Government Contracts: How I won my first Government Contract with the Army worth over $90,000

in this video I share my personal story of how I won my first US federal government contract ever so stick around you're not gonna want to miss this hey guys what's going on it's Derek James with Gov kid method if you're not familiar with my story I was managed to win 32 US federal government contracts before my 30th birthday worth over 15 million dollars and as promised in today's video I'm gonna be sharing my personal story of how my how I won my first US federal government contract ever it happened to be with the the Air National Guard and I had been working for the government contractor job that I had which was an 8 a woman owned small business for about six to seven months and I always tell everybody when I tell this story that it took me over a year to even really understand exactly what my job was because anybody who's familiar with the US government contracting space there's a lot of terminology challenges it's almost like learning a second language well there's just a lot to get used to there's a there's a pretty big learning curve and I didn't have a whole lot of training or a whole lot of help at all especially that first year I kind of had to make it on my own at that company and so that's really kind of like the setting that this this story took place in so I started in the summer and I started out in proposals of writing and we found out that quickly really wasn't my cup of tea at the time I grew into it a couple years later but getting started I made a switch over to the more business development role I always say I'm more of a people person I'm more right-brain than left brained I'm not extremely extremely analytical and things like that so I made the switch and about six months after I started it was wintertime and so this is where everything kind of started you know if you're not familiar with me I'm from Michigan so the winners here in Michigan are fairly cold you know were one of the most northern states in the country and my boss had gotten a phone call one day one afternoon from a Contracting Officer and I overheard this conversation going on cuz my office was fairly close to her office and I just remember saying I remember hearing rather my boss saying no we're not interested we can't do that sorry and then she hung up the phone and I kind of saw this as an opportunity I knew that the contracting officer was almost trying to give us work the ko was having a hard time finding somebody who could fulfill the need so I talked to my boss and I learned a little bit more about what it was that they were looking for she said oh yeah this is you know kind of a crazy call they're looking for a road salt and I think they can't seem to get it anywhere all the barges of the Great Lakes up here in Michigan have frozen so you know the the entryway for the ships they couldn't get in to deliver new salt from you know from Canada or from any other of the mines and so a lot of the bases and you know different areas were developing a shortage of road salt and and some of these areas like the Air National Guard base I mean it's crucial that they have salt for the runway for the planes and the ODA just the vehicles throughout the base and so everybody was being her commercial and government that particularly year and so she she kind of told me all this really quickly in the conversation and I knew that there was an opportunity I really wanted to prove myself and I knew there had to be some way that somebody could find road salt and I was up for the challenge so I asked my boss I said well if I can find it you know can can we do this contract like can we go after this contract and she said she said yeah you know kind of a good good luck you know like not expecting that I would be able to do it but she said yeah sure if you can find it you know let me know and then we'll we'll call a Contracting Officer back up so I was on a mission right I really wanted to prove myself I had been there you know six seven months I hadn't you know won any contracts and that was basically look at the culture of the company is you had to basically pay for your own seat no matter what role you were in and I definitely felt that and I felt like I had to do something to bring in a contract so I started calling landscaping companies and salt companies obviously right away you know in you know southeastern Michigan here where we're located and where the where the base was located and everybody was saying yeah sorry you know we're out we're out you know are you an existing customer we're only you know providing replenishment salts to our existing customers if you're a new customer we can't take you on because we have to service our you know our existing customer base and so I started going out further and further and further you know with the radius my search radius and then I started going out to the neighboring states like Wisconsin Ohio just to find road salt and you know we just didn't need a few bags I mean we needed I remember exactly how how many tons but I think we needed maybe seven or eight tonnes or something like that I think it was seven or eight truckloads it's what we needed so this isn't something you would go and get at the store and I'll tell you what the contract value was towards the end of the story and that'll kind of justify how much we actually we needed because I had no idea what this contract would even be worth so I started getting a little more creative because some of the feedback I got from the salt mines is like hey we have it but all our trucks are you know 100% occupied on dispatch so if you can come and pick it up we can sell it to you so then I started getting quotes from trucking companies you know even all the way far out like from the West like Nevada and stuff like that because they do these long hauls I got you know real creative and I was just calling everybody but I wasn't having any luck and I had been calling for two weeks two weeks every day that was really all I worked on because I didn't really have anything better to work on it's a slow time in the wind for for government contracts typically and so I was totally dedicated I had called so many places probably hundred places and then one day I somehow I had called a landscaping company in Ohio and I must have missed him or maybe I was calling him back or something a couple weeks later and the guy said yeah I can give you the salt you know with the anti-caking agents and the blue and yellow dye and all the specs that the government needed in there PWS but you gotta you're gonna tell me that you needed right now otherwise I'm gonna give it to somebody else and it's gonna be gone so I was super excited I got off the phone when I told my boss and she said really she didn't believe me so you know she wanted to talk to the the sell herself the landscaping company herself so she became as convinced as I'd it was and she said okay we'll take it give us a quote and so I think we got a quote for like just for like 35 grand 35 grand for this salt and we don't know if that was good or bad still cuz we didn't know what we could you know mark it up for so my boss kind of took it over from this point she called the contracting officer I was there with her she let them know that we had got we've secured the salt you know we set up an arrangement you know you know a contract with the salt company to provide it in accordance with the scope that they wanted the the government was thrilled the contracting officer was super happy and she said she wanted to do an 8 a sole source for this so we were in the SBA 8a program and so this contract