiscal year end is June 30th. So if you’re doing business with commercial sector, the Canadian government fed, uh, federal government and state and local Christmas can come four times a year for you.

(14:29):
You’ve got a fourth quarter spending skew that happens. So keep that in mind when you’re looking for places to keep the revenue rolling all year long. The contracting officer there on the nut to comply with rules and laws. What happens if you break a law prison? Think about that. They have auditors breathing over their shoulders. They have tiger teams that oversee the auditors and if they don’t execute the budget, the budget’s gonna go away. Look at that language. Tiger teams, auditors execute, be executed prison. Little wonder, they don’t really rush to return your call if they’ve never heard of you. You do not wanna be making these guys your first call. They’re important. They respond to being able to meet end user requirements. But the end users need to fall in love with you and then be interested in walking you across the hall to contract and say, here’s these guys that can help us solve our problem.

(15:27):
Now what are some of the ways that we could do this in a way that is easy, that is legal, that is appropriate and we’ll get it done on time, on budget. Okay? In some places, the end user shop and the contracting shop get along like best friends skipping through the daisies in other places, the end users think that contracting shop is the purchasing prevention program and the contracting shop, the the end users shouldn’t be trusted with 5 cents to buy bubblegum and they’re constantly fighting. So your mileage may vary. You’ve gotta get to know the players in the individual places. They’re constantly thinking. Same as your end users about following rules, protecting the, making sure that they can do it in a way that is also protecting their careers and delivering the mission. And they’ve got long-term goals to deliver the mission and take care of their families in long-term security.

(16:26):
So that’s the contracting shop. The stakeholder, that’s cabinet secretary, the administration appointee, the base commander, chief information officer. They’re often the people. Folks get so excited that they’re on the big stage on on the big room with the dark room, with the bright light, uh, making the big speech. You’re gonna go and hear them at the conference and they come off the stage and 50 60 people are all gathered around to talk to them. They’re not the ones who are in the room when you get chosen. Okay? The last thing you wanna do is lean on the stakeholder. Say, I’ve got this great idea, I can solve your problem. The worst thing that could happen is that the stakeholder goes, oh great, let me walk you down the hall and introduce you to my program manager. Don’t get excited. The program manager, that’s one of your senior end users, they’re gonna sit there and say, oh, that’s a great thank you very much.

(17:18):
Or we can hardly wait to hear what you have to say. And they’ll do the perfunctory 30 minute meeting. You are gone because you didn’t do the work to get to know the people and the end users and the program and the requirement. When the stakeholder sits you down in front of the program manager, it’s like you’re showing up covered in stakeholder drool. That’s a mandatory meeting. But the stakeholder doesn’t have the decision making authority to award the contract end user and contracting. Do you, the kind of conversation you wanna have with a stakeholder is after you’ve met their end users and their contracting shopping, you say, oh my goodness, Cheryl is fabulous. You are so lucky to have her running this program. She was so helpful to me and Chuck and Sally phenomenal. They’re the reason why your program is successful. Even if you as the vendor did all the work.

(18:05):
Okay? That’s the kind of conversation you wanna be having with your stakeholder. But you need to know who they are. They’re the ones who are writing the agency mission, the agency strategic plan. You wanna go any place, any office where you wanna do business. Their strategic plan is available for free online right now. You wanna read that? See what the stakeholder is telling the whole organization. They’re on the hook to deliver the mission. Mission, serve the public. Make sure that strategic planning and execution happens. And they’ve got top level public accountability. They’re the ones who are gonna be on the front page of the Washington Post below the fold. If your work as a contractor goes tango uniform, the buck does stop there. They respond to results, outcomes. They are visionary like you as business owners. Sometimes they care about their legacy. You know, what are they passing on to the, to their successor or their legacy in the agency, but they’re also on the nut for compliance.

(19:03):
They’re definitely afraid the mission won’t be met. They are the one that’s on the line ’cause they’re representing the president of the United States in a lot of ways as well. They care about concerns about waste, malfeasance, impropriety and anything that reflects poorly on the administration and the president. That’s your stakeholder level. So you’re not gonna call on the stakeholder, but you need to know who they are and recognize the, the senior mucky mucks names when people talk about them. So we talked about why not call on the unknown angel, why you, you’re new, you’re innovative, you have great, you have track record, you’ve done business with fortune 500 companies, but they’ve never heard of you. So no matter how bright the smile, no matter how firm the handshake, no matter where else you’ve been, if they don’t know you when you walk through the door, the only thing they see is a great big ball of risk and they don’t like risk. So three things to keep in mind. If you had to sum it up, your players at all five layers, they all want. Follow the rules, make it easy, make ’em look good. That place in the middle is where you should be.

