Government contracting offers a unique marketing opportunity for small business owners across the United States.
Every year, the Federal government buys billions of dollars worth of everything you can think of, from paper clips to 18-wheeler trucks.
But how can a small business owner get a piece of that action?
And what do they need to know to avoid getting burned while they’re still learning the ropes?
In this interview, government contracting expert Elvis Oxley offers his insight into this highly lucrative – but potentially dangerous – path to small business success.
What follows is a computerized transcription of our conversation. Please excuse the typos!
Elvis Oxley 00:00
Nobody ever tells their parents at five years old over the dinner table. Hey, I want to be a government contractor When I grow up,
00:16
And now it’s time once again for the show that gives glorious voice to 25 million business owners across the fruited plain, Radio Free Enterprise with Frank Felker.
Frank Felker 00:34
Hello, hello, hello. Yes, indeed, I am Frank Felker. Welcome back to Radio Free Enterprise.
For regular listeners of the show, you know that I believe that marketing is the single most critical success factor for any business. And many times we’re overlooking the most obvious prospective client there could possibly be that’s right in front of our nose. And what if I were to tell you that there’s a buyer out there that buys $3.9 trillion, a year worth of goods and services, probably millions and millions of dollars of your good or service on probably on a daily basis, but that you haven’t even consider doing business with this customer? For a variety of reasons that we’re going to talk about right now.
Our guest today is Elvis Oxley of GovernmentContracting.net. And Elvis is a consultant who helps business owners do business with the federal government, which can often be a daunting task. But Mr. Oxley is going to share with us today some insights from his many years of experience, on why you should consider getting involved with government contracting, and how you can get started sooner and with less pain than you might imagine, Elvis Oxley Welcome to Radio Free Enterprise.
Elvis Oxley 01:51
Frank, thanks so much for having me and pleased to be on here with your audience today. And let’s see how I can help some fellow small businesses.
Frank Felker 02:00
I’m looking forward to it very much. Now, Elvis, as anyone who has ever tried to sell to the federal government well knows, it ain’t easy. Why would anybody even consider it? Why would you recommend that a business owner give the idea of federal contracting serious consideration?
Elvis Oxley 02:19
Well, Frank, for two reasons. One, you’re looking at about $550 billion annually in spend, that the federal government is looking to do on products and services, you had mentioned 3.9 trillion prior. That’s the total budget on the federal side. But in terms of goods and services, you’re at about 550 billion. If you are, if you are purposely avoiding or if you don’t know how to tackle that market, then you’re missing out on a good chunk of change, potentially. And if you have something that the commercial sector, once a product or service, there’s a really strong chance that a public sector entity, federal, state or local also buys that. Everything from window washing to two syringes to cars, you name it, the federal government buys that. And it’s important not to, to miss out on that potential sale.
Frank Felker 03:31
We’ll give us an example. If you can’t give us, you don’t have to name the company. You know, identify them if you don’t want to, but can you give us one or maybe two examples of a consulting client that you work with there at government contracting dotnet, what they do and how they what they sell to the government and how you help them?
Elvis Oxley 03:52
Sure. One of our favorite client success stories is a company that’s out of Greensboro, North Carolina. They have a software that finds improper payments, that is overpayments or underpayments, fraud, you name it. They came to us several years ago, serendipitously at the same time that the federal government had passed a law called I para the improper payment elimination and Recovery Act. You can’t get any more serendipitous than that. It was the government’s attempt to read all of these Gao reports the oversight agency for the government that had indicated there was over $125 billion per year in improper payments. Wow, coming out of federal agencies, and oh, by the way that God did not bother to answer that survey. So my guess is that it was probably twice that and still is. So we were able to position a company that had a terrific track record. With the fortune 500 and a an excellent, far superior software to government agencies, and placed them in a position of leadership.
When a law is enacted, it takes a long time to get adopted within the federal government, and we were able to help educate agency personnel on how best to adopt this law within their agency and do something about it. I think the other key aspect, and we’ll probably get into this a little bit later, in the end, the broadcast was how to couch that sale. Obviously, the CFOs organization within the agencies was the ultimate buyer. But we created a grassroots strategy, which was pretty effective in that if if our client was able to recoup those funds, by law, they were able to be used on the same year fiscal, same fiscal year projects. So we went to a number of program managers and said, hey, what would you want if you had more budget, and we presented a short laundry list to that CFO organization and said, You’ve got a whole bunch of program managers that are going to be knocking on your door soon, because we told them that we can find more money.
Frank Felker 06:30
That’s a great sales approach. I love that.
