How Ron Imbach Helps Small Businesses Secure Lucrative Federal Contracts

[00:00:00] Hector: Hello and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale of Business podcast. My name is Hector Sanon and I am your host today. And we're here with Ron Inba and He's the Executive Director of the International Association of US Government Contractors.

[00:00:12] Hector: And, we're gonna talk about how someone can get paid today and get paid, perhaps handsomely because, he focuses on helping businesses get federal contracts, which I know That, that's kind of like the holy grail for some businesses, right? That's kind of like the series eight funding.

[00:00:26] Hector: It's these big contracts that can make or break some businesses. So anyways, Ron, all that to say thank you for hanging out and

[00:00:31] Ron: spending some time with us. Of course, of course. Glad to be here.

[00:00:33] Hector: I'm curious how someone, I'd imagine that is, a world of experience that comes along with that, but how does someone get into that world?

[00:00:41] Hector: And then I'd love to know how you kind of started to help. Businesses to start doing this as well. Can you give us

[00:00:46] Ron: the backstory a little bit? Yeah, one, I mean, I've been consultant coach for over 35 years. I mean, a long, long, big businesses, small businesses, startups. seasoned businesses, the whole nine yards.

[00:00:59] Ron: But, I had been a coach for just really coaching, all kinds of businesses for probably close to 10 years. And about three and a half years ago, I got together with one of those brainstorming masterminding buddies of mine who had had a lot of success in business. And I had already done a little bit of work with him in federal contracting and we started to brainstorm about what he was doing, what I was doing, a little light bulb went off.

[00:01:24] Ron: And I had a bit of an epiphany that, wouldn't this be a great way to distinguish me as a coach I've suddenly got this way of helping businesses get federal contracts. The most business coaches don't do, they don't touch this. And here I had an expert who had built businesses, including this one to help, small businesses get federal contracts.

[00:01:46] Ron: So we kind of joined forces me thinking, well still kind of do my coaching stuff then I'll do this as well. But it ended up, it just made so much sense to focus on businesses in our top 40 industries. That are in the greatest demand for federal contracts and just really form business together, and that's what we did.

[00:02:07] Ron: I became the executive director of, the number two person with the International Association. We also formed another company. Called the Center for Business Innovation that offers a number of other ways besides federal contracts to help businesses make money, save money on their taxes, have cost savings.

[00:02:26] Ron: We have programs like that. So the goal of both of our programs is to make a lot of money, generate a lot of revenue with federal contracts. Nice steady recession proof way. to have another income stream coming in for a business. But then in addition to that with the other company, save Morbid, put more in your pocket so that it's not just generating revenue, but you're generating higher profits as well.

[00:02:50] Ron: I'm curious, Ron,

[00:02:51] Hector: you mentioned that a lot of business coaches don't have thisin their arsenal. I would imagine that most business owners aren't even considering this as a, form of revenue. and I'm wondering if it's because it is actually. Out of reach for most businesses and something that, only a certain sector or certain size or you know, there are some qualifications that someone should kind of look before they, start putting time into it, or if it's just because they don't know and it's just kind of an ignorance thing that's preventing people from, pursuing this.

[00:03:22] Hector: Is it one of those or is

[00:03:23] Ron: it something else? it is both of those and there's other things as well Here's one of the ways I explain it. In order to do business with the federal government, we've all filled out tax returns. We just did them last month, right? In order to business with the federal government, you gotta go about it and follow their rules.

[00:03:39] Ron: Same way, if you complete a tax return, you may not think, I shouldn't have to claim this is income. I should be able to claim this is an expense that's okay, unless the IRS disagrees. Right. It's the same way with federal contracting. You have to, the phrase we use is show up properly.

[00:03:57] Ron: Showing up properly to be procurement ready for the federal government. Procurement Ready means you can be a primary contractor on a federal government contract procurement ready, and they spend a lot of money every year. Last year, almost 675 billion on procurement contracts. That's a lot of money.

