I've heard the government contractor horror stories and especially the bidding nightmares.
In this video, I'm revealing seven government pitfalls and how you can overcome them for
good.
Hi, I'm Felicia over at feliciastreeter.com.
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Now what I'm about to share with you guys, I've helped many students inside of my Government
Contractor Accelerator program avoid these pitfalls.
All right, so let's get into government pitfalls and how to overcome them.
Now one of the things I see happening often is a lot of you guys are getting into government
contracting and you're like jumping in with both feet, which is cool, but you are under
the assumption that you can just start bidding contracts.
That's not the case.
If you're looking at state, federal, city, county government contracts, a lot of times
you are bidding contracts, and you're not even registered to do business with that entity,
or I should say agency.
The second thing I see is your codes.
You do know when you're doing government contracting things work off of codes, NAIC codes.
And so, a lot of times you don't even have those codes, or you don't have the right codes
that correlate with what you do, what you offer, whether it's a product or a service.
The third thing is you're bidding contracts, even if you're registered, you're not bidding
the right contracts.
So when you're bidding contracts, and you don't have your government foundation set,
a lot of times what happens is you're bidding contracts that you have no shot at winning.
Now I'm curious.
Comment below and let me know what your current challenge is as it relates to government contracting.
Like that one big thing, if you could get that question answered, it would get you unstuck,
get you back into action and implementing and getting you to the finish line of becoming
a government contractor.
So let me know in the comments.
Once you have your government certifications, so not your certification to be an electrician
or anything like that, but your government certifications is more important than ever
for you to know your capacity and what you bring to the table.
Now, all certifications have their unique requirements and then they are even in more
demand depending on what your NAIC codes are as it relates to what your business does,
offer, provide whatever term you want to use.
Whatever NAIC codes your company works within, you could possibly be in high demand.
The right mix of certifications, capabilities, and capacity, you could be in high demand.
Right.
So the fourth thing, that's a pitfall that I see more times than that is you are bidding
opportunities and you have no experience.
And you're out there just bidding contracts left and right bidding, bidding with no results,
right?
So you're not winning anything, but you're bidding a lot of contracts that you have no
experience for.
Another pitfall, this is the fifth one is you guys are looking for teaming relationships.
You're jumping in both feet again but you don't have the, I like to say the warm and
fuzzy, but you don't have a relationship with the company but you're reaching out to them
asking them to team with you on a project.
It's kind of like putting the cart before the horse.
Number six, I hate to say it but poor money management.
You don't even know how much money you have in your bank account right now.
What is your company's current capacity as it relates to financial resources?
How much profit do you make off of your projects?
And, how much does it cost for you to even complete a project, like what are the expenses?
Do you know?
Number seven, you're bidding more projects than you can handle.
So this is lack of capacity, lack of the ability to handle multiple projects at a time.
Like you're bidding them, you may even be winning some, but you can't even manage them
all.
And so that's a big pitfall.
Don't want you to be there.
So let's backtrack, circle back around.
Now we want to get into how you can overcome these pitfalls.
So if you checked off any of these that you may currently have, or you're not sure you
need to check, let's talk about how to overcome these pitfalls.
Are you ready?
Okay, so the first one was you're bidding contracts, and you're not registered.
So here's the thing, whether you're going to do work with your city, county, state,
or federal government, you need to be registered with them in order to bid their contracts
and be awarded a contract.
All right, within your state, city, county, they're going to have their own systems for
which you need to register as a vendor at the federal level, it is the SAM registration.
So you want to make sure you have an active registration with them before you start bidding
contracts they're putting out.
The second thing was you have no codes or lack of NAIC codes.
Now, I believe you want to have all the NAIC codes that apply to what you do.
So most of the time, depending on what you offer, you may have more than one.
So you need to do your research, search those NAIC codes, and see what comes up for what
you do.
Because sometimes one contracting officer may use one code, and another contracting
officer could use a different code because what you do falls under more than one code.
And if you only have one code and they search, and it's not the one that they're thinking
of, then you may miss out on something.
So take the time, do the research, find all the NAIC codes that apply to what you do.
And yes, I'll put the link down below where you can do that search.
Now, the third thing was you're submitting bids before you're ready, which is probably
why you may not be winning any government contracts.
I'm just saying.
One, you need to be registered.
Remember we talked about that.
Whether it's at the federal, state, county, local government sector, you need to be registered
wherever you want to do work.
And then you want to have all the certifications for which you qualify because some of the
bid opportunities may say is set aside for a woman-owned business or is set aside for
a service-disabled veteran-owned business.
So you want to make sure you have all the certifications for which you qualify.
And then when looking at these opportunities, make sure you're able to understand the scope
of work.
That you're able to understand the requirements so that you're not bidding contracts and opportunities
where you don't even meet the basic requirements so there's no way you're going to win that
contract.
So you have to overcome that.
You're going to have to learn how to read the solicitation, break it down, pull out
the requirements and then take that information that they're requesting, put it in that proposal
so that you can submit a proposal that is valid and that will get you to the deal table.
