GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST ERIC COFFIE

Eric Coffie: 00:00:00 Episode 33

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:00:01 We don't have all of the resources and we shouldn't try to be an IBM or Lockheed Martin. What we need to do is learn to team with each other. Learn to value each other's resources and then fulfill that agency's mission as a team and that's the powerhouse of small business.

Speaker 3: 00:00:21 Welcome to the Govcon Giants podcast, federal contracting for people on the outside looking in. If you are here to learn how to win a piece of the pie without getting your face smashed in, then you've tuned into the right place. Now the giant that not only walks the walk but talks the talk, your host Eric Coffie.

Eric Coffie: 00:00:40 What's interesting is I do not know a single person that's been in more publications discussing, advocating, preaching, he government contracting message more than Lourdes Martin-Rosa. As a government contracting advisor, she's been featured in over 790 media publications including Fox news, MSNBC, CNN money, the Washington post, the New York times host a monthly blog on Govwin and Money Inc magazine. She is the president and founder of Government Business Solutions, agraduate of the 8a program. Chairperson of the LEAD program and former adviser on government contracting for American express in 2012 is serve as a small business programs expert guiding the white house small business task force towards increasing awareness and outreach to small businesses across America. From 2009 to 2019 she spearheaded the development of the American Express Open for government contracting and grow global programs. She also served as WIPPS National partner where she promoted advocacy among women owned businesses through the Small Business Administration, American Express and WIPPS ChallangeHer a cosponsor program.

Eric Coffie: 00:01:54 Those combined efforts connected over at 150,000 small businesses resulting in more than $8.3 Billion in contract awards. Her small business advocacy efforts were recognized in 2016 when Lourdes received an award of excellence from the White House Senior Advisor to the President, Valerie Jarrett and the SBA Administrator Maria Contresa Sweet. The remarkable part of this story is I remember reading about the American

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Express Open program. I remember WIPP, but I never knew who was behind it all. And today we get to hear directly from the source of how that partnership formed and the incredible story and journey that ensued. As a result. We'd like to welcome to the stage, our next Govcon Giant Lourdes Martin-Rosa.

Eric Coffie : 00:02:38 Govcon Giants, you are listening to a conversation between myself and Lourdes Martin-Rosa,of Government Business Solutions. Lourdes welcome.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa : 00:02:48 Thank you. Thank you. It's my pleasure and I am very happy to be on this podcast with you.

Eric Coffie: 00:02:54 Thank you. Thank you. No, we're happy to have you. It's interesting because again, I started my federal journey back in 2007 and a lot of things that you built and created and worked on, I mean, I saw them from afar, right. And now to get a chance to actually have the person who was behind that you know, pushing the whole movement is a definitely an honor and a privilege. So thank you today for being here.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:03:20 Thank you.

Eric Coffie: 00:03:21 Thank you. And thanks Patricia for connecting us together.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa : 00:03:25 Oh, Patricia was,

Eric Coffie: 00:03:27 She was part of it.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa : 00:03:29 So he was part of the movement and a very, very strong marketer and believer in the word no. That just means getting closer to the yes. Okay.

Eric Coffie: 00:03:43 No,

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:03:43 But you have to do.

Eric Coffie: 00:03:45 Yeah, no, that's great. That's great. So you know, I was reading about you and we were kind of talking offline a little bit. It says you've been featured over 790 media publications, including

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Fox, MSNBC, CNN, Washington Post, the New York times. Is that accurate?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:04:02 That is actually, it's about 793 right now. Wow. I had, the pleasure of actually speaking and I started my business in 2003 and previously to that I used to work with the United States Chamber of Commerce. How I got tapped into this industry was they wanted to connect with Hispanic businesses as they were growing really fast at that time and wanted to make them aware of the benefits and the growth opportunities they could have in government contracting. Okay. So I did that program for about two years, traveled around the United States educating and many Hispanic businesses. And joining different Hispanic organizations to be able to speak and make them all aware about this and of course, and engage them as a us chambers of commerce members. But then many of the businesses kept reaching back out to me and saying, well, you know, can you support me with the different SBA programs?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa : 00:05:05 This is, you know, very difficult for me to understand cause a totally different language. Can you help me? So I started helping them as a consultant on the side, which then became a consulting business in 2003 and that's where Government Business Solutions was born. And the nice thing is, is that I helped so many businesses beforehand that they now then became my clients and started helping hand holding them and helping them engage in government contracting. Never represented anyone without of the business owner by my side because I always believed I did not want to be the labeled sales rep or marketing rep for them. I just wanted to connect them, guide them, and help and opening the door for them to be able to move forward. Okay. Patricia Bonilla from Lunacon was one of them. I met Patricia while I think back in 2006, 2007.