[00:04:20] Ron: Right? That's a lot of zeros on there. So, so what I'm basically, what a lot of businesses don't do, they don't show up properly. They don't do the proper registrations. They don't, they don't have the proper materials. There's something called a capability statement. With the federal government, it's your resume to get federal contracts.

[00:04:40] Ron: If you don't have it set up properly, if you make mistakes in the capability statement, they're not even going to talk to you. They're not even going to listen to you. Okay? Cuz you gotta have that. And a lot of people might say, well, I've done a great job, I've been in business for 20 years.

[00:04:55] Ron: Wonderful. But if you don't have any federal experience and you don't go about it step by step the right way, you're not showing up properly and you're not gonna get federal contracts. Part two of that, which is related to kind of what you said as well, It is a little complicated, and in addition to showing up properly, let's paint it like this, and I use this comparison all the time.

[00:05:17] Ron: Let's picture a house with a bunch of doors. Let's say there are a hundred doors on the house. Each one of those doors represents a different way that you can get federal contracts. All right? now. But all those doors are not open to every business all the time. Okay. Many of them have to do with what are called set asides.

[00:05:37] Ron: The government once to give contracts to certain. For example, a business is located in a hub zone or a certified veteran owned business, or a women owned business. Okay? So types of set asides aren't open to everyone. Okay? If they really wanna give the contract to this week, there are other contracts.

[00:06:00] Ron: That if you don't have experience, you're really wasting your time submitting a bid on those contracts. Okay? So, and what a lot of businesses will do, a lot of businesses will go to a website with a lot of federal contracts and just start, I'm gonna submit 20 contracts this month and another 20 contracts next month with no experience and without knowing the contracting officer, the buyers, the end users.

[00:06:25] Ron: And when they do that, guess what happens? They continue to get turned down. They don't get the contracts. And then those folks who haven't in our, using our phrase, haven't shown up properly. Then what do they do? They go to every business they know or they get on shows like yours or whatever and say, you shouldn't even bother with federal contracts.

[00:06:47] Ron: They're not for small businesses. They're only for big businesses. Don't even give it a shot. And when a lot of people hear that, whether they read it or whether they hear it or whether it's a friend, they go, why am I gonna waste my time trying to get federal contracts? They're only for the big guys.

[00:07:03] Ron: They're only for Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and Northrop Grumman and all those big contracts I hear about on television. Agreed about in the newspaper. That's not the case. The federal government would like to work with small businesses. Unfortunately, small businesses often don't show up properly or they listen to what I'm gonna call federal contracting mis and misinformation.

[00:07:29] Ron: So much of what you said about, I didn't use the word ignorance. We try not to use that cuz some folks will misinterpret that when I say it, but you're absolutely right. Misinformation that's out there that people believe is often the reason they don't get the contracts, that quite frankly the federal government would like to give the majority of their contracts, procurement contracts to small businesses.

[00:07:54] Ron: How about that?

[00:07:56] Hector: Well, yes, and you're, right. I know people get a little weird about the ignorant thing, but I mean, for me, ignorance is just not knowing, it's just, it's what

[00:08:03] Ron: it is. That's the definition. It's

[00:08:05] Hector: just not, and, and I think that with this, you talked about there's a hundred doors, right?

[00:08:10] Hector: So, so without someone like you, How do you know which door to approach or, if you're sitting there and you're trying to unlock it, not knowing that, obviously someone should and go work with you and your association and things like that because that's gonna be the, The quickest and the fastest route.

[00:08:24] Hector: But if someone wanted to start getting their ducks in order or start, start thinking about showing upright, are there some key buckets or pillars or kind of some foundational things that people can start to do? I know you kinda mentioned some stuff. I'm wondering, Even before that, right?

