Using Micro-Purchases for U.S. DoD contracts

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Our mission today is to understand how established government contractors or GovCon can better use a micro purchase to drive strategic growth in including, and especially with the US Department of Defense. We’ll cover when small contract awards have a giant impact, who you need to call on and in what order, what you need to know before you call them. How to make an irresistible offer. Why and when. DOD buyers love micro purchases, where you can grow from there. How to make it easier for DOD buyers to purchase from you and next steps and resources. All right? But your federal buyer, your DOD buyer is more than one person. That’s what I wanna leave you with right now. And, but your players in all the different layers, all want three things. They wanna find it a way that is easy to follow the rules. And there are thousands of rules in the US Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Department of Defense, federal Acquisition Regulation supplement or dfars.

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They want to find vendors who can make it easy and they wanna do the right thing. They wanna perform well. Summed up in the phrase, make me look good. And you as a vendor need to be at the center of where all of that crosses over. Micro purchases are one easy way to do that. Micro purchases are defined by value, both within the continental United States and outside the continental United States. And the, on a regular average Tuesday afternoon, both federal civilian and DODA micro purchase is a purchase of products or services worth less than $10,000 in times of disaster response or contingency operations or outside of the United States. That, and including if the US DOD is purchasing something in Jana, the micro purchase can be made at a value of under 20,000 US dollars. And the micro purchases are used for services and for products. Micro purchase is a subset or special type of a broader category called simplified acquisition. There’s a whole other set of things to learn about simplified acquisition, and I teach that as well. But right now we’re concentrating on this subset called micro purchases.

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Okay?

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And I’ll also have links for you to where the specific rules are. ’cause this is a very rules bound environment. You really do have to know the rules to play the game. You wouldn’t step onto a hockey rink if you didn’t actually know what the difference was between icing and offsides. You’d be messed up right away. I completely get it. You wouldn’t wanna step into the US federal acquisition arena either if you didn’t really know the rules of the game myths and realities about micro purchases. Some people think they’re only for novices or for startups, not. So some folks think they’re only good for products, also not correct. Some people think, oh, this is not worth our time. We just want the multimillion dollar procurements. We’re lining up for that. Nevermind the little stuff wrong. Oh, some folks think, oh, they only use those kinds of purchases at fiscal year end, which by the way, quiz when is US federal government fiscal year end, September 30th in Canada, federal government fiscal year end is March 31st.

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Trivial fact in state and Logan, 46th of 50 states, fiscal year end is June 30th. So if you sell to the corporate environment, state and local, federal, and the government of Canada, you can have Christmas four times a year. ’cause that fourth quarter spending surge is real. Back to the main point. Some folks say, we don’t need micro purchases. We have a GSA schedule. Either contract vehicles or they think that purchase, purchase cardholders make all the decisions. None of these things is true. Most important myth I wanna bust for you is that micro purchases just aren’t really very important to focus on. Micro purchases account for $13.2 billion in spending and 17 million transactions. That is a lot of money no matter what way you cut it. And so, but why would it matter to you as a Canadian company? Big reality for Canadian companies, the Buy American Act in any form does not apply to purchases worth less than $10,000.

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And the whole complex set of preference programs for American small businesses also does not apply to purchases worth less than $10,000. So if you are concerned about, or have been aware of, or feel you’ve been sidelined by these barriers, under $10,000 is a great and a safe place to play to get started and to build trust. So it is really a power tool for Canadian companies who are seeking to build trust, make friends, gain experience, and past performance breeds future wins. I’m gonna say it again. Past performance breeds future wins. If you’ve done a $2,500 lunch and learn for the United States Marine Corps, you’ve been a prime contractor with the United States Marine Corps. Oh, good. It’s super powerful. And these small contracts mean that you’ve got a track record and it makes it easy for somebody to want to do more with you because no matter how bright the smile, no matter how firm the handshake, no matter how prodigious your corporate or Canadian track record might be, if your DOD buyer has never heard of you, when you walk through the door, all they see is a great big ball of risk.

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So micro purchases, those initial small contracts, give someone an opportunity to give you a chance. The thing to keep in mind is that by American, the mindset can trump the by American rules and regulations any day. So you cannot know by listening to someone or looking at them where their head space is. You need to start with a fresh page and build trust with each individual buyer, with your players at each individual layer every time. And so, just because someone can buy from a company from Canada, either under or over $10,000, all the regulations in the world don’t force somebody to buy from a supplier that they don’t really wanna buy from. The reality is that thousands of lines of rules usually mean that it’s possible for a buyer to A-U-S-D-O-D buyer to choose the vendor that they want and have a way to legally and safely legitimately do business with them.