Eric Coffie : 00:06:09 Okay.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:06:10 And she was a single mom with three children working out of her garage. She knew that her business was going to be successful because she had a passion in the construction industry and then in the design build industry of helping organizations and now helping government agencies achieve the requirements that they need. So, I basically said you qualify

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for a government contracting business development program. That's called 8a, the number eight and letter a. This is just one of SBAs business development program. And I think one of the most advantageous. Is a small disadvantaged business certification. Minorities qualify. Women in several distress industries qualify, Anglo women and also even Anglo men may qualify that are in non American society working areas. So it's not an all minority certification program, but it is one that Patricia qualified for. I helped her achieve her certification and then she was okay, Lourdes where are we going to go?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:07:29 I need to meet people. I need to go. I go, no, slow down. There's thousands and thousands of government agencies out there. There's $500 billion that they spend annually. About $100 billion of that goes to small business. Let's start now creating a capture plan. Let's start identifying those top five agencies for you to go after. And then let's create a marketing plan and let's go after the business. Well, we did that a couple of visits to DC and here she was, she got her first contract with USDA and it was Department of Agriculture and it was a small contract, but then you know how it is you build that relationship with those program managers and contracting officers and that one became another one and became another one. And then here she is a very nice, you know firm with about 60 employees today and doing very, very well in the federal industry.

Eric Coffie : 00:08:31 Yes, yes, yes. Actually her episode releases tomorrow.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:08:35 Oh, great. Great. Great. Yes. All right. I'm very excited to hear that. Yes, yes. You know, one of the things that I always tell people is during trying times, sometimes the best come out of people, and during this whole time that Patricia, I was helping Patricia in Washington DC I kept seeing so many women organizations, the US Women's Chamber of Commerce, Women in Impacting Public Policy, NAWBO which is National Association of Women Business Owners. And then WBENC the largest, which is Women Business Enterprise National Council. They were all gung ho on trying to get the government to pass something that should have been passed in the late 90's, but was overlooked during the Bush administration. And only, I guess just because Bush had his hands full because of 911.

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Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:09:35 But what happened was there should have been a woman's procurement program. There was not, when you look at the way that the federal government awards contracts to small businesses, they're supposed to slice the pie first. Small business with 8a of those are your small disadvantaged businesses. Women owned small businesses get 5% , 8a's get 5%. Service disabled veterans get 3% and then your business is located in HUBZone areas. Historically Underutilized Business zone areas get 3%. But the women owned procurement program had not been a program at all. It was just a goal. So all of these women organizations that I mentioned were advocating. So I said, you know what, I'm going to jump the bandwagon. I'm a woman and I also have two daughters and I don't want my daughters to have to go through the difficult times that we're having to go through because we didn't have a set aside program at all.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:10:40 So I happened to be speaking in 2008 at an SBA event in Miami, Florida where Small Business Administration asked me to speak. And it was a gentleman in the audience and he worked for American Express, a credit card company, right? He came up to me he was there in their PR department and said we'd like to talk to you about developing a program for American Express to help card members. And I'm like, why does American express what I do is it's a little weird. But anyway week later they flew me to New York, sat in a huge board room with all of these people that I now had to explain why the federal government has a mandate of 23% must go to small business. And they were, but why? But why is there a mandate? But why? And I said, well, because it is a federal government's responsibility to help the backbone of America, which is small business, which is the economic engine of America.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:11:44 So I was explaining to them all the different parameters. And then of course, it dawned on me what happened in 2008, 2007, 2008, 2009, the decline of the financial industry.

Eric Coffie: 00:11:55 Yes.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:11:56 So you had a lot of financial institutions that were having to restructure restream their way of trying to capture that ideal card number. So we then created a program that was called

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Victory In Procurement together with American Express. We launched our first conference in 2009. It was at the the Hyatt Regency in New York and Manhattan. And we had over 500 small businesses there. You had government officials from Department of Interior. I remember the SBA and Susan SABIC, which was the president of American Express Open. And myself, and I will tell you, it was a privilege that now I was speaking with as advisor of government contracting. I'm still running my own business. This was just one of my contracts. But you know, to have the opportunity to have a giant brand like American Express. Now as a backing, obviously it's not little Lourdes Martin-Rosa out here.

Eric Coffie : 00:13:03 Right, right, right, right.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:13:05 So I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and each time I spoke and each time I was in front of any media syndication to talk about the importance of the awareness of the woman's procurement program. So then join forces with Women Impacting Public Policy 2009 and helped create and shape a program that was called, GiveMe5, which was, gives me my 5% and spoke all around the nation trying to educate women on the importance of talking to their congressional leaders under senators about trying to push the woman's procurement program. And in 2011, thank God President Obama then made it into a law and the woman's procurement program was born. So I'll never forget the date. It was February 4th, 2011 and he basically charged the SBA with a couple of months of getting their act together and creating this program and they created it and launched it April 1st of 2011.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:14:22 I don't know if it was kind of funny that it was April Fool's day, but I was super excited and happy. Huh. And it, you know, started with a little bit of an embarrassment because they started a women's procurement program with caps. Women could not receive a set aside program greater than 3.5 million. And I said, wait a second, there are women business owners like Patricia that owned construction companies I had that is greater than $3.5 million value of a contract. Right. You know, what is this? So we had to advocate again and go to Congress and fight for our rights to be able to get larger contracts. And then it was, it was passed again in may of 2013 they passed and they lifted

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the the caps for the women's procurement program. And by this time I had already established a great rapport with many contracting officials, many small business advocates within the federal government. And I remembered his name, Kevin Boshears, which was the director of Small Business office for Department of Homeland Security. And he told me, Lord, as soon as they left the small business, a cap on women contracts, I will be the agency that puts out the largest contracts set aside for women.