[00:08:39] Hector: or to try and take out the obstacles or objections that people have, how someone might, better prepare themselves to show up. Right? is that even

[00:08:47] Ron: possible? Well, you can, but I will say this, the good thing about when I say show up, right? Or show up properly, you can do that even if you are a startup business.

[00:08:56] Ron: I know I talked about experience, but if you show up properly and something we tell all of our clients, because a lot of folks think they just go to a bid site and just start grabbing bids and submitting bids, and they'll find they'll get after a very short period of time and submitting maybe 20, 30, 40 bids that can average 80 plus pages long.

[00:09:19] Ron: And when they're not getting those, they get kind of frustrated, right? Because you've invested a lot of time and you're not winning anything. Okay, so, Showing up properly is all about relationships as well. Mm-hmm. Okay. You gotta have your ducks in a row. You've gotta have the proper, something called a cage code number.

[00:09:37] Ron: You submit a,a Sam, worksheet and a SAM registration to get a cage code number you get your profile with on the S B A website. Okay, so that people can find you. That's very, very important. Those things are not that complicated to prepare. Don't take a lot of time. Federal government doesn't even charge you.

[00:09:58] Ron: Okay? So there aren't huge barriers to entry, but unfortunately they either don't fill those out, kind of what I've mentioned before. And then the second part of that is they don't build relationships. And that's something a lot of people don't talk about. There are buyers for the US government, federal government and end users are people just like you and me.

[00:10:23] Ron: And the same way you build relationships in business. I build relationships in business and have done it for a long time. you have to build relationships with federal decision makers as well, because I'm just gonna give you an example. If you go on to, sam.gov and pull a, contract off of there and, and submit a bid, maybe it's an 80 page bid, let's just say, and you have no federal experience and you do not, know the contracting officer.

[00:10:55] Ron: Okay? What do you think the odds are that you're gonna get selected for that? Almost. Slim and none. Okay. However, if you don't have any federal experience, but you know the contracting officer, you've gotten to know them, you've become a valued, trusted resource for them. You have knowledge of your industry.

[00:11:17] Ron: They can see your, capability statement. They know what you've done in the past. Even if you don't have federal experience, they're still gonna be a little nervous. But if you have the relationship, they'll give you a test. A test is also known as a sole source contract, okay? Or a no bid contract, which we specialize in.

[00:11:39] Ron: We help people with no bid contracts and with contracts that you bid on. That's what our company does. Okay? So we've kind of got two tracks going there. All right? And you're building relationships you have no chance of getting no bid contracts without relationships. Forget it.

[00:11:55] Ron: Okay, no one's going to give to you. A, federal decision maker is not going to share with you. There are no big contract list that's not publicly, posted any place cuz it's a no bid. There's no competition on those. They're not going to show you that. But then even on the bid side, if they know you, you're much more likely to get considered and get a bid accepted than if you don't know the contractor.

[00:12:21] Ron: So it's all about with us relationships, like it is, quite frankly, it's not like that in business, isn't it? Like that in life isn't not like that. When you see the, pretty girl, when you walk, in the store and you want to talk to her, you go up, you start talking, you start a relationship.

[00:12:37] Ron: Okay. It's all about relationships. And these people with the federal government, they're not monsters, they're not terrible people. They like relationships that want to get to know the businesses that they're gonna work with. Okay? Especially on no bid contracts. They have to get to know, you have to feel comfortable, have to think that you are a valued resource for them.

[00:13:00] Ron: And then they'll give you a shot. Now, if you do a bad shot, if you do a bad job on any federal contract, you might be out of federal contracting for good, especially early on. Gotta always do a good job, get a good rating. But if you do that, there's a very good chance they're gonna give you more contracts.

[00:13:16] Ron: So

[00:13:17] Hector: I'm gonna defer to you to, maybe. Pick the direction for the rest of the conversation because it seems like, from what I'm hearing, that these contracts are more accessible than people realize, and I'm assuming there's a, there's a checklist and you've gotta cross your Ts and dot your i's, and you've got, you've gotta make sure that you do these things, that they are more accessible than people realize.

