[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Big Ticket Pros, the podcast for agencies, coaches and high end service providers who know what it takes to thrive in competitive markets. I'm your host Anna Gonzalez and you can find me on social media nabotprime. Our guests share insider tips, strategies and sometimes cautionary tales to help you close bigger deals and scale your business faster.
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[email protected] that's getconversions.net Today's guest is Dana Olivo.
Dana is a government contracting specialist, experienced working at the federal and local government levels.
A mentor and instructional speaker, Dana is a four time number one best selling author with Amazon. She also speaks regularly before organizations, community groups and corporate events on government contracting, helping small and medium business leaders create inroads into this lucrative revenue generating market.
So Dana, welcome to Big Ticket Pros.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Oh, thank you Anna. Dana and Anna.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: I love that I didn't think about it.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Yes, yes. No, Definitely no. I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Thank you for coming. So what is the best piece of advice you would give to someone just starting out in your industry?
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Oh goodness.
Well, the best piece of advice I can give to anybody who's thinking about getting into government contracting is patience.
You have to have a lot of patience.
Government contracting requires a deep understanding of compliance and everything else that on the federal level that goes into not only being able to go after government contracts, but showing up properly before the government.
Now on the local side, it's a little bit different. It's a little bit easier to get in, but you still have a lot of loopholes and things like that that you have to go through so that patience and understanding this is a long term process to get into government contracting, then you're better off or your chances of being able to get in is better. If you're trying to get in really quick, it's not going to happen because of the fact government contracting is all about relationships.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: And relationships is what everything is about in business.
You know, there is no get rich quick scheme in business when you think about it, and especially in government contracting.
So patience, due diligence.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Resilience, those are all terms that I would say if you're going to get into government contracting.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: That's, you know, I think that you hit the nail when you say that relationships is everything in business.
And I think that especially in, also in government contracting. I never thought about, about government contracting.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: What.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: I have so many questions right now.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: What.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: What makes government contracting different from traditional B2B or B2C bit ticket sales?
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Well, as I said, it takes a long time, a long lead sales lead time to get into government contracting, especially on the federal side.
So, and with the relationships, a lot of times that has to start a good, you know, months or years ahead because government contracting involves the government putting out a request, but the government doesn't do anything.
So when the government puts out a request, they're putting out a request to what we call primes. And those prime contractors are the ones who are fulfilling the need for the government as small and medium business owners. We come in under those primes as subcontractors and contractors.
All right, so in order to do that, you have to develop the relationships not only with the government agencies, but with the primes.
It's a push pull effect as far as marketing is concerned and the relationship development.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: What would be the best advice you can give to someone who's trying to get in as a medium business owner or as a small business owner owner to come as contractor? Like how, how can somebody start that relationship?
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Well, first of all, experience. Get, getting the experience or the knowledge base. You know, me, I've been doing it for 40 years. I've been working within the government arena, both on the local and the federal side for over 40 years. And so therefore, that's why I work with small and medium businesses, because I understand this industry, I understand the, the roadblocks that you will move into, you know, and so for me, my best way of working within this industry is building a rapport with potential prospects, with, with potential clients, et cetera, by showing them I know what I'm talking about, you know, building that credibility aspect so that when they start thinking about, okay, okay, I'm ready to get into government contracting, but I need help. I need a mentor or a coach. They're going to come to me because I've already shown that I understand and know the industry and have the best knowledge base in order to do this.
I just did a presentation on.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Last week, I think it was, and it was called Breaking Barriers. And basically we just, I just talked about the industry and the hurdles and stuff like that.
But what happened is out of that one presentation, I ended up with a good eight Leads for people who wanted to talk more with me. That's how I build my sales pipeline, is by building that credibility, giving them the information that they need up ahead and then let them decide, okay, I want to work with this person. I know them. I like them. They've shown me that they know this industry. And. And so I'll move into a mentor coach position with them.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: You build very well the know, like a trust factor.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Oh, I do.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: I'm not a hard salesperson. I am more about, okay, I want to get to. And that's what relationships are all about. I want to get to know you first because I can't go in there and sell you on your business. You are the one who's going to sell your business. So you know deep down what it takes. I can just give you the tools. I can show you how you can take what your knowledge base is and build your sales pipeline that way.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Love that. So, Dana, what are the biggest misconceptions about government contracting in big ticket sales?