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And so what rules are they gonna use? What vendor are they gonna choose? That depends on you. So micro purchase is basically always a relationship gain. ’cause people ask, where are those micro purchases published? And the answer is they’re not. They’re not. Micro purchase is by its nature, not only a deeply simplified acquisition procedure, but one of the reasons why the procedure is simple is because the amount of documentation that the buyers need to do and the amount of publication is much less than these big giant procurements. So keep that in mind. This presentation is covering the strategic value of micro purchase. I have a different presentation and I can give you the link to that that has the really ooey gooey nuts and bolts of regulations. But I think that what you’re really looking for here, and what I’m focusing on is the strategic value of being able to understand micro purchase and how it’s a relationship building tool.

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Sound good? Hope so, and again, put your comments and questions in the chat. Micro purchase is an essential strategy element for every established government contractor. Every established company that wants to do business with DOD, it makes it easier to enter an agency that’s new to you to offer new solutions with minimum risk, to generate revenue quickly, and to build relationships and trust. I did a $2,500 lunch and learn for the Citizenship and Immigration Service at the Department of Homeland Security. And I got paid 24 hours later on a credit card. I wept. It was just the most wonderful vendor experience I had ever had. It was lovely. So these small awards have giant impact for buyers and for vendors. And we’re gonna talk about some of those situations, uh, vendors that are looking to, again, build past performance or get a first contract. Fantastic. It means you can get paid more easily.

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It makes it easier for, for buyers to do a little contract with you, see if they like you, get comfortable with you, do something bigger. Keep in mind that this is the vendor’s choice. They have lots of di sorry, the buyer’s choice. They have lots of different ways to do business with you, but if they like you, this is an option that is open for them. Just because they can use a micro purchase doesn’t mean they’re going to relationship game for sure. Something else to keep in mind with micro purchases is if you’re thinking, oh, this would be great, we can just kind of stack up a nine or 10 of purchases, nine or 10 purchases of what we do, um, and, uh, break it apart into micro purchases. Do not do this. This is actually illegal. It’s called contract bundle. Don’t try it. Okay.

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Lots of caveats, but again, it’s fast. Purchase relationship based allows buyers to lower the risk, try new things with you, decide if they’re comfortable with you. My wonderful friend William Randolph is a great example. He worked, he was a, he is, um, to borrow a phrase that, uh, Winston Churchill used, used to call himself in correspondence with Franklin d Roosevelt. Um, he said he’s a former naval person. Um, he worked for the Department of the Navy as an acquisition specialist and contracting officer for many years. Then he retired from Navy, he went into Department of Homeland Security and immigration and Customs Enforcement managed billions of dollars of acquisition in 2020. He went on his own and he had to walk the talk. And he develops acquisition training in a company he founded called Think Acquisition. And these are the kinds of small contracts that he was able to win based on building out from simplified acquisition and won those bigger contracts building out from micro purchase.

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And what he actually found out was that even as a new entrant, after doing all of this hard work, I asked him, Hey, will, what’s going on with you now? He’s decided that he would rather be working as a subcontractor, but the past performance that he got as a prime helped him build credibility with partners. He wanted to do business with another really important strategy. I remember having this conversation with the supplier diversity lead at a, a large, well-known prime contractor. And the first thing she said to me, uh, with words of advice for people who wanted do business with that company she was working for, said, don’t make me your first rodeo. Come to me, showing me that you’ve already done partnerships, already worked as a prime contractor and agencies where we wanna do business, and you can bring us business micro purchase is one of those ways to do that, to develop a track record that can open doors to primes.

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But all of William Randolph’s success started with a $4,800 micro purchase. Another example of when small awards have giant impact, Jennifer Rhodes, vice president of the business development at TA in under eight weeks, turned a $10,000 micro purchase into a million dollar sole source award in fourth quarter of the fiscal year by developing relationships in the wake of performing well on a documents and requirements management contract was fourth quarter. She performed well. She talked to her buyer and said, Hey, do you know anybody else who needs what we do? And the buyer said, yeah, we do. Let us introduce you. They’ve got it’s fiscal year end, they’ve got money and they’ve got a compliance requirement that you can help with. And by the time September 30th rolled around, they had a million dollar contract award in their hands. This QR code links you to a blog post where the details of the story are there for you to read.

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Why it is that DOD buyers love micro purchases. Here are some of the reasons why they like ’em. Low dollar purchases mean that they can try out new ideas and solutions. They can make decisions quickly. So for example, if those of you have heard about a GSA schedule, GSA schedules, if the the buyer has a requirement, they can host the requirement on eBuy. They still have to wait 14 days micro purchase. You don’t have to make contract notice publications and they can pay you this afternoon on a credit card. What do you have besides up to 99 th uh, $9,999 in your bank account? You have past performance. So high speed, low risk. So I want you to start thinking about what are the things that, what problems could you solve for less than $10,000? Think about it because I’m gonna ask you to put it in the chat.