Eric Coffie: 00:15:48 Oh, nice. Nice.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:15:50 And that he did, it was a $22 million contract for security training exercises for TSA and it was awarded to two women, two women business owners. So it was nice that I had the opportunity to have a giant brand behind me and that really pushed the needle further than Lourdes Martin-Rosa. That was Government Business Solution. So I was very, very excited to have that opportunity and make a little bit of history for the younger women and my daughters and for all the other younger women business owners that come down the way to make it easier for them to do business with the federal government.

Eric Coffie: 00:16:33 Wow. That sounds like a, that was a journey.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:16:38 Yeah, it was a journey and it was, I can't tell you it was, it was fun, but it was a little bit teary eyed sometimes when you would get some political leaders that would say, why should we allow women business owners to have a set aside program when most women are beauty parlor owners and dry, clean owners. And I literally, in a big meeting, I just turned around in a room with 200 women and I say, well, any of those categories or industries, please stand up. And not one of them stood up. They were owners of IT firms. Staffing companies, construction firms, engineering, roofing, none of them were in those industries. So it's just with a misconception I think. I think they just didn't really get it. They didn't, hadn't really studied the industry that women had ownership today. So I don't blame them. I just think it was just a lack of knowledge

Eric Coffie: 00:17:38 We've had on the show. Probably, more than half of our persons from the SBA award winners have been women.

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Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:17:49 Yeah.

Eric Coffie: 00:17:49 We've had on our show. And we continue to have more and more women on the show. And yeah, and I, and I can appreciate you. Cause I'm the same way when you said that you think it's a lack of understanding because some, some probably some really easy research would have shown different evidence right. Then they just assuming that people were beauty parlor owners. But nevertheless, that's, that's still that's still an incredible store and incredible journey. Now you also, in 2012, you served as Small Business Programs Expert with the White House, Small Business Task Force. Can you tell us about that?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:18:31 That was exciting actually. The SBA government contracting my administrator, his name was John Shoraka at the time, he saw me speaking and he said, Lourdes, I think you need to join. President Obama, small business task force can show I wasn't very impressed. I would love to. So I had the opportunity to speak with Michael Blake, which was leading the efforts for the Obama small business task force. Spoke to them about the different certification programs in the main street way. Cause now I was, I obtained my 8a certification in 2010 and was also actively seeking government contracts. I knew that the women's procurement program was going to come down the pipe. So I said I also as the human capital training company that I was performing as well, that was what was pretty much paying the bills.

Eric Coffie: 00:19:36 Yeah, I was going to ask about that

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:19:38 Because a lot of the advocating is done, you know, for free.

Eric Coffie: 00:19:41 Yeah, definitely.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:19:42 I'll have to keep the lights on. It was a staffing company and human capital and training. And also providing event planning to the federal government. So I obtained my 8a certification in 2010 so then firsthand in 2012, I got to speak to Michael Blake and his task force about the importance of these programs, how it's making a difference to small business and then how we should perfect and perhaps train our acquisition workforce within the federal government a little bit better because a lot of

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them didn't really know that the programs existed. I think their contracting officers, they're trained on the federal acquisition rules and regulations, but small business is just a one day course to

Eric Coffie: 00:20:29 It is. Yeah, that's,

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:20:32 You know, it's not, they have so many things on their plate that it, although it is a priority because they do have to set aside contracts, a small business, they have to make sure that all the T's are crossed and all the I's are dotted and that everything abides by the federal acquisition roles, you know, which is the Bible of government contracting. And they, they do have a big task. So we educated them and then kind of gave them main street ways of how we feel the program should be strengthened. There's always room for improvement. Right. And it was a joy. I got to work with them for a couple of months. I got to also work with BB Hildago which used to run housing and Urban Development at the time. And then she came over to the small business task force and then I asked them to join me on the speaker circuit for all of the events that we were hosting for American express victory and procurement and had them as keynote speakers because I wanted everyone to see that this administration was very adamant about increasing small business contracting opportunities, which I could tell you what definitely one.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:21:48 And there were some, some, some nuggets of the previous demonstrations put together, but he took those nuggets and really put them to work.

Eric Coffie: 00:21:55 Let me ask you this, cause I remember I was, I was part of, I was in that same timeframe doing government contracts. Is it at the first time where they started actually doing the reporting for the agencies? The scorecards?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:22:07 Yeah. Well this, they've, the scorecards always been there, but it wasn't as transparent. We would actually get a score card today is 2019 we would be receiving a scorecard now for 2017. I mean that's how behind it was. But the nice thing was is they created a website that high load and it was called small business.data.gov it allowed transparency so that we could see