(20:10):
Now I wanna say something about follow the rules. Um, when you have a new administration coming in, you can hear all kinds of things about, oh, we’re gonna change this and change that and overhaul the public service, the contracting community, the contracting profession. They are run by the rules. If it ain’t in a rule, they can’t do it. If it isn’t in the rule, they can’t do it. So for example, if someone were to say, oh well we’re going to put a 25% tariff on everything coming from Canada inside the defense, federal acquisition regulation supplement, part 2, 2 5. It says that Canadian products shall be available to DOD with a free of tariffs. And unless that changes, then whatever else you hear on the news, keep breathing unless the regulation and the law changes. These guys are rule followers. Okay? So keep breathing. Alright, I hope you get that.

(21:10):
Um, I was having a hard time getting distracted by all kinds of things getting said. I went, no, if it’s not a rule, this is where it has to happen. Okay, so we said that, um, we wanted to this. So there’s those yours, your personas. I’m gonna have a resource for you at the end. So pitches, messaging for compelling connection. I’m so excited to bring this to you. So these five people, why are they going to talk to you? Each of them has different goals, different things that they wake up at three in the morning worried about. And you can have everything in life you want if you’ll just help other people get what they want. That’s a famous quote from Zig Ziglar, sales professional and a motivational speaker. But you get through by aligning your goals with fairs. ’cause as industry we that the kinds of the goals that we have as industry can are, well, we wanna grow our companies, we wanna win business. Um, we wanna hire more people. Well that’s great, but those aren’t the kind of goals that our stakeholders and our end users have. So we’ve gotta be showing up, talking about what’s important to them. Not I’d like to have this contract, please. Yeah, take a number. Okay, here’s the first of two parts that help you do that. I’m gonna talk about best values. You really wanna take some notes here. Now you might have heard this called a unique value proposition or a differentiator. It answers the question why you, why You

(22:42):
Best values express. What’s unique about your company? They have value to your buyer. They resonate with a player at a specific layer and they’re specific to your team, your approach, your offering or your partners. Ideally they are quantifiable and objectively verifiable. It’s not just you saying the thing. Okay? What’s not a best value is world class solution. Family owned business. That shows up more with American small businesses. A partner in the North American defense industrial base. They’ve gone what most of ’em have never heard of it. Or over 500 years of combined experience. Sorry, Boeing’s gonna smoke you on that every time. Okay? But there are other ways to talk about why you and your unique strengths that can set you apart from others. I’m gonna give you, you can screenshot these ’cause I’m gonna give you a real power list of details. You, the point is you don’t need 56 of them.

(23:43):
Three or four will probably do. And you’re gonna pick ones that align with the players at each layer. Best value is your most powerful. When your unique qualities and assets translate into easily into selection criteria that your buyer finds valuable enough to specifying a solicitation that makes it easy to choose you when they’re behind closed, do doors down to the last two or three and to justify choosing you even at a higher price. It’s really important you can do that. Figure out what that thing is and you’re gonna constantly be using those. So how do you figure out what your best values are? Well, what lowers perceived risk? That’s a big deal. What do you do better than everybody else? And how can you quantify that? Why do you perform so well? So consistently you might have a method of methodology. Name your methodology. Why did your best customers choose you?

(24:45):
If you don’t know, ask them. It might not be for the reason why you think. What makes you easy to work with? Some of these things don’t have to be rocket science. Hey, we’ve got an office a hundred yards outside the chain link fence at Patuxent River, Naval Air Station. Location, location, location. I was one of my clients has a, um, a translation, ser translation services business. And they can find a translator for a shocking number of languages within 10 minutes. Within 10 minutes no matter where the call. Can you imagine being that’s a best value? Holy cow. So what could your best values be? This is screenshot all folks location close to the customer. That could be one number of years in business. Many of you are established businesses. You are not just two girls in a garage. You haven’t just founded your business.

(25:43):
You’ve been in business, some of you for decades. That’s a big deal. But they don’t know if you don’t tell them. Outstanding or exceptional contract per, uh, contractor performance assessment rating system. Okay? If you’ve performed as a prime and sometimes as a sub, you are entirely, your contracting officer should be giving a performance rating. You wanna make sure that you’ve got one of the two highest ratings. You’re performing at a level that you can say, we’ve got 80% or more of our contracts. We’ve been given outstanding or exceptional cpars. Oh that’s good. That lowers the risk. The experience of specific project managers on your team past performance with a specific type of project or situation. I was talking to another client, uh, earlier today and he’s done lots of work in corporate in um, healthcare it. He hasn’t done business with the defense health agency, but his work in with um, big healthcare companies in the private sector can make him seem like a low risk choice for defense health.