[00:13:39] Hector: And so I'm wondering if it's. Helpful to start talking about, some more things like bid and no bid to give people a little bit, a bigger lay of the landscape so they can kind of, see where they might be able to fit in. Or if there's more to talk about where, even before that, right?

[00:13:55] Hector: Like if there's more things that they need to, get lined up. But even before this process, I'm,just kind of curious where you think is kind of the next place to kind of go.

[00:14:03] Ron: Well, before anyone even thinks about federal, let's say a typical business has never done any federal contracting, okay?

[00:14:09] Ron: What I always ask businesses, what are you afraid of? What are you concerned? If we happen to go into a deep recession, which we might, we always do, look at history, look at the economy. We're gonna go in a deep recession again, okay? Whether we're in one right now, whether we were in one a few years ago with the pandemic.

[00:14:28] Ron: Whether you consider high inflation, high unemployment, whatever the case may be, we hear this all the time from businesses that inflation scares them. Okay? Inflation scares 'em because it cuts profit margins we hear on a regular basis from businesses. I'm afraid that if we go into a deep recession, I'm not gonna get paid on time.

[00:14:49] Ron: Okay. We hear those kinds of concerns constantly. We hear supply chain issues, okay? That people in construction or in other types of industries are not getting what they need to do, the business they need to do, or things are getting delayed, and when they get delayed off and the prices go up. So once again, cuts profit margin, and if you're in a recession and people are cutting back anyway, you don't want to have your profit margin cut.

[00:15:16] Ron: So if any of those things are frightening you for keeping businesses awake at night, consider federal contracting. Because federal contract, and I'm gonna compare it to, I'm gonna go back to 2008, okay? The last big recession we had, that was technically a bad recession, all right? In 2008, people most of the time were doing the work that, like I was in business in 2008, we were doing the business we wanted to do, but, or, or doing what, a good job at what we did.

[00:15:51] Ron: But quite frankly, We often were, there was a little bit of this uneasiness in the background, okay? Is, is, is this, is this sustainable? Okay, is this, is the economy gonna continue to do well? What happened? And that was like oh 6, 0 7 going into oh eight. Then we got to oh eight and just got blasted, okay?

[00:16:11] Ron: Because people stopped paying, essentially businesses that the revenue started to come down wanted to keep their profits as high as possible. Maybe even maintain, and if, it's, it's simple math. If your revenue's coming down and you wanna keep your profits the same, what? What's the only thing to do?

[00:16:32] Ron: You've gotta cut your cost, right? And if you cut the cost, and for small businesses, small businesses are often working with big businesses, okay? They're a vendor for them. And if big businesses are like, well, we want to keep our profit, so we've decided to delay a certain purchase. This year we've decided not to do this.

[00:16:51] Ron: Or they may even say we're gonna purchase it, but you better sharpen your pencils cause we better get the best deal we can possibly. And what sharpen your pencils mean to a business? Cut your profits cut your profit margin. Okay? So that's what happens in recessions. Even if you've got great Fortune 500 clients.

[00:17:11] Ron: You're still going to get pinched. There's no question about it. And what we tell our clients, the great thing about the federal government is they're the biggest customer anyone can have in the entire world. The US federal government, they spend money all the time on everything, okay? And when, when you're in a recession, they're actually going to pump even more money into a a recessionary economy.

[00:17:40] Ron: So if you are worried about getting paid slowly, If you're worried about, inflation or maybe a, an upcoming recession, if you're worried about supply chain issues, why not have an income source because I never tell any business. Only go straight a hundred percent to federal contracts.

[00:18:01] Ron: Don't do anything else. They decide to do that fine, but that's usually not the case. What I tell 'em is diversify. Once upon a time, I was a financial advisor as well. I used to preach diversification and investments. All the time to my clients. I tell our business clients now, and I tell groups when I speak to them, just diversify.

