What industry should I get into? | Government Contracting Q&A

then you can you know pursue maybe something similar to that in government contracting um hey guys what's going on gov kid method here i'm gonna try and do this video all in one take i'm not too far from the street so hopefully the street noise isn't too bad or too loud i got some cars going by here um but in today's video i'm actually responding to another comment that i received that that kind of hit on uh some things that have been bothering me a little bit in terms of feedback not bothering me but it's just something i've wanted to respond to for a little while so uh this comment comes from donald likens and donald asks how can i you know find a target niche in government contracting and so there's some kind of inherent things that that question assumes so that's kind of what led me to wanting to address some of the things that i've been thinking about the feedback i've been receiving uh the last few months so uh the video today is gonna obviously be about um how do you target your industry's niche but i'm gonna take it to a different level and i'm just gonna talk about industry because i have a lot of people saying what kind of govcon business should i open one of my free courses right now i talk about different industries that government contracting offers which means essentially well the government is buying you know contracts soliciting contracts and solicitations for this type of work you know i talk about the dirty dozen 12 different industries um in that free course but my intent for that is just to to educate you if you're trying to start from scratch and you have no business experience you don't know anything about a particular industry and you're just gonna say okay i'm gonna you know i'm gonna go into cyber you know i'm gonna open up a construction company for government contracting and i'm gonna win construction government contracts but if you have no experience just because that's like one of the 12 that i listed that's not me telling you that that's what you should do you know for example in that course and another one of my videos i talk about taking personal inventory to help you decide like hey it's good to know that these options and opportunities are here in government contracting in govcon but more importantly you have to take a personal inventory what what do you have personal experience doing have you worked you know for a few years or five years or 10 years in another job where you've gained a lot of experience and you haven't been able to utilize it and you're going to use that towards a govcon business or do you know you know do you have a colleague or a friend that's an industry that you want to learn that you can shadow and spend time learning that industry and then take that knowledge to you know go into a govcon business i talk about taking that approach and so the reason i'm responding to this comment and donald i'm not saying this was you necessarily but it might be um so either way i i've received a lot of feedback of people who are coming from this the standpoint of hey you know i i have a job you know i have no experience in the type of govcon business i'm trying to go into or you know i have no experience and i want to open a govcon business so maybe i just want to you know wholesale items i'm getting a whole lot of that i just want wholesale items i just want to drop ship essentially you don't really want to do any hard work it's kind of you know i didn't want to say it but for for some for some folks i know it's really hot in the industry um you know the whole amazon thing with uh fulfillment by amazon fba all that there's not a huge opportunity for that in govcon and i don't want to break any hearts in this video um but i just i try to keep it real i try to keep it transparent if there was any confusion about the the course that i made of what you should sell to the government it was me letting you know the opportunity that's there and then telling you to take a personal inventory there's that busy road again telling you to take a personal inventory of what's a good fit for you you know i can show you how to you know search by spending my next codes and research agencies um and find you know on paper kind of like the best thing to go after staffing whatever i got ants i'm being eaten alive by ants you're underneath this tree you know staffing you know i talk a lot about staffing and people seem to resonate with that because there's low barrier to entry and stuff like that but that doesn't get you out of the fact of you have to know the industry you know like do you know what payroll taxes are do you know the percentage of fica fuda and suda that you have to pay into for a staffing company do you know how to price for vacation you know and and other overhead and g a you still have to learn the industry and i've never been an advocate of saying you don't have to learn the industry you can just go into gov government contracting and sell and that seems to be the disconnect you you still have to learn because i can i can teach you guys government contracting but i can't teach you how to price for every industry that exists i don't know it i'm i am ignorant in many different areas of businesses i have a little bit of experience in manufacturing i have a good amount of experience in construction i have a good amount of experience in staffing got a little bit of experience in i.t because these are things that you know the my business sold the business sold rather for the government contractor that i worked for but who the hell knows every industry and me as a coach i can't educate you on every single industry's pricing models and how to be competitive and how to actually be successful and do the work in that industry me as a coach that is not my job my job is to help you navigate the government contracting arena to help save you time spending years trying to figure this stuff out and wasting you know thousands or tens of thousands of dollars that's that's my mission to help you win your first contract or your first few government contracts and to win them a lot sooner than what you would have done just kind of going out on your own in the dark trying to figure stuff out right so again kind of coming back to this this comment if you have no experience and you have no idea what industry or niche you want to get into government contracting then you shouldn't be getting into government contracting just yet you have to figure that out because if you're going to rush to get registered and start looking at proposals or you know solicitations rather rfps and rfqs on beta.sam but you don't even know what you're looking for because you still haven't even decided what business you're in you're really putting the cart before the horse i mean if you look at my courses it's why i have figuring out what you should sell to the government as step number two i believe and then after that i think step number three is then you register your business there's a reason why i don't have register is number one you have to do some research and you know just some soul searching whatever if you're if you're a an entrepreneur if you're a true entrepreneur i shouldn't have to tell you to do this i shouldn't have to have to tell you to figure out what business you're gonna do if you're an entrepreneur you're doing that whether derek's here whether i'm gone you know what i'm saying like because you have that in your blood if you're just waiting around for somebody trying to tell you what to do each step of the way you're not gonna make it because i can't be there for the hundred steps that you have to take i can be there to shorten the learning curve for you and