(26:45):
I said bring some of your case studies to show what was the problem, what you did, how you solved it, what the result was. Then when that buyer’s trying to define a requirement, they can say, must have done business with defense health or with a major corporate client of a similar size and scope. They’re cracking the door open for you ’cause they like you average years experience or education level of your team members. This is the kind of thing to express. Instead of saying, oh, we have 500 years of combined experience, you can say 90% of our key players have masters or doctorates in aerospace engineering. Oh cool. Others proprietary processes. Okay, do you have the a, b, c aerospace way that guarantees that remanufactured parts are within bump, bumpy bump tolerance for example, lower turnover than the industry average. If you’re, uh, doing staffing or people, that’s definitely a big deal because churn of personnel that leads to instability and quality problems.

(27:52):
How fast can you deliver What and do you have stats to show your on time delivery rate, speed to deploy safety record industry awards and recognition, top rank qualifications, contract vehicles. Your buyer uses partnerships with primes they know and love and trust. So when do you talk about these things? Mention in your voicemail, mention ’em in your email. Put ’em in your email footer. Highlight them in capability presentations, things like your website, your capability statement. Mention ’em in conversations and mention them consistently. We’re the guys that have, uh, we, we are the guys that have the lowest EMR rating in the construction industry in in Canada. What um, being able to talk about those things and the right best value at the right layer is important. So you wanna map your best values. So be selective. Map the be talking about the right best value to the person who cares about.

(28:54):
This is a screenshot table. You wanna think about the, the what’s important to the end users, to industry, small business specialist and contracting. What are they afraid of? And bring them a best value that lowers their hackles and makes them start to feel comfortable with you to think you are the low risk choice. You wanna be able to say how I can help you, not how can I help you If you ask how can I help you? You’re giving them homework. You wanna show up Having done enough homework, you can say how I can help you is bumpy, bumpy bump the key to building relationships from contact to contract growth. You wanna be able to connect those things ’cause everybody’s inner 6-year-old is running rampant around the contracting space. ’cause the question they are secretly asking is the same question that your 6-year-old is asking when you’re coming up the walk, you’re coming home, they’re getting bigger and so is this big thought balloon and they’re thinking, mom, what did you bring me?

(30:02):
Your mom raised you. Well, you know, not to come to a party without a gift, you know, come not to come to a dinner party without saying, what can I bring? Same thing here. You wanna be bringing those something that matters to them. ’cause you’ve done your homework and you know what matters to them. They’re going to care about us because we create compelling connections. Winning experiences generate dopamine. Our brains are wired to give us a dopamine rush every time we do something or have an experience. That experience shows helps us be successful. We do more of what we learn helps us win. The strange thing is that small wins generate almost as much dopamine as big ones. I want you to think for a moment, I don’t need to know, you do not have to share this, but I want you to think about a really big personal achievement in your life.

(30:54):
Maybe it was got my first job or founded my company, sold my last boat, had our first child, had our last child move out of the house, whatever that is, okay? And now think about how long did the woo-hoo feeling last with that big achievement? Not that long. You worked so hard for that thing. What’s next? But the interesting thing is that the rush of the woohoo is almost as big for them. My car keys or got the kids lunches made as it is for got my law degree. Instead of despairing about that, realize it doesn’t take much of a win to create that rush for your federal human, your DOD buyer or end user or contracting person. Sometimes they just need to know that you heard them, that you listen to them, that you’re caring about them. Ever have one of those conversations when somebody picks up the phone and they just don’t sound good, they don’t sound like they did last time or they sound rushed or distracted. When you take a moment to say, Hey, I know we set up this time for 10 o’clock this morning. Is this still a good time to talk? And they say, you know, um, to be honest, it’s not. I’m at a funeral that happens. We say, My heart

(32:15):
Is with you. Please be with your family. We’ll circle back. I’m thinking of you. Instead of pushing through trying to have that conversation or even asking them to get out their calendar and rebook even that is a compassionate win you’re dealing with humans. Always think about that. So micro engagement, momentum is one of my proprietary pieces. Here’s how it works. Our players at all of our layers, all of them have goals. Our goal in industry like make money is different from the goal of the small business specialist. Meet the small business goals or the end user on time, on budget or the contracting shop, spend all the money and uh, have no protests and don’t break any rules. Milestones are then the um, middle pieces and the micro engagements are tinier still. So I’m gonna show you a little bit more what what I mean the milestones are an interaction between you and your buyer that represents significant progress towards your next step or result.