[00:18:21] Ron: Doesn't mean you've gotta turn everything over and just do federal contracting, but diversify, okay, have this as another income stream that literally could recession proof your business. Because the federal government spends money all the time, but they spend even more in a recession and they would like to help.

[00:18:41] Ron: Small businesses who show up properly, stay in business, cuz business failure rates horrible, horrible. So

[00:18:48] Hector: this is fantastic. we're gonna take a quick break and, and when we get, back, I'm, I'm curious if there's any faux pause or, or I just, uh, I I would love to hear some either huge wins or failures, cuz I think we can learn from both of them.

[00:19:01] Hector: And so, Ron, we're gonna get into that, uh, right when we get back from Greg.

[00:19:09] Hector: Hey y'all, thanks for tuning in today. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media and we are a podcast and content production company. So if you have a mission, a message, a passion, purpose, something that you want to get out to the world but don't have the time, tech skills or the team to be able to do it, we can help.

[00:19:23] Hector: Go to amplify media.com. That's a P L A F Y media.com. You can also check the show notes for the link. And with that, let's get back to today's episode.

[00:19:36] Hector: So Ronna, I'm curious, when you look back on your journey, perhaps one is easier to share than the other, but I'm curious if there's any huge success stories, huge wins, grand slams, or tragic failures that, went down in a ball of flames.

[00:19:49] Hector: but I'm just curious because. we've been talking about how people just are so uninformed about this. I'm wondering if there's anything like that that might open up, continue to open up people's eyes about what's possible or, even just some things to consider when going down this

[00:20:01] Ron: path.

[00:20:01] Ron: Sure, Well, I love to be positive and talk about the big win. So I'll bring that out first, but I probably got a couple of funny stories on the other side as well. Well, not funny, maybe tragic, funny. That kind of funny. Okay. So a big win. We had a, client, oh, it's been a few years ago, but they had a, landscaping, lawn care service business in Florida.

[00:20:23] Ron: Okay. in fact, a lot of our clients were in Florida, cuz my partner was based in Florida for first 13 years that he was in business. Our company's been in business for over 15 now. So anyway, this one client had no idea. That of like the airports in Florida, almost every one of them have a piece under the towers at the airports that is owned by the federal government.

[00:20:48] Ron: I guess the f AA owns it. So anyway, I actually didn't work with this client, but I've heard this story before and the great thing about it was, It just kind of a contract fell into the lap of one of our clients and it was a million, and this, I believe was his first, or maybe his second contract.

[00:21:06] Ron: Now, this is a, don't don't assume this happens with federal contracting. It is not a get rich quick thing. Most of the time, the contracts that our clients get, the first ones are 20, 30, 40, $50,000. Okay? But occasionally something like this happens And I'll give you one more after this as well. but this person landed a million dollar contract and all they did was drive around to these different airports, a lot of little airports that had a small portion of the airport, I think it was under the towers, okay.

[00:21:39] Ron: Where they were open, so there was grass. All they did was mow the grass under the towers. That was federal property and I wanna say the contract maybe was a 2, 3, 4 year contract, but it was easy work. Okay. It could, it's not like it was up and down hills. It was easy work and a million dollar contract just to mow the grass under towers at airports.

[00:22:04] Ron: Okay. Guy said easiest work he's ever done. All right, so that's one good one. We had another painter, and it was again, he hadn't gotten many contracts, but he happened to land a painting job for a military base. Well, you know how many buildings are on typical military bases, and he got. Around a million or 1,000,002 for a contract, just for painting one military base.

[00:22:29] Ron: So He kept four or five teams busy for six, eight months, just painting inside, outside roofs. Post fences, the whole nine yards and it was, and both of those, again, please, any listener out there, don't assume it's get rich quick. It's not. You gotta build relationships.

[00:22:48] Ron: Having said that, though, those things do happen. the other success story is some of your viewers may be aware that the federal government has a user or LoseIt budget, okay?