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on the active to the day how agencies were performing on their small business and socioeconomic goals. So in other words, you could see that DOD , which is the giant gorilla in the room, the bulk of the bulk of the contracts was doing about 20% small business. Yes, they could do a little better, but they're trying and so forth. And that website was shut down last year. So that was a huge disappointment. And I even talked to several congressional folks and on the house, small business committee and on the Senate small business committee and they didn't even know it was shut down.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:23:20 The reason why it was shut down, Eric, it was because the funding, you know, laxed, it was a previous administration and then this administration didn't fund it. That's it. It was just shut down. So now we're at the mercy of waiting here until the SBA does the report. But the nice thing is, is that this administration did keep this, the top seven agencies reporting to directly to the White House small business task force on a monthly basis. So that does continue. Okay. So the top seven agencies do continue to report and there still is ammunition out there and there still are programs that are keeping us strong and they are revamping the 8a certification program, women on program and hub zone program right now to make it even stronger. Is that what they're doing with Drive 8a day? That's tribe a is for, for tribal, you know, you're Alaska Native and your Native American, they are trying to cap it a little bit.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:24:27 I don't know if you know that they have unlimited sole source. It was cast, it was capped at 20 million. Right. during the previous administration, there have been a couple of lips and a couple of of exceptions. So I think DOD has lifted themselves from that. I'm not so sure, but I always say don't let these things and don't let category management, don't let those ugly words best in class behoove you from trying to get business with the federal government. I grew my firm and the federal government when the women's procurement program was not in place. I started my first contract with the federal government in 2011 January of 2011 as an 8a firm and then got my first woman set-aside contract in 2014.

Eric Coffie: 00:25:21 Wow. Congratulations.

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Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:25:23 Thank you. Thank you. I really pushed myself to take advantage of the nine years that I had in the 8a program and I landed about $10.7 million in Salesforce contracts during that time and I was very, very I had a great team working with me and they were very strong on keeping me focused to out what I love to do, which is advocate and educate and actually consult businesses. What keeps the lights on, which is now our human capital services, our exercise training services and our event planning. That was the core of what my business was. And the nice thing, what does American Express in 2013 asked us to run their events and their to do events all across America. So here we were in 2013 all the way to 2018, I had the opportunity to visit 44 States and educate many small business owners of all types and shapes and sizes and industries and so forth on the importance of growing their business in the federal sector. I was thrown in front of Fox Business news and CNN Money MSNBC and always, always tried to help small businesses understand that look, you're speaking to someone that is doing it. You're speaking to a small business that is a walk, the walk, talk, the talk person. I'm not talking to you is just a consultant that never, ever held a government contract. I am an active government contractor myself. So I always say if this Cuban immigrant from Miami to do it, you guys could do it.

Eric Coffie: 00:27:12 I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:27:17 So you know, it was always, and I had, you know, the joy and, and thank God that God actually blessed me with a brand of American Express because without the giant brand of American Express, I wouldn't have been heard. So an American express is very, very well by it. The program was still alive today and you know, I I am so happy to still continue to be part of it.

Eric Coffie: 00:27:45 Wow. Wow. Something that you said earlier regarding when you first started working with Patricia and you took her to Washington, I've heard that from a couple of people. So you know, for people starting out, is that something that you recommend that they do is visit Washington or what should they start?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:28:07 I do. You know, Eric, 82% of the contracts are signed and awarded at a DC area. So, you know, they call beltway, which is

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Virginia, Maryland and DC. So you are going to have to at one time get on a plane and go to Washington, DC if you want to really expand and grow. And also agencies have a significant want to engage with firms outside of the belt, the belt way area. Because imagine they keep getting the same people knocking on the door over and over and over again. So when they see someone from Florida or they see someone from Texas, they're like, Whoa, this is great innovation. They bring in best practices from other States that I could incorporate in my agency. So some people don't think of it that way. They're like, Oh, they're never going to choose me. I don't have an office in DC don't know, don't they want to work with you? They're seeking to work with you. And I literally, you know, Patricia was a little bit hesitant in the beginning and I remember the first event I took her to and I knew that Margo Dorfman with the U S with the US Chamber, a Women's Chamber of Commerce, put on some great events and she had about 30 contracting officials there. And this one specifically was geared towards engineering and construction. And I helped Patricia prepare herself for that event. She was a little bit nervous and to how do I talk to these people?

Eric Coffie: 00:29:38 Wait a second. Not the same Patricia we know.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:29:42 Oh yeah, that was back then. Okay. Literally her hands sat down with her and said, just tell them what you do and how you could help them to fill on their mission and goals, you know, study each agency's mission and goals before you go in. If you're selling medical supplies, you know, you're not going to sit down with the Army Corps of engineers because that's not what they purchase.

Eric Coffie: 00:30:08 Right, right, right, right. Definitely.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:30:10 So you have to do a little bit of homework. You have to understand the agency's mission and goals and always stay on that track. Homeland Security is a great agency to always work with, cause I always say no political person wants to be the one to cut the budget to save the Homeland. So things that it's always a good agency to work with there. They're trying to be innovative. Cybersecurity is huge right now.