Right.
The fourth thing is experience.
If you're providing a service, you need experience on the type of opportunity that you're bidding.
Plain and simple.
So you can't say, "Oh, I'm going to be on this construction contract."
And you have no construction experience.
Like how does that work?
All right.
A lot of you guys, I see you, you may have a business in the private sector, and now
you want to transition over to government contracting because you see the high dollar
value of these construction contracts, you're like, "Oh, I'm going to do construction."
But you don't have any construction experience, so how will you ever win a contract?
And even if you say, "Okay, I'm going to learn construction."
You do know there's a long lead time to all the things that goes into having a construction
company.
So understand you want to bid the opportunities that you have experience, where you can meet
the requirements.
Because they're going to say sometimes they may say, "Okay, maybe it's, I don't know,
janitorial."
They want to see two years experience, or maybe you do some electrical work.
So they want to see two years, four years of electrical experience, whatever they say,
that's what it is.
And so you want to make sure you have that experience.
Now even if your plan is to win the contract and subcontract out most of the work, you
still need to have some knowledge and some experience in the type of bids that you're
submitting.
Okay.
All right.
Five, teaming relationships.
I always say only do these teaming relationships with companies you know, you like, and you
trust.
And sometimes you can skip the like as long as you know and trust them.
Okay.
Sometimes I believe if it makes dollars, it makes sense.
We don't have to be best buds or anything like that, but if we have a common goal, if
our value systems line up as it relates to business, we can maybe make some things happen.
And I mean, the other stuff is on the up and up.
You get what I'm saying.
Yeah, we want the warm and fuzzy too, but what is most important is you know the company
and you trust them.
Trust is very, very important.
You can like and know them, and if you don't trust them, why would you do business with
them?
Because you don't want to one, be a subcontractor under a company you don't trust, you don't
want to subcontract work out to a company that you don't trust.
Because that means you can't trust them, or you don't know if they're going to actually
do the work.
If they're going to do the work correctly, will they do the work on time?
Will they show up every day?
It's like a bunch of ifs when trust is a factor.
And the other thing is if you're the subcontractor working up under a prime and you don't like
know, trust them, and you have some payment issues, it's not going to feel real good.
So you want to make sure you can at the very least trust them, know that they're going
to stick to the contract, they're going to pay you like they said they were going to
pay you.
Because I've heard the horror stories, if you remember I talked about that in the beginning.
Horror stories of people doing work and not being paid.
I'll let that one sink in for you.
All right.
Number six, money management.
Here's what happens.
We talked about, do you know what your capacity is?
Do you know what your financial resources are?
Well, it all starts with having an accounting system.
You need to be tracking your money some type of way and putting it into a system that you
can do things, calculations that'll do the work for you.
For the most part, you just have to input the information, that's where you want to
be.
Pencil and paper is not where it's at anymore.
Even using a spreadsheet is not where it's at anymore.
Because as your business grows, there will be times where you're going to have to produce
some financials and it's very easy to produce them when you're in an accounting system and
you're doing your bookkeeping on a monthly basis.
Okay.
That will allow you to know, what are your profit margins?
How much are you making off of your projects?
How much are your expenses?
All right.
How much is your expenses to complete a project?
How much is the cost to deliver a product or service?
I'm telling you, if you have an accounting system, it will tell you everything you need
to know about bidding and your business as it relates to money.
All right, the seventh one is multiple projects.
This is your ability to deliver on your promise.
Having workers, having the financial resources, having the time, and if bonding is required,
having the required bonding.
Here's what happens.
Some of you guys you're going to get on a roll, you start bidding contracts, you're
getting a lot of contracts, then you're getting referrals, people are reaching out to you
asking you to do work.
You still have to be mindful of your capacity.
And so you don't want to overextend yourself to where you get behind schedule, or you don't
have the financial resources to complete a project.
So there you have it.
Now you have some of the pitfalls that government contractors face and how to overcome them.
If you want my help on implementing your government contracting goals, say you're already doing
work in the private sector, or maybe you're doing corporate contracts and you want to
transition into government contracting as well, you want to add that as a division of
your current company business, right?
To offer a new stream of income, then definitely reach out.
We can talk about my Government Contractor Accelerator program, we can have conversation
where you can tell me a little bit about you, your business, where you're currently at,
as it relates to your business in the private sector, and then share with me where you would
like to be and then we can figure out what your current gaps are within that and if I
can help you.
And then I can share more about the Government Contractor Accelerated program if it's a good
fit for you, and we could decide if it's a good fit for us to work together.
If that's the case, we can definitely move forward.
So the goal is, if you want my help, I'm going to put the link down below.
It's over at governmentcontractoraccelerator.com and there you'll find out all about the program.
If it's something you'd like to move forward with, have a conversation with me, you can
definitely book a call.
And again, we'll see if it's a good fit, if I can help you and then we'll get you registered
and started and on your way to becoming a government contractor.
All right.
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All right.
Remember, you are just one contract away.
Bye for now.