[00:22:59] Ron: So if at the end of their fiscal year they have not spent all the money in their budget, they lose it. So a way that our clients and other people that have known over the years have made a lot of money in federal contracting. They'll have a federal agency that they get a contract with, and it will be a contract that when they cost it out, they're like, well, I can do that for 75, a hundred thousand.

[00:23:24] Ron: Why are they paying me 125 or 150,000? Now that may sound bad, like it's wasteful, but it's actually that agency. Or that buyer saying, I don't wanna lose my budget for next year. I don't wanna lose 25, 50,000. Cause if they do it on a contract here, it'll be on a contract there. And another one another, pretty soon we're talking, they could lose a million dollars or whatever in their budget.

[00:23:46] Ron: So how that benefits small businesses is, again, you may get a contract that you know that you can fulfill the contract, make a good profit for 75 grand, but you've just been paid 110 grand. So you've got a bonus, $35,000 profit because they had to use, it's not that they were stupid and overpaid you, they just knew they had to use the budget or they were gonna lose it for next year.

[00:24:12] Ron: That's very important. That's what keeps profits pretty high on federal contracts, things like that. And for federal contracts, you don't have to accept every contract that comes along. If it's a dog of a contract and you got a bad profit margin, don't take it. It's okay with the federal government. So, now did I promise you a bad story as well?

[00:24:31] Ron: Do you want to hear one or not?

[00:24:32] Hector: Well, maybe if just to temper people's expectations, and give them, a dose of, all sorts of

[00:24:38] Ron: realities. Oh, no, no, no. I mean, we have clients right today that I try to manage expectations by telling them, by building relationships, don't plan on coming in and making a phone call.

[00:24:49] Ron: And getting someone saying, Eureka, I've just been sitting by the phone waiting for you to call. This is not a Lovesick High School. uh, girl waiting for someone to call them on the phone. Okay? your viewers will probably make comments about that, about me making some kind of comment along those lines.

[00:25:06] Ron: But I'm an old guy, so I still remember those times on the telephone. but anyway, but my point in telling you that is that it takes four to six months. And to get a contract 12 to 16 or more contacts to get a federal contract. So I'd say most people in business would tell you, okay, it usually takes eight to 12.

[00:25:30] Ron: For a typical commercial private sector client, add about another 33% or so contacts you have to have with a federal contact. In order to get that, that contract. I know I've been using contacts and contracts. Hopefully I didn't mess any of those up. But anyway, it takes even more contact to get a federal contract.

[00:25:52] Ron: Okay? So you've got to build the relationships in a number of different ways. Once you get them and they find a reliable, small business that'll do a great job, literally they can give you 2, 3, 5, 10, 20 contract. What we like to tell our clients, if you have. Two to four federal contacts that start on a regular basis giving you contracts.

[00:26:16] Ron: They will keep you busy as much as busy as you want to be. Okay. You don't need a hundred of them giving you contracts. You just need two, three, or four. Cause once they find a reliable, small business, they want to give the contracts to small businesses anyway. So once they find a good one, guess what? Hey, can you do this?

[00:26:35] Ron: Hey, can you, you might even be a landscaper. They might say, I need a roofing job. Do you think you could figure that out for us? You go find a roofing company and you team with them. You're making money and a roofing company's making money as well. Hmm. Okay. So you don't even have to stay in your own industry.

[00:26:51] Ron: You don't even have to stay in your own geographic area. there's lots of ways to make money in federal contracting if you do it the right way. You build good relationships and you do a good job. They want good small businesses

[00:27:02] Hector: to work with. Yeah, I think this whole conversation has been important and really to, the wrong word is to position it right, but really just to open up, people's eyes is this is another avenue, like, any of the other channels for.

[00:27:15] Hector: Generating revenue. Very, very legal avenues are get rich quick schemes, right? this can be approached in the same way to, treat it with the right kind of time and runway and patience and all the things that you would put into a normal acquisition channel. I think it's just something that most businesses are not paying attention to.