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Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:30:38 Anyone in cyber, I encourage them to go try to work on any type of [inaudible] on track with Homeland security. And introduce themselves, but you have to understand the way the government works. They have small business specialists in each and every agency, so these are our small advocates. These are our arsenals within each one of the agencies, so Homeland Security lifts, take them phone lines carry. Now if you slice it a little further, they have TSA, Custom and border Protection, ICE immigration, customs enforcement and so forth and so on, and they have a group of small business specialists in different categories. One would be for women owned businesses, hubzone owned businesses, veteran owned businesses, 8a and so forth. Depending on your designation, you should speak with one of those. Then that's at the high level for Homeland security. Bring it down to, I saw an opportunity and Custom and Border Protection that I think is right for me.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:31:37 Now they'll introduce you to that. Small business Specialists within Customer and Border Protection. Those all business specialists are advocates. All they do all day long is trying to find small businesses to fulfill on the agency's contracts, mission and goals. These are the people you want to talk to. They have a very tough, because they're always fighting with the big guy and the big boys and you know, I'm not letting the small businesses in. So they are always constantly in communication with contracting officers, trying to make sure that they remember small business, Hey, can a small business to this contract, is this available for a small business? So when Patricia and I went, she met with many small business specialists during that time. Okay. And once she left that first one and she met with about 30 or 40 folks, she would say, Oh, this isn't as difficult as I thought.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:32:35 This is not, you know, I, I feel so confident. I feel so. And she noticed that there were other people in the room that were just like her. Right now everyone is a small business that was at this event. We all know, started networking, speaking and engaging, learning about different CRMs that each one of us are using to help us all stay connected. You know, what are you're using for accounting? What are you using for this? And that networking at events like these is extremely powerful because it's nice to see that how other small businesses and those that are advocates, you know allies in your same industry, right? Patricia

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got to meet a couple of great companies. You know, Amber peoples meeting one with Athena construction. She has her office in Maryland and Patricia to this day still have teams with her. So it's, it's a nice way for businesses.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:33:31 We don't have all of the resources and we shouldn't try to be an IBM or Lockheed Martin. What we need to do is learn to team with each other, learn to value each other's resources and what, and then fulfill that agency's mission as a team. And that's the powerhouse of small business. When you work with other small businesses that have similar resources in your industry and way as a woman owned small business company or just an 8a or a Veterna or whatever it may be, but you have two or three teaming partners that have the same expertise or even greater than your larger counterparts. So I always encourage small businesses to team

Eric Coffie: 00:34:15 That's actually it, you know, people ask about that question. But before we, before we touch on that, you talked about the different events in Washington. How with someone from Florida or California, how would they choose the events in which to attend?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:34:32 Would say all of the events that the federal government puts on are free, right? As a small business with limited limited means when you're first starting out, you want to be able to attend those free events because it could get a little crazy. You could go to some of them that costs you as much as $1,500 to attend. So I would say go to the websites called fbo.gov Federal Bbusiness Opportunities website and all the way on the right hand, lower right hand side, it will say small business events. And you click there and there are events that are focused either for those socioeconomic category or for industry. So, for example we held an event because now as event planners, we host many of these events within the federal agencies and they've asked us to host them for them since they saw that we ran many of the American Expresses events and conferences.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:35:31 So I myself got a lot of contracts with the federal agencies, and it's funny, but you know, we have been in situations where an agency will tell us it is August, I have $62 million and I need to award the mall business, or I won't meet my goal. And they

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come to me and say, Lourdes, let's host some events targeted for firms, let's say an it staffing, architectural engineering, you know, those categories. And let's host an event. And within a month we put the event together on for them. We posted on FBO and we limited, let's say 50 firms. Those first 50 firms I get in there, guess what? They have a pretty good chance of winning a contract. And those opportunities are found on fbo.gov in the small business events sections and the lower right hand corner, it'll look just like a contract. It'll say, for example, USDA or you know, United States agency for International Development.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:36:31 We held a conference for them in may and they posted that conference and say, please register. Those events are usually sold out within a day or two because obviously it's unlimited and it's onsite, usually at the agency location and depending on the side. But those are very, very good events to go to. And then I would say book your flight, try to get a couple of meetings. And one thing that we don't do, Eric, that a lot of large corporations are champions in is go visit your congressional or Senator leader when you're there, let them know what you're doing. If you grow in their constituent area, they look good. So let them know the difficulties or the barriers or perhaps your successes. Don't just go to them for small, you know, with with bad news and let them know what you're doing. In many cases, you know, they may say, Oh, that event over there, I'd like to maybe join you and go see how they do this. Now, you know, who writes the budget and who approves the money is the political.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:37:47 Having them on your side is very, very good. So I always try to engage them and just say, you know, I'm going to the cybersecurity events. I know that you're trying to champion a small business, cyber security bill. You know, this may be of interest to you and just send them the link and just say, by the way, I'm going to be in the DC area. Just stop by and say hello. You may hit to speak with them. You may get to speak with someone that's leading the effort for them, but all in all, it's always good to stop by and say hello.

Eric Coffie: 00:38:21 That was that's a really great nugget. I was trying to take notes as you were speaking. That's a really great nugget. I, I hope that

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everyone out there listening to this definitely takes the opportunity to, actually use that particular technique because I was actually in DC last week at the HUBZone conference and I've only been at DC three times, but like you said, when you go to an event at like the HUBZone conference, the, the director of the HUBZone program was there. Yeah. The SBA Contractor Compliance was, and the room, I mean, they had a booth go talk to these people, you know, the director of small business for the Navy. All of these people that you know, you want to get access to, we're all in one room and you could have set up one-to-one events with them.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:39:19 Yeah. And we're happy there. You know, the HUBZone, I, I sit on the board with the HUBZone council and we run their matchmaking events every year. This year we can get to do it because our flights were canceled because of hurricane Dorian.