Elvis Oxley 06:35
It worked. We were quite affected for them. And, and really, it’s about knowing the landscape, we we knew that the CFOs organization would ultimately buy this because we had the best on the market product, even though we were quote, untested in the government environment. But we were helping educate them the entire time. And it was a good relationship. We did everything right. And we ended up finding well over a million dollars at one particular agency in improper payments,
Frank Felker 07:10
you know, there’s something that you just touched on there as educating your client, and how you capitalized on the serendipitous nature of this new law being passed. And which, of course, it not only means that new tools need to be used, but the people within the agencies have to learn how to be in compliance with that new law. And so you step forward with your client said, Hey, we’re the experts on this, we can help you. And you know, that positioning as educator and advocate, that’s tremendous.
Elvis Oxley 07:38
It’s true. And, you know, I was fortunate enough. Prior to starting my company, 10 years ago, I was on the lobbying side of the equation, and everyone probably cringes when they hear the word lobbyist, but it is, it’s a, it’s an educational role for agency personnel and members of Congress staff, you name it. But having that understanding of how the left side of the equation, if you will, work was tremendously helpful for me, because that type of political intelligence was able to be shared with our clients. They knew what was coming down the pipe, they knew what legislation was going to affect them, affect agencies, we were able to translate exactly how and then lever their products and services to service that need most effectively.
Frank Felker 08:34
So how did that happen? Elvis? How did you go from being in the lobbyists role to creating government contracting dotnet and positioning yourself as a consultant to help companies sell to the federal marketplace?
Elvis Oxley 08:50
Accident pretty much. You know, I, nobody ever tells their parents at five years old over the dinner table, hey, I want to be a government contractor when I grow up. Or at least I haven’t found a kid who’s who said that yet. So my second week of business school, I started my company back in 2006. And I started lobbying for small businesses on their behalf. That’s what I knew how to do having come out of a trade association. And I sat down about six months in with a client of mine. And he said, Do you know what a service-disabled veteran owned small business is? And I said, I have no idea but if we can monetize it, then I want to learn more and figure it out.
Elvis Oxley 09:43
Yeah. And I realized that again, as an executive order from the second Bush administration, that there was a set aside percentage within government buys for service disabled. In fact, it was five percent. And I do math relatively quickly. $550 billion times 5%. That’s a good chunk of change. Yeah. So I went back to my clients, and I said, What is it that you want us to do for us or for you? And they said, lobby, and I said, define lobby, and I said, Well, we want you to sell our stuff to the government. And I said, Oh, you want business development, not lobbying. So rather than change my clients, I changed my business. And in doing so I attended every single Small Business Outreach event that I could from every single agency, I called all of the retired military friends that I could, that were in the procurement world and asked them how this was done. I read the far which is a giant, ever moving book on the rules and regulations of selling things to the government and learn to it the hard way to be honest with you. And in doing so I’ve taken the path of the majority of our clients, who have called us up and said, I’m sort of done doing this the hard way. Can you help us?
Frank Felker 11:10
Yeah, well, and it can be very difficult when with all the people that you’ve worked with, or even people that have not been clients of yours. With your broad experience, what would you say is the biggest mistake that business owners make when they consider the idea of becoming a federal government contractor?
Elvis Oxley 11:30
I think it’s an underestimation of the time and effort that this will take. American Express open does a great job of surveying government contractors every year, and consistently for I think they’ve been doing the seven or eight years, there tally is that on average, it takes between 18 and 21 months to earn your first federal contract. Wow. So that is that’s a wide scope between you know, Joe, Bob’s fruits and nuts shack, never done anything like this before, and just opened their doors yesterday to a retired four star who steps out of their military career, you know, walks into a medium sized missile selling business, and, and is able to use their connections back in the Pentagon in order to sell. So that’s, that’s a full range there of things. But companies bring us on in order to try to minimize that time scope,
Frank Felker 12:40
accelerate the process and start getting the revenue generated. I recall many, many years ago, when I was in the printing business. We were looking to do federal contract. And that was a unique situation, though, because there’s actually a Government Printing Office that was focused specifically on that, but I do recall, it was a very lengthy process. And it was also something where if you don’t know the nomenclature, and you don’t understand how things work, you can feel like you’re sitting there with a dunce cap on pretty easily. I would ask you, you know, if somebody, as you know, has a particular product or service, you mentioned everything from fruits and nuts to missiles and automobiles and thumbtacks. And I imagine everything in between. So it’s kind of hard to narrow down what the what the perfect prospect would be. But if somebody had someday thought the government contracting would be good for them, can you share like three or four tips or shortcuts are just main things that they should consider as they enter into the process?
Elvis Oxley 13:41
Sure, I’d be happy to Frank. But first, let me bring you back to your own personal example. I wish that we would have known one another back.
Frank Felker 13:51
I do to Elvis I can tell you that.