[00:27:33] Hector: And in that regard, there's some ability to kind of, win in the margins there. This is fantastic. I know you, this is kind of what you do is you educate people on this and so if people want to go and learn more, I know we gave them a kind of a very high level, maybe surface kind of, overview.

[00:27:48] Hector: If they want to go deeper, can they do that? Is there somewhere they can go and find out more?

[00:27:52] Ron: Absolutely. our two main websites for our company is www.fedprofits.com, F E D P R O F I ts.com. That's our main website for the International Association. We also have another website I mentioned our second company, center for Business Innovation focuses on tax and cost savings.

[00:28:15] Ron: for business clients. Now, in that, situation, with that website that's at www.superchargeprofits.com. Charge C H A R G e, profits, p r O fts.com. And then we do, once you go on there, you'll also see classes we have. Called masterclass. So if you're thinking, would this be a good opportunity for me?

[00:28:41] Ron: Could this be a good fit for me? I'd like to know the numbers, the stats on whether this is a, this would be a good business fit. You could check out one of our masterclass two hour class. Lot of great information if you like that. And you go, I think this would be a good fit for me. Then you can check out one of our workshops where we'll go through exactly what we do in our programs and you can learn.

[00:29:06] Ron: And then quite frankly, the great thing about it is they're all risk free. so if you come to our masterclass and go, ah, federal contracts not for me, we'll give you your money back if you come to our workshop. And you say, ah, I don't like doing it like that. This isn't a good fit.

[00:29:22] Ron: Whatever, we'll give you your money back. we're not in the business of trying to pull clients along as we try to help them get contracts. It's too much heavy lifting for us. It's too much effort. Okay. We want to help businesses that are excited about growing their business. Taking it to another level can see the potential, the opportunity.

[00:29:43] Ron: I'll just give you just one little side note, digress for just, but here's the opportunity in federal contracting, okay? All federal contracts of 150,000 or less are set aside for small businesses. That's over 90% of all procurement contracts. Okay? And only 6.7% are awarded to small businesses. Okay? So if anyone ever asks me when I used to be a coach and not focus on this, is there any potential?

[00:30:14] Ron: Are there clients for me? I'm gonna do market research, I'm gonna do these other things. I'm saying to businesses like that. Well, let's see, over 93%. Of the contracts that the federal government wants to give to small businesses, they end up giving them to large businesses because they don't have enough good small businesses to work with.

[00:30:36] Ron: So if you're a good small business, you show up properly, you build relationships, there's incredible potential. Credible potential with the, we'll do another one just to, prove the point as well, out of the total amount that's set aside for small businesses from a revenue perspective, 25% of the revenue that the federal government would like to give to small businesses in the form of, contracts.

[00:31:04] Ron: only 25% goes to, to small businesses. 75% goes to to big businesses. Okay. So if you can say, and I know we both know this phrase quite well in business. Money left on the table. There are billions and billions of dollars left on the table every year that small businesses could get, and quite frankly, those nasty facts about, business failures and the high percentage of business failures.

[00:31:34] Ron: I, it wouldn't completely change that picture, but it would have a huge impact if small businesses just got what the federal government would like to give them, show up properly, build relationships when you get the contracts. Do a good job.

[00:31:49] Hector: so good. I wanna thank all of you listeners, for sticking with us.

[00:31:52] Hector: Go and, Get tapped into that masterclass. That sounds very, very informative and especially just because of what we've been talking about and that people are so uninformed that I think that it is just could be a, a huge, huge opportunity. if there is someone that you know that is in the midst of growing or scaling their business, please send them this episode and then come connect with Rob and myself on LinkedIn.

[00:32:12] Hector: I know that's where we got connected and otherwise we appreciate as always, for being a part of the tribe. We'll see on the next

[00:32:18] Ron: one later, y'all.