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Well, the biggest misconceptions is, first of all, you're too small to work with the government. Okay. That's one of the biggest ones.
And the reason being is.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: I say this is because the government wants to work with small and medium businesses. They have billions of dollars set aside on the federal side.
All right. For small businesses, Small set business set asides 8 a, you know, different contracting vehicles for small and medium businesses. The problem falls where small businesses think that they can't go in and work with the federal government, so they don't even show up. Well, when they don't show up, big business comes in and takes those dollars.
So that's what I'm trying to do, is to try to educate small and medium businesses on how they can go ahead and take advantage of these billions of dollars that are on the table that we're letting go to the larger corporations.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Wow, that's super interesting. I never thought about it like that.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: What advice would you give to a business owner who wants to start.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Having some. Some big government contracts?
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Well, the first thing I would say is call me.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Reach out to me. But no, you know, the appointment I just had this afternoon that we were talking about, I told him, I said first, first step in the whole process, because he's just getting into it, is we need to develop a strategy.
So let's look at what are your end goals, and let's put a strategy together for the next 12 months and start introducing you into the local and federal markets.
Get all the the all the tools and everything that you need to show up properly, you know, insurances, certifications, everything that needs to be done. And then let's start going after some of these projects and some of that may be building the relationships with, you know, your primes. If it's a, a firm like Lockheed Martin or Raytheon or something like that, or if it's a construction firm such as Turner Construction or Skanska or some of your larger CM at risk companies or even engineering companies, you know, you know, the ones that are the primes working with the government that are going to be hiring you, meaning a small and medium business, as a support team to go after these projects and finish them.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: So definitely the first stage is developing a strategy and then holding to that strategy.
And then secondly, you get out there and you start selling, you start building those relationships with the agencies, with the primes, with the subcontractors, with the associations, the different professional associations, etc.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Love it. Find, Find a North Star and hold on to.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: But more than anything, I would say you want to have somebody who's going to hold you accountable because it is, it is not an easy road to follow.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: There are a lot of regulations and everything that are critical, especially on the federal side, that you need to be familiar with or understanding that they guide the projects at the. Remember, they're dealing with our tax dollars. They have to be held accountable as well.
But those, what we call them, FAR guidelines, you know, there's two of them that are probably the most critical which are HR and the finance side, accounting, bookkeeping and keeping track of those. What I tell my clients is don't mess with trying to learn all the FAR guidelines. Hire it out to a third party, somebody who understands the government's FAR regulations and let them handle it for that project.
You don't need to be worrying about this. You need to just be making sure that your quality control, you're doing what was agreed upon and your team is fulfilling the requirements.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: Yes, yes. If I have a toothache I will just go need to go to the dentist. Not watching two videos about how to fix it, right?
[00:12:16] Speaker B: No, definitely, definitely.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: So, so, yeah. And so then. And tell us about who you serve and how people can reach out to you.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: They can reach out to me via email at Dana D A N N a dot O L I V as in Victor O at Market Atomy M A R K E T a t o m-y.com or they can text me because my phone gets so much spam that if I don't have you programmed in my phone. It doesn't go through.
So you can text me at 407-40-56410.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: And just let me know that you would see me with Anna on her podcast and I will reach back out to you.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Great. So we're going to wrap it up here. Thank you, Dana for Dana for joining us in sharing some wisdom about thriving in a competitive industry. Yeah, you can learn more about what Dana does by visiting no, by sending her an email to dana.olivoarkidatomy.com yes and or send her a text at 407-405-6641 10 no 10 yes, that's 6410 yes.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: And I do have a gift for any listeners who are listening. I have a digital package that I can send that includes all kinds of tools for you. If you're planning on going into government contracting as well as research reports that I have done, you just send me that email and I'll send it off to you.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Awesome. Go send her that email. Ask for your package.
If you are an agency, coach, professional services provider, or otherwise sell expensive stuff, we'd love to have you on a future episode. You can
[email protected] and once again, if you want to learn about the new way we're booking dozens of qualified calls per week with no ad spend, download our free blueprint@conversational funnels.com that's all for now. Go get that big ticket punched. See you later.