Elvis Oxley 13:54
It’s interesting because a girl that I grew up with back in Ohio, owns a printing business and she reached out to me not too long ago. And she said, you know, can you help? And I said, Absolutely. Because you were a small woman owned business. And she said, so do I have to come to DC, and you know, work with the GPO and, and try all this stuff. I said no, actually, Frank doesn’t know this, but you will now there is no more printing within the GPO. It is an a completely electronic system. And all bids are online. And Joe, Bob’s print shack in lovely Finley Ohio, can bid on everything from White House dinner menus to the entire federal budget. It is a very small business friendly group. And rather than have giant printing presses running around here in DC, they’ve farmed everything out. It’s a It’s a giant vacuous building right now.
Frank Felker 15:02
Wow. Right down there on Capitol Hill, I remember where it was. Exactly, yeah, we had go down there and drop off bids and pick things up and, and the people down there were less than friendly. Well with that, and believe me, no matter what, I’m not going back in the printing business, so I don’t worry about that. But I’m glad you were able to help your friend.
Elvis Oxley 15:24
Fair enough. But on the on the tips to success, I would, I would share these three nuggets. One, think risk mitigation, not winning. And what I mean by that is, as a follow up to, to what I said previously, if you are new to the game, you’ve got to get into a position where someone is less risk averse to buy your product. And
Frank Felker 15:56
wait a minute, I want to just make sure. So we’re speaking now from the perspective of the contracting, purchasing agent on the government side.
Elvis Oxley 16:03
Exactly. And that and the program manager, who will ultimately use this product or service. So you’ve got to get it into their heads that you will pick up the phone at 4am. If something goes wrong, you’ve got to get it into their heads that you’ve done it well enough on the private sector that they can trust you to do to do it in the government world. You’ve got to potentially get yourself a GSA schedule, which is an easy way to say to the government, hey, one other large government agency has vetted us well enough to give us a schedule. They haven’t necessarily bought anything from us. But the risk is off of your shoulders because GSA already vetted our taxes, our business plan, our primary employees, etc., enough to do business with us or to give us the opportunity to do business.
Frank Felker 17:06
So for somebody who doesn’t know what that means, what does it mean to have a GSA schedule or to be on the GSA schedule? I mean, it’s just said that as far as they’ve been vetted, etc., but they may not understand that the word schedule is a noun.
Elvis Oxley 17:19
Sure. The GSA schedule is analogous to the JC Penney catalog is a preset group of products and services that have a known price point to them, and a known set of vendors that are competitive with one another. So as an example, there’s GSA 70, which is by far the biggest schedule out there. And that is all the IoT stuff. That’s products and services. That’s cybersecurity. That’s Dell laptops, that’s, you know, laser beams and everything. So if I’m a government buyer, one of the easier ways for me to do particularly lower dollar buys, is to press a button on GSA eBuy. And say, I want your stuff, thank you for pre negotiating this price. And I’d like it within one week here at this particular location. So that in the inbox at the business owner, an email comes in and says we just ordered $2 million worth of your product.
Frank Felker 18:29
Thank you very much.
Elvis Oxley 18:31
It has happened. And often those types of things happen more in August and September, which is the end of the federal fiscal year when they’ve got to spend their cash.
Frank Felker 18:42
Which brings me to a question. You know, in some ways, I’m reminded as you’re speaking Elvis, that it’s almost like somebody who hit the business lottery of getting a contract from Walmart, you know, to sell socks or something like that. And one minute, you know, they’re selling 100,000 pairs of socks a month, and all at once. Now they need to be able to generate 10 million pairs of socks a month and a half to perform. I would imagine you tell me whether it’s true or not. Do you help in your consulting to help your clients to make sure that they’re prepared to fulfill on the promises that they’re making on the GSA schedule?
Elvis Oxley 19:23
We do and those are the types of management consulting aspects that we bring to the table. Just being prepared. One of the primary aspects of my job is research. And the research is primarily on the government side. What do they buy? Who from whom have they purchased it before? Did they have any preferred set aside groups that they purchased from women owned veteran owned, what have you, but I’ve also got to do a lot of research The client themselves, do they have enough free cash flow to put towards inventory? If they are purchased in an expeditious manner? Do they have warehouses that are stocked up enough to the meat inventory demands? Are they shrewd enough to recognize seasonality with purchases of heavy coats versus rain gear, those types of things? So if again, if they’ve done it well, on the commercial side, chances are they will do it well on the government side. And that’s where we’re here to help to transition.