ended up being an 8 a sole source and that allowed them to directly give the contract to us without having to compete it not without having to post it on FB oh your people hadn't even gotten a chance to see it because we were in a day so I have another video talking about the great benefits and the eligibility to get in the 8a program check out my videos in my channel if you're interested or you don't know about that but if you already know about that you know exactly what I'm talking the government can consult source up to four million dollars now although we didn't get anywhere near to four million what we ended up doing was we submitted our proposal to them for about eighty five thousand I remember I told you that our cost was around thirty five thousand phone this so and they actually accepted it with without any negotiation because they needed it so badly and we we won the contract that was my first contract there was to my name you know I did all the work it was from an inbound phone call that my boss had passed on and had I not spoken up and talked to her about it we never would have won that contract and we never would have gotten into that base we never would have grew relationships at that base because everybody knew us for being able to find the salt so we kind of created a name for ourselves so all these intangible things grew from that over the years but it never would have started without that first contract my first contract and we were not a a road salt company I mean that doesn't really exist in government contracting you have to be flexible we actually started out as an IT staffing company and that was our bread and butter at the time is staffing and so this was really not in our wheelhouse at all but if you if you ever hear me talk about you know these sorts of things in my other videos I always say that you have to remain flexible you have to be open to expanding you have to consider other things that you can sell to the government because you know you may not be getting a contract for exactly what you what you're doing because it's super competitive sometimes we have to go to the other areas that you can still do that are less competitive and that's you know basically what this had happened now we didn't go on to build a whole vertical out of road salt but for me personally getting into business development and eventually into proposal writing and doing sales you know the whole sale cycle completely on my own including many managing the projects this was so crucial from my first contract because I was like it's fricking road salt guys like and I was 26 at the time I'm like this isn't that hard and I couldn't believe nobody else in the office none of the other BD people you know questioned my boss or even my boss I can't believe she said no to it like so this really forced me to start saying yes and this is how I I started one to win all their contracts because I knew it was possible I knew who it was doable I really want to stress the point of how much it did for mine my mentality with this being my first contract and then seeing the margins on it being more than a hundred percent I knew that was a fluke and then we weren't going to be able to keep that up but I just it really showed me what was possible and that's really what I like to give people as a take away when I share the story of winning my first government contract is hey it may not be in the thing that you think it's gonna be in right don't pigeon hold your company especially when you're trying to get your first couple contracts because then then you have the past performance then you have more mental confidence and more belief then you understand how to bill out and and you you don't have all these mental barriers holding you back and you can be a lot more aggressive I mean once I won this contract you know I won my second contract in the spring and then after that like all of the you know you know the dam had lifted it the flood water said it started to pour in you know then I started winning a lot more contracts because you know that second contract was for video teleconferencing equipment for vtc equipment something totally different from Road self and also totally different than what our bread and butter was for the company so I hope that this is helpful I hope that you're getting this takeaway I'm really making this for the people that are trying to win the first prime contract or maybe you did some subcontracting and you want to start doing things you know with your company being in the front like we were like you don't have to do everything as a subcontractor guys you can you know what I mean you can be the prime and you don't have to have a huge track record to do it you know we didn't have any past performance to show for that type of work you know you think you know staffing people gave them confidence that we could provide road salt no they didn't care they just they just needed it and when you're doing competitive proposals I know it's it's different but there's a little bit of that mentality that will still exist sometimes and you just you you really need to open your eyes and open your yourself to possibilities that's what I want to share with you in this story because this was my first contract I was a 26 year old kid there's no way that I should have been winning a contract you know like I said it took me my first full year to even understand what it was I was doing so when I wanted I didn't even know what the heck was going on like I I just knew bits and pieces and I was still connecting the dots you know it was the first time I had ever even been in a conversation with a contracting officer so don't hold yourself to such a high standard to you know having to be able to be at this place in this place in this place before you mentally allow yourself to believe that you can win your first contract so that's going to do it for my story I hope this helped inspire you as you can'tyou motivate you a little bit um to set your sights on what's possible for your guv con business if you're thinking about opening a gov comm business and you haven't done it yet I highly encourage you and this story should just go to show that I mean you could be winning contracts in less than a year you know when I speak with my coaching clients and everything you know I always say mentally prepare yourself for 12 to 18 months but it's totally possible to to win it less than that and you know like the second contract I just want to say the second contract required a bit of a proposal and it was not a sole source so if you're watching this I don't want you to say yeah easy for you to say it was a sole source well my second contract around my nine months with the company that was not a sole source so it's totally possible so I hope you enjoyed this video guys feel free to like if you have any comments or questions add those in the comments of the video and please subscribe to my channel if you like videos like this I have a lot more on that I'm planning to make so we will see you guys next time

Channel: GovKidMethod

Views: 145,141

Keywords: government contracts, government contracting, fed biz opps, sam registration, cage code, duns number, 8a program, score contracts, us federal contractor registration, osdbu, prime contracts, govcon, procurement technical assistance, government contracting consultant, Government contract, sdvosb certification, hubzone certification, 8a certification, wosb certification, capability statement template, sole source justification, minority business certification, fpds

Id: TxV2eBd72gU

Length: 15min 25sec (925 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 17 2019