and you know save you a lot of circles a long way around but um as an entrepreneur you got to figure this stuff out you're going to come up against stuff that's hard and i mean having a having a govcon business having any business you really have to give it two to three years i mean that's what they teach you in business school that's that's the common accepted term by everybody you have to give a business for two to three years so can you ask yourself hey are you going to be doing govcon for the next two to three years if you know if you're just getting started out and you're just saying hey i'm gonna give this three to six months and if it doesn't work out i'm gonna move on to something else if that's you just save your time now save your money save everything and don't don't do it okay because you have to give it two to three years and i'm saying that because it kind of goes along with if you don't even know what type of business you want to get into then you kind of have to question are you a true entrepreneur is this something that you really want to do or are you just using it as a you know a cop-out to get out of your job not a cop-out that that's that's the wrong word by using it as a way to mentally check out is it something you're mentally telling yourself oh i can finally leave my job and i'll do this govcon business is it just like an excuse that you're allowing yourself to feel good about for a few months and then when it actually comes to taking the action you're you're not hard enough to actually get it done because you know this we're getting the real talk right now and i know with some of you guys this is really hitting home like i said i don't want to break any hearts but it's my job to to keep it real to clarify anything that may be misunderstood um i'm i i wear my badges on being transparent and genuine okay that is what i aim to be as a coach so i'm not trying to break any hearts if i know a lot of you are probably going to be surprised by this but you must understand if you don't know how to get into an industry you don't know how to price it and when i say price it you really have to compete against the other people the other small business owners in your industry who are winners so if you don't even know what you're doing and you're going up against winners how are you going to win it's it's gonna it's gonna take a while for you to learn your industry and i i can't teach you that like maybe do that for two years and then come back if that's kind of how you're feeling you know what i'm saying now you can start from scratch and you can go after bids that don't require for example past performance not everything requires past performance a lot of things just require you know pricing and requiring you to be registered you can do that okay you can definitely do that but the people who are doing that are not asking me what niche they should get into they're just taking the bull by the horns and they're going for it so that's why i never say you can't do that you can you can start from scratch and not have a business but don't don't ask me where to get started if you're asking where to get started it's it's already too late you have to go back to the drawing board and figure out where you're going to get started but if you kind of already have an idea of what you're what you're going to do and you know that you don't have past performance and you're fine with that then then cool like that's just that's an entrepreneurial trait i hope you see the difference between the two because that's really what i'm trying to to to identify here and shine a spotlight on if you need somebody to tell you what to do every step of the way you're not going to be resourceful and again donald this is not in any way targeted at you um it's just a mass feedback that i've i've received that i'm responding to and this is just an opportunity to respond to donald you maybe be talking about something more like i said niche within a particular industry and you may already know what industry you're going into in which case you know it totally um you know it's not regarding that point it's just in general if you don't know what you're doing you have to figure it out you have to figure out before you get into govcon okay govcon is you know not a get rich quick i have said that in multiple videos govcon is not the place to just quit your job and say i'm i'm gonna go do govcon you can't do that you have to give it two to three years and giving it two to three years means you have to be focused on an industry and if you're going to be focused on an industry that means you've already done the research and you've already learned you know what it takes to price and and be successful in that industry to win contracts right and then do do that for two to three years right that's really what it takes and i know a lot of you guys you're not you're not even close to that and so this is my call to you to you know if some of you if you're just you know i'm calling you out if you're using this as an excuse or a mental escape or get rich quick i'm calling you out this is not that you should quit while you're ahead if you're thinking of starting govcon right now but you can't honestly say you you're going to be doing it two years from now then then save yourself the time and don't do it because you have to make that level of commitment to learn your industry to price to do everything it takes in terms of the business development activities so i'm you know this is not at all like the rant video like i did before but this is just creating some more space and transparency around a lot of the feedback that i've received and again donald thank you for this comment because this was a good opportunity for me to respond to this not trying to stir the pot um and i hope you you find this as being genuine to help you uh again as a coach a coach is not always about you know just giving you tools and tips sometimes a coach tells you the stuff that's hard to hear and gets you back on the right path when you need it and i do kind of get a gauge that there are some of you that that need this correction you know this is not a place to just jump on for the short term um and then just expect somebody to tell you what industry to go into what's the hot industry that is not it you know in the my videos i talk about building a legacy i talk about building generational wealth something that you can give to your kids that's not like drop shipping items like you do on amazon that's way different that's not going to be here in 10 years i don't know if you guys know about google but google is really starting to compete with amazon and amazon is is losing you know its share price and everything is going to the roof but that whole you know partners program there's getting a lot of competition through google so um easy come easy go we'll see where that's at in five years don't use that as a business model for govcon um at all i've seen so many people reaching out um kind of asking to do that um you really gotta learn a business you got to learn a business that you can hang your hat on at the end of the day so i'm sure i'll get some comments on this video uh i hope you take it as it's intended and i'll see you in the next one hope this helps guys

Channel: Derek James

Views: 1,434

Keywords: government contracts, government contracting, NAICS codes beta.sam.gov sam registration, score contracts, us federal contractor registration, procurement technical assistance, government contracting consultant, sdvosb certification, hubzone certification, 8a certification, wosb certification, capability statement template

Id: j_oF3TsSVKo

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 26 2020