Frank Felker 20:44
You know, I don’t want you to name a specific figure, but I as I’m listening to you, and I always try to put myself in this seat of our listeners, I can’t help but wonder how do you charge for what you do? Clearly, what you’re talking about is tremendously valuable. And your experience and your insight and your Rolodex and your network of people that you can pick up the phone and call is just invaluable? But how is this a, you know, percentage of sales deal? Is this a flat fee? How do we pay to have the services of government contracting dotnet, help us find our way through this maze,
Elvis Oxley 21:23
we are analogous to bringing on a business development director for a smaller, medium sized business, that’s how we catch ourselves. So if the if a prospect of ours is truly ready to bring on a business development director, that’s us without the cost of health care, without the cost of vacations, etc, or real estate. And that’s, that becomes so we are on a monthly retainer. And we are on a percentage of sales that we bring to the table and are able to capture. So very easy model to digest. And typically our engagements are years, yearlong with our clients. And there’s a two month out clause should either party not want to go further. So again, we are structured to be cognizant of small business needs and ebbs and flows.
Frank Felker 22:25
Well, I appreciate that. And I’m sure your clients do as well. Well, if someone is listening today, and they’re strongly considering the idea of getting involved with government contract, and they’d like some insight from the man himself, what’s the best way for them to connect with you, Elvis?
Elvis Oxley 22:42
Visit government contracting dotnet, easy enough to remember. And there’s a purple button there right in the middle? We’ve got about a 10-point form in there.
Frank Felker 22:56
What does the button say?
Elvis Oxley 22:58
It says, let’s get started. Okay, and press that button, put in some details about your business. And we’ll do about a half an hour’s worth of research and get back to you, in short order with either a yes or no, you really ought not be in this business. Thank you. Thank you for calling. And I’ll be honest, there’s we’ve we get calls quite frequently from folks who really ought to spend some more time on the commercial side, or really ought to develop their product more so that the government would potentially buy it. But if if the market proves out, if there’s enough things to aim at, then we’ll tell you, and we’ll try to figure out a relationship that’s mutually beneficial.
Frank Felker 23:47
Now, clearly, it can be very valuable just to be told, you know, you’re really not ready for this, because that could save you a lot of time and heartache. But are you able to give them some indication of what they should do in order to try to get themselves better prepared to come back to the table?
Elvis Oxley 24:04
Yeah, absolutely. And I’m always happy to share free advice, and I’ll do these types of podcasts. And I’ve spoken to a number of trade associations. I think the number one thing is no to whom you are selling. I’ve had too many conversations with small business owners that have said, Oh, you know, I went to the Small Business Office, and they gave me this lovely PowerPoint about how to do business with the agency. And then they never called me. Well, number one, the Small Business Office actually doesn’t buy anything except for you know, computers and pencils, too. There’s an 8020 rule. Generally in small business offices, there’s 80%, who will hand you the PowerPoint and say Have a lovely day and then there’s 20% that will grab you by the ear and say goodbye. I was looking for you, here’s I’m going to drag you down the hall and introduce you to the program officer that buys this stuff I’ve been looking for you. And, and that’s nice. The program officer is the guy who is buying your product or service, that’s the individual that you need to get to know. And you need to find that individual. And then you need to come well researched. And that’s the point in time where we’re able to front load our clients with the right information. Who did he buy the last set of products from? What was the price point? How often does he buy them? What’s his preferred method of procurement? Does he have any set aside requirements that he hasn’t hit yet, like HUBZone, which we haven’t yet touched on in this conversation? Can we help that that program manager program officer in any way, hit their small business goals, while still meeting the requirements of what it is that he’s buying?
Frank Felker 26:08
You know, it’s interesting to me, and unfortunately, we are out of time. But I often say to people, I, when they asked me, you know, here I am in the DC area, and I’m a marketing guy. They’ll say, Well, what do you know about marketing to the federal government? I’ll say absolutely nothing. But my assumption had always been that it was somehow completely different than commercial marketing. But so many things you’ve said today, strike me that it’s so much light, because I need to get inside the mind of the buyer. What makes him happy, risk mitigation, proof of you know, that we can actually come through somebody else already bought from this company, all kinds of things that make that person’s life better and easier. That’s what we need to do if we’d like them to buy from us.
Elvis Oxley 26:52
That’s right. That’s right. Exactly. Right.
Frank Felker 26:54
Well, Elvis Oxley, I really appreciate you sharing all your wisdom and your time with us today on Radio Free Enterprise. Thank you so much for being here.
Elvis Oxley 27:03
Frank, thank you very much for having me. And I really appreciate it. Good to chat with you and hope that’s been helpful to your listeners.
Frank Felker 27:10
Thanks again to Elvis Oxley. Thank you for listening. Now, here’s what we need to do. You need to go to the iTunes Store and subscribe to Radio Free Enterprise. While you’re there, maybe you can leave me a nice five-star rating, maybe a little review, just saying. After that come on back to Radio Free Enterprise comm and register with the site so that you can stay on top of all the exciting happenings here at our FE HQ. You promised to do that. And I’ll promise to remain your fearless host Frank Felker. Till next time, I’ll see you on the radio.
27:42
We return you know to the leader of the free enterprise system, broadcasting from the capital of capitalism. Here is Frank Felker in Washington, DC.