Eric Coffie: 00:39:35 And, you know, guess what that happened to me, Lourdes is that have, you know, that happened to me. Yeah. And you know what I did? I actually went and flew out to Fort Myers.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:39:45 Wow. You can think of that.

Eric Coffie: 00:39:47 Huh.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:39:49 Oh

Eric Coffie: 00:39:49 Yes. Yeah. I changed it. Yeah. Because Fort Lauderdale was shut down the airport because of Dorian and we see it. It was tough because the airline told us that because it wasn't here or you know, whatever. They gave us some excuse and we said, look, there's a hurricane coming you don't need, I don't care what your advice is. If you look on the website, it says airport is closed until further notice. And so they gave us a difficult time, but they eventually did reschedule us out of Fort Myers. And so that's how we made it. Yeah. That's how we made it. So that was good. Wow. So you would have been at the event otherwise?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:40:27 Yes, I would have been at the event. So it would have been at the event and, and it was I mean I was talking to Shirley and Michelle, which run the HUBZone program. Oh my God, we're

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really trying to get out there, but I never thought of Fort Myers. It was a great, that's, that's a great thing. I mean, Rob Wong, which is government contracting administrator, he was texting me, where are you?

Eric Coffie: 00:40:51 Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:40:54 Well, we said we weren't able to make it. And that is a great event, a great organization, not only for HUBZone firms, but for firms of all, like sShirley Bailey and Michelle put on that event every year and it is a lot of sweat that goes into that and they make sure that and I will tell you that the federal agencies respect that event and understand the importance of it and many of them do happy to be part of it and to be part of the board because they're such strong advocates for HUBZone firms and sponsors as the like

Eric Coffie: 00:41:31 They are, they are. Yes.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:41:34 It's a very good organization.

Eric Coffie: 00:41:35 Right, right, right. No, I tell people Shirley, Michelle, I mean, they, they're very passionate about what they do. They are extremely passionate and I see it I see they fight the law. Like he's like what you did. They fight for legislative change and policies and, and so, I get firsthand to see that. And so it was it was really wonderful. And we'll, we'll, you know, we'll talk afterwards about kind of what we did and, and where we help that as well.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:42:04 One thing I do want to, I do want to again, Eric is the importance of using the three websites. You know, that businesses need to be aware of in order to help grow their companies. So I don't know if you could tap into that.

Eric Coffie: 00:42:23 Let's talk, talk, let's talk about it. Tell us about it.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:42:26 So there are, there are three websites when you're new to government contracting that I think are very, very advantageous to a small business. After you go in and you register yourself with SAM, System for Award Management and build your dynamic small business profile, which is also called SBA profile

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page, you want to be able to start doing your market research and want to be able to start preparing yourself as a small business. There are three websites that are key to helping a business understand government contracting, understand where the government is, where they're going in their purchases, how they're purchasing, what they're purchasing for, and and, and how they're, they're purchasing it, whether it be small or large. And also who are the key players in your industry? The, the three, the three websites that are very, very important are learning future purchases to be able to help, help create a capture plan and a marketing plan.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:43:23 The other one is how are they purchasing it and for how much you could find out how much they're actually purchasing. And the other one is the history of purchases. Who are the key players, whether they be small or large in your industry. So let's start with the first one. The first one is procurement forecast. The SBA in, in February of 2013 mandated every agency that they must have a procurement forecast and that the forecast must be put on their website by October of the following their fiscal year. So let's say for example, I'm Homeland Security have already submitted to the office of management and budget. All of the purchases that I need to make from chairs to zippers to uniforms, to services, to everything, and all of my purch, My future purchases are now, and they live live on my website and it's called procurement forecast.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:44:19 Now, in this procurement forecast, it basically will let me know whether it be Q1, Q2, 3 or 4, how when they're going to purchase it, a brief description of the product or service that they're going to purchase, the socioeconomic category, whether it be small, full and open, which means large corporations or designated 8a,hubzone, women owned, service disabled Veteran. Now you have something that you don't have anywhere else, which is the contact information. Sometimes they include email and phone number or just email of the contracting officer of this person is the gatekeeper. So make sure that if you're going to reach out to them, your capability statements should match the requirements of that procurement forecast. So the procurement forecast, basically every agency has one and it lets you know what they're going to be purchasing and what they're going to purchase.

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Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:45:14 So now we know where we're going to go and how are we going to create that pipeline and capture plan. Now you're going to go to a website that's called the GSA advantage website. GSA advantage.gsa.gov here you have a proof approved GSA schedule holders. And I do not encourage small businesses that are new to government contracting to become GSA schedule holders. But however you can go in there and if you see that human capital services staffing and you'll see about a couple of thousand firms that are in there in different categories, small business and large and different socioeconomic categories. You could download their pricing catalog. Now you have approved pricing that the government has said. You have the green light to bill us at this cost. That's for almost every single industry, whether it be paper clips, all the way to engineering services, facility services, janitorial, every single type.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:46:19 Now you're arming yourself with the costs that the federal government has approved. In some cases, people look at these and say, wow, that's a lot of money. I could definitely do that for less. Right? And remember, these are fully burdened rates. These include your travel. These include, you know, your general and administrative costs. So as business owners, you have to understand that you have to include those in your hourly rates when you're billing the government, right? So now your arms, but how much you're arms with when they're going to purchase, you're armed with how much they're going to purchase it for. You're also armed with how they're going to purchase. So there's the third website I always encourage them to go on is fbo.gov which is federal business opportunity website. Sign on to fbo.gov to receive automatic bid notifications. Now don't press all like I did in the beginning because you're going to get thousands of emails on a daily basis. I want to know everything.