(33:24):
That might be a big event they’re holding to help them meet their goals. Uh, might be a quarterly report. It might be if you’re the contracting shop, got that competition out and awarded. Okay, milestones help us know that we’re on track. It lets us course correct throughout the year. Micro engagement is an interaction between you and your buyer that either of you can initiate and moves everyone a little closer to your shared goals. So micro engagement principle is this. Our players at all the layers have different kinds of goals and milestones and micro engagements that we can use and talk about to stay engaged with them because hey, you’ve met them. Great. Hi, do you want me hi, do you want my stuff? Hi, do you want my stuff that gets old in a hurry? What can you continue to bring them with each touch, each email, each call to show that you get them and you’ve got them.

(34:20):
So if you’re able to, not just in, in theory at the structural level, but for each individual human along the top line, if you, if you know them and research them and talk to them well enough to have lots of things in all those boxes, you’re never gonna run outta things to talk about. And they know that every time I hear from Paul or Michelle or Sge, something great’s gonna happen. They know that you’re the call they wanna return. So lower the risk, get ’em to their goals. Some ideas for micro engagement include an opportunity focused meeting, an introduction to the contracting officer or the end user. Maybe you have a conversation at a public event. They ask you for information, you answer their email. These are tiny little moves. Think of them like putting marbles in a jar. Trust is built one small interaction at a time. There’s a ton of research on this. So each one of these small touches is another opportunity to show that you get them and you’ve got them to build trust. They agree to a phone call. No answer. You leave a voicemail with a call to action. Now, Who here loves leaving voicemail? Anybody put thumbs up? Love voicemail. I thought so. Alright, I’m

(35:42):
Gonna restructure this. Okay? How I’m gonna get my really important contract. What if I could give you 30 seconds of uninterrupted attention right inside somebody’s brain? Who wants that thumbs up? Lemme see. Who wants that? Yeah, that’s what voicemail is. 30 seconds of uninterrupted attention. So you wanna make sure that now I, I squandered my undergraduate career as a competitive debater and the place where I learned at the University of Toronto, you were forbidden to read your speech. You could refer occasionally to notes. So working from a script is not something I do easily. I have to be drag kicking and screaming. But when you’re leaving a voicemail, you’ve got 30 seconds. You’ve got about 125 words maybe. And if that, and you wanna figure out how their best value in there, you wanna be able to have the say, Hey, here’s who I am, here’s what it’s about.

(36:41):
Sorry I missed you. Check your email and if I don’t hear from you by Thursday at noon, I’ll call you back Friday morning. And you wanna make, make that as warm and genuinely interested as you possibly can. So they go, wow, if that’s what Michelin sounds like in a voicemail, I wonder what she’s like in person. Eh, I’ll wait for Friday to see if she calls back. You call back on Friday and it’s another voicemail and you’ll leave another voicemail. Hey, small business specialist, thank you for all the things you do for small business. I so appreciate it and I’ve got something in mind to help you meet your next milestone. Love to chat with you about it. When we call, check your email for a little more information. And if I don’t hear from you both for the end of Friday, I’ll give you a call back Tuesday afternoon.

(37:31):
And so not only have you shown that you’re determined, but you show you do what you say you’re gonna do. That’s two marbles in the jar. How great is that? Now I’m way in the weeds on something that is a really powerful concept. But I hope that you use this and you like it. Don’t be afraid of calling somebody back and doing what we call the double tap, uh, two or three times in a week. ’cause at that point, if they’re breathing and they’re on the planet and they’re not out sick or something, then they’re gonna call you back just simply to hear your voice or to pass you off to somebody who genuinely needs what you do. Okay? So these are all ideas of micro engagement. It’s a long haul, but we as humans, we’re wired to respond to constant wins. And we are wired for connection.

(38:19):
Don’t ever be afraid of, oh my being a pe no, you’re not. Research shows it takes 15 to 32 touches to get from contact to contract. If you give up after three tries, that business is going to your competitor. Hype dollars to donuts. We’ve covered a lot. We’ve covered personas and players and some ideas for pitches. What to do and say and ask to meet them. Align your goals with theirs. Bring your best values to, to stand out and grow strategies. Why they’ll keep talking to you. Align their best values with their goals and milestones and micro engagements and keep showing up. There’s more. But I hope I’ve managed to give you some ideas that are practical. And I’d love to take your questions so we have resources for you. And then we have chance to take questions in a nutshell. Here’s another screenshot slide.