Eric Coffie: 00:47:26 You know, I laugt because that's what everyone does, right? Of course.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:47:32 Yeah. 100,000 emails a day. In FBO.Gov you could basically go to advanced search and you can know you know, make it so that you could receive automatic bid notifications in your particular industry or your NAICS code category, your North American Industry Classification category. So you could go in there, we

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see those automatic bids. So now you have future purchases, how much the government buys your products and services for and then active purchases. And I'll leave you with the last one, which is my favorite. If you're an 8a firm out there, I would always always go after Sources Sought notices. Sources sought or RFI, request for information are agencies that are doing what exactly trying to find small businesses like us. They are trying to do market research to see if there are small businesses out there that can perform on their contract duties. So in some cases I have many allies in my industry.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:48:43 I'll call someone up and I'll say, Hey, did you see this source of thought notice? And I send them over the link and I said, you respond as a woman, I'm going to respond as a woman. Now they have the power of two, which all they need is just to, I'm active and capable businesses to be able to set it aside, woman owned. So that is the way to be able to start shaping a contract before it's posted. I remember a sources sought notice and an RFI is not an active solicitation. So a contracting officer can, you could pick up the phone and call them or email them and say, Hey, is this a repeat or is this a new contract? Are you looking to award this under the $4 million or $6 million, excuse me, thresholds of the 8a sole source direct award. In some cases they say, Oh, we would love to work with an 8abingo. Now you have an opportunity to work with a sole source direct with the contracting official and begin to shape that solicitation for you. That's how I won $10.7 million in the total industry as an aiding. And I highly encourage businesses to do that. I love sources of notices because you could actually shake the contract,

Eric Coffie: 00:50:04 Right? And we talk about sources notices, but what you said that I love was pick up the phone and call an ally, make them aware of it so they can also respond.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:50:14 Exactly, exactly.

Eric Coffie: 00:50:15 And I think that's where a lot of people falling short or they don't, they don't, they see that person as a competition.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:50:23 Right, right. And, and as small businesses, like I said, we're, we're, we're not an IBM. We're not a Deloitte, we're not a a Boeing, so we're not, you can't do everything. But what we can

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do is join together and then we could do everything. You know, I I'm a specialist in event planning and conferences for small business and a small business experts that I proudly sit with the SBA and a couple of round tables with them in the DC level. But I always turn to PR for me. I am not, and I asked them to join me on my contract. So I don't want to be an expert. I can't afford to have someone sitting there just earning an income until the opportunity arises.

Eric Coffie: 00:51:12 Right, right.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:51:13 We can't afford to have a specialist sitting there earning an income until the opportunity arises. That's why I say share your resources and team with other small businesses. And you get to meet other small businesses by going to events like the ones I've been mentioning, the HUBZone council, another great event that's coming up right now as the Society of American Military Engineers, anyone that's anyone in professional services and construction services should definitely go to this event. I'm not sure where it's going to be this year, but I always speak at the event. It's usually in November, early December, but it is a great place to go and network and join forces. Look, if you're asked to do a contract across the nation, it's better to have a teaming partner on the West coast than to have to get on a plane and travel out there each, each time there's an opportunity. Yeah. So I always encourage people to team.

Eric Coffie: 00:52:10 Definitely. Wow. Wow. Another question that people ask me often is, how do you choose the right teaming partner?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:52:17 Well, that's interesting because now that I've been doing this for about 20 years, I kind of get the vibe and the feel of a good teaming partner when I meet and talk to them after a while. And you get to view their website, you get to look at their capabilities statements. Another great website for businesses to go to is USAspending.gov. You could literally put in the firm's name there and you could look up their past performance with the federal government. It's all transparent. But a nice thing is that I ask around, I ask contracting officials, I ask small business specialists and many times they'll, they'll tell you, you know, Oh, this person's here all the time. I've seen them a three or four

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events. They're very active. Those are the types of teaming partners you want.

Eric Coffie: 00:53:07 Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So that, so what I'm hearing is that's the kind of person that you should also be

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:53:13 Exactly right. Exactly right. Yeah. Government contracting is everyone let me say, Oh, that's so great. You're a business owner. You must have a lot of free time. Never.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:53:27 I worm Saturday, Sunday 3:00 AM submitting a proposal. You know, you basically are working 24/7. I mean, you do spend some time with family and friends and vacation, but even when I'm on vacation, I still take my laptop. So I'll have to review my emails. Definitely.

Eric Coffie: 00:53:44 not. No, no. I know, I know. In 2017 you partner with the LEAD program. Do you want to talk about that?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:53:50 Oh, the LEAD program and actually is a phenomenal nonprofit organization. Now following on what many of the small business specialists have been telling me for the last 10 to 10 to 15 years is if we only had a place where we could go to where we could find these contract ready small businesses and not have to go through the educational, you know, are you registered in SAM? Should you seek certification? Right. So the leap program was born based on the lack of contract ready firms that kept approaching themselves to government officials.

Eric Coffie : 00:54:30 Right.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:54:30 And the lead program, actually the nonprofit five Oh one C three and we work with the HUBZone council with go contract pros with the SBA and we actually have a strategic Alliance that we signed with the SBA. So we're very, very excited about that. I'm the chairperson of theLEAD program and basically taking many of the key elements that I brought into the American Express Open for government contracting program and also the victory in procurement and working with other large corporations to try and get them engaged in working with small businesses but also our gov leaders. Our gov leaders go through a three day rigorous bootcamp training and if the government

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contracts ready bootcamp. This three day boot camp training basically gets you ready to be able to engage with government official, learn the contracting landscape, learn how to navigate it and also how to position yourself to win government contracts quickly.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:55:36 And I'll let you say this, since we've been doing the bootcamp training, 80% of our businesses have received a contract within six months. So I'm so excited and I see them. It's so funny, Eric. I thought, for example, we just hosted an event in may for USDA for USAID and one of the ladies that attended our bootcamp she does human capital services and she tapped me on the shoulder and said, Lourdes, thank you so much for encouraging me to do the government contract during boot camp with gov leaders because I landed a contract as an 8a and I never had landed one had it not been for what I learned. So that was very, very good. And, and heartwarming for me because she learned everything she says. I keep that training book by me all the time and I always refer to it before I talked to a contracting official.

Eric Coffie: 00:56:31 Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:56:35 Very proud to be part of the LEAD program and the gov leaders and the gov leaders are actually an initiative where we're putting these gov leaders in front of the government contracting officials and they're winning contracts quicker because they already have all their ducks in a row and everything prepared for an agency before they go see them.

Eric Coffie: 00:56:54 Nice. We're running out of time. Why do you believe that it's important for America to get it right with the small businesses in the future?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:57:01 Well, I would tell you that , If you look at the statistics, either 99% of the businesses in America are small business. What a lot of people don't know is that 89% of those businesses have six employees or less, which is the majority of many of us. So when people say I'm too small to do business with the federal government, don't think that way. You know, I was the body of two people when I got my first $2.5 million contract and quickly ramped up to get funding to be able to hire as many people as I could to fulfill on that contract. But the importance is that the

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federal government understands the small businesses are the economic engine and that they do have to award contracts to small businesses. Look, because of the ripple effects of what the past administrations have done. We've been able to meet the 23% small business goal two years in a row.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:58:00 And we met the women only five, the 5% goal in 2013 and I was very, very humbled that I received an award from the White House advisor on small business, which is Valerie. Jarett at the time for my advocacy with women owned businesses. And my advocacy still continues. And that's why I love to work with the lead program. Because giving back everything that I learned is just makes me feel stronger and better when other businesses say that they do well. But the federal government is a great customer to have. It pays every 15 days. So what better cashflow than that. And also it's one that's not going to bounce checks and is recession proof. So I think that many businesses should always explore to grow their business with the federal government.

Eric Coffie: 00:58:49 Wow. Any final words for everyone out there?

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 00:58:54 You could do it. Don't think that you can, it is a tough nut to crack, but with the right steps and the right training, I would encourage many, many business owners to take the government contracts ready bootcamp because you leave with all of the ammunition and they make you roll up your sleeves and you do it yourself. No one's going to do it for you. There is no magic sales rep that you are going to hire. that is going to get you $100 million. We as business owners have to do it ourselves. And it's also rewarding because it's to say you're a part of history, you're part of making that agency better. So you go in with that mindset of actually being a problem solver. It's great for the agency and good for you as well.

Eric Coffie: 00:59:42 Well Lourdes we're definitely going to have the on our show notes page, all of the information available, the links to your sites, the links to your recommendations, the website and any contact information that you would like for us to share as well. We will have the show notes page from this episode. I'd like to thank you so much for coming on today. It was certainly pleasure and you definitely exceeded expectations.

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Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 01:00:09 Oh, thank you, Eric. My pleasure. Thank you anytime.

Eric Coffie: 01:00:12 No, no. Thank you so much for being on. We definitely appreciate having you and I know that the people listening to this are going to get a ton of information, a ton of nuggets that they can take back and put the practice and start working with right away.

Lourdes Martin-Rosa: 01:00:23 Thank you, Eric. Thank you. My pleasure. Good luck.

Eric Coffie: 01:00:26 Thank you. Thank you so much. Now, how did you enjoy the episode today? Lourdes has been helping people in our space for many, many years. In fact, when she found her company GBS in 2003 the intent was on providing guidance, education, and training to thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses on the importance of growing their business with government contracting. Lourdes, help create valuable training resources and guys that offer main street shortcuts to all small business owners ranging from the novice to the more experienced government contract, or wanting to explore other methods of winning government contracts. For more information about Lourdes, her training programs and our advocacy work, visit the show notes page at www.govcongiants.com/podcast.