(39:07):
Here’s your federal buying map. I want you to make a commitment. Do screenshot this. Keep it on your phone because when you’re talking to somebody in DOD or pursuing that work, always figure out or ask, ask them enough questions. You can figure out what layer are they at. ’cause you can get stuck in meeting with lots and lots of small business specialists without realizing that’s who they are. And they’re not your buyers. They’re not your buyers. You need to be able to figure out what everybody’s role is and we talk to the right person about the right thing at the right time and bring solutions. Bring business. So contracting special list serves the contracting officer. Small business specialist supports everybody. Contracting office serves the end user. That’s the second place you’re gonna go. Everybody’s serving the stakeholder. Your third stop is the prime after you’ve got something to talk about.

(40:01):
Small business specialist supports everybody. Only when you have something to talk about. Do you wanna talk to the contracting shop and our super users, the contracting officers represented. So we’ve got more about all of this in my book. Government contracts made easy, ’cause easy is fiction. You can grab it off Amazon and there’s a book in a workbook. The micro engagement principle can, you can learn more about it. See some case studies, why buyers like it, how it leads to winning contracts, when do you use it? And it’s all on this blog post here. It’s all free. Capture it, go and take a look. The GovCon Personas guide gives you more details and a recap on the players and all the layers. Who the buyer is, what they care about, how to engage them, and tips for success. So, and we’re coming up in the top of the hour. We’ve got some time for questions. Anu, what does, what do people wanna know?

(40:52):
So there is one question that Darius has, and it, he says, or she, I’m not sure, um, I register a one man company in us. I would like to resell a piece of device, which is made by a large company. Can I propose this Desi, this device for an RFP, which is set aside for small business

(41:13):
Federal acquisition regulation. Part 19 says that a small business has to, um, has to provide the product of a small business. So the answer is in theory a big, it depends, okay, because that they really like what you do and they haven’t put the RFP out on the street yet. Or, um, or depending on how much the gear is, the buy American act doesn’t apply if the purchase is less than $10,000. Okay? So relationship, relationship, relationship. Once, if you have an end user who loves this thing and really wants it, okay, and then end user walks across to the, um, contracting shop says, please don’t set this aside because if you do that, then uh, we’re gonna have a problem getting the thing that we need. And so this works well when the contracting shop and the end users like each other a little less. So if you have somebody who’s wandering around contracting with an attitude, uh, by American, the attitude will trump, uh, just about every trade agreement. ’cause the acquisition regulations give every single contracting officer pretty much a way to do. There’s always a law, a law or regulation that will let people do pretty much the thing they wanna do. If they figure out how to do it. They’re experts at getting it done. I hope that helps a little

(42:28):
Bit. Um, any thoughts about, because this person said that they’re gonna be reselling a piece of device. Any thoughts about, uh, a reseller, um, relationship? Is there gonna be anything to consider?

(42:42):
Again, it’s a big, it depends. The, sometimes a set aside is established and it’ll be for the manufacturer, not for the reseller. There’s a, there’s controversy in the United States about, um, companies that are actually resellers, but they get qualified as a small business manufacturer because they don’t have that many employees, but they’re actually just reselling somebody else’s stuff. So, uh, each situation is unique and you wanna have the conversation with contracting to figure out what’s the easiest way that you or end user can get the thing that you want from us. So I’m not gonna make a blanket generalization. The only generalization I’ll make is that you can’t generalize.

(43:21):
Okay, very good. Uh, so Tanya is asking, uh, what was the DAS that, um, that you mentioned that would enable Canadian businesses to be protected from any, um, potential tariffs?

(43:35):
You, you’re gonna go down through defense federal acquisition, regulation supplement, part 2, 2 5, and, um, CCC on, its on their website, has lots more detail about that. Okay. But that was when I was going looking and say, Hey, what do the rules actually say that I was navigating down through there for the section about, uh, tariffs, customs, and duties as it applies or doesn’t, in this case, to Canadian companies doing business with DOD.

(44:02):
Yes. Let me see if I can find that in our blog. Um, now that you mentioned it, I do remember that. And I will send a link right now. Great. If you have, uh, any additional questions about working with the U-S-D-O-D, you can go to our website, go to our contact us and we will connect you with one of our export um, advisors who can answer a lot of your questions about how CCC can help you. Um, and with that, thank you again for joining us and we look forward to hosting you at our next event. Have a great day everybody.