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Think about what you do, the product you have, the expertise you have, the service that you have, I want you to think about that. But not in terms we have this thing who wants it? Now I want you to think about what problem do you solve and for what buyer or what kind of buyer of in what kind of situation in the US Department of Defense, what problem are you solving for that? It may be that you offer a product or service that costs a lot more than that. There’s still ways to get started. Remember I said that your buyer is more than one person, layers and layers players at five layers. I promised I would tell you who you need to call and in what order. First place to start is the end user. Now this for me is a broad bucket that can include everybody from the warrior at the pointy end of the stick.

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In the other, other side of the pointy end stick in the battle space. It can include the tier one help desk person. It can include the program manager, it can include the facility supervisor. It include can, can include the drone operator, the people who are stuck at the end of the day with the consequences of choosing you. That’s a huge layer. And people that, well, where do I find end users? Lots of different options to do that. One that may surprise you. LinkedIn. LinkedIn, LinkedIn. Not every federal agency publishes a directory of all their personnel. But over 2.5 million current federal employees, including active military, have profiles on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is not just a platform for staffing and job hunters. LinkedIn is a place where vendors and buyers meet each other and mix it up in the federal arena, including DOD and their contractors. So if you’re not using LinkedIn as a marketing tool and a place to do market research and to really get to understand the individual federal humans, we’re buying what you do.

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You better believe your competition is free version of LinkedIn is perfectly adequate to do this. I don’t pay money for LinkedIn and I get lots and lots of use out of it. So topic for another day. How do exactly do you navigate LinkedIn to go find end users? If we have a little time at the end, I may be able to answer that for you. But end users, the first one, they speak your language. It’s not just Canadian companies, but companies all around the world that do business with government that were founded by passionate, skilled, deep subject matter experts and usually deep subject matter experts have a very deep allergy to anything that even snacks of sales. Well, you have to remember that if you’re not willing to make the offer be vulnerable, do the hard work of making the offer, then you don’t get the chance to make the difference that your product and service and expertise make.

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So you have to make the commitment to have those conversations with end users. The good news is you speak end user, you speak technical. What a great place to go in. Once somebody knows that they can tap your products and services and expertise to help solve their problems, that opens the door to a deeper conversation of how do I do that? Federal buyers need stuff, products and services to deliver their missions and they need legitimate expedient ways to get stuff. You as a vendor need to help ’em solve both problems. If you say, Hey, I have my stuff, how you buy it is your problem, nah, you’re missing the boat. Go back to follow the rules. Make it easy. Help them understand what are some of the rules that could make it easy to try to do your thing, to try to have you engage and help them, which takes us next to the contracting layer.

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Most end users do not have signing privileges to spend money. The end users are supported by the contracting layer. And so some end users do have some up to $10,000 worth of purchase card authority. Most of them don’t. So they’re gonna have to be working with or getting sign off from the contracting office or it goes, yep, you know, I can see you’re not stacking up 11 things worth $9,000. We get it. Um, this is a legitimate purchase we’re in. So those are, that’s two layers. Third layer, have to remember that there’s a, there are thousands of people in roles called small business specialists across every single federal office and agency, including DOD buying commands and bases. Their mission is to help companies that meet the definition of small in the defense, federal acquisition regulation supplement, and the federal acquisition regulation supplement. A company that is based solely in Canada, no matter what size you are, does not meet the far part 19 and DARS.

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Part 2 1 9 definition of small. The small business specialist has inward facing and outward facing responsibilities facing into the agency. They are there to help the agency meet its goals to award 23% of its contract dollars to companies that meet that definition of small that excludes you as company. They’re external or outward facing responsibilities to help those American small businesses, those far part 19, DAS 2 1 9 companies navigate the space and to help them help the buyers reserve contracts for small business. If you are working on micro purchase opportunities, you don’t need these folks to be helping you or hindering you. You’re under their radar. They’re not there to help you find those opportunities, but they’re also not there to stop you either. Other strategies for when small business specialists are helpful, and we can talk about those in another conversation about building teaming relationships. I will add a footnote that if you as a Canadian company that doesn’t meet the definition of small, you are therefore large, you’re large or you’re small.

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So if, if you are two people in a garage in Edmonton, you are a large business under the US Federal and uh, uh, defense acquisition regulations. That means that if you win a contract worth more than $700,000, you are required to have a small business subcontracting plan. Small business specialists can help you find small business partners to help you meet that requirement way down the road coming back in. So small business specialists not as important for you end users in the contracting side. Super important. Two other layers you need to be aware of are prime contractors. Your federal buyer, your DOD buyers, almost certainly buying something like what you do from somebody else right now, it’s up to you to understand who are they buying from and what are they buying and how do you bring them a performance and value and price and delivery advantage.

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So you do need to know how somebody is currently solving the problem. You can help solve better, gotta do your research before you show up as opposed to, hi, I have a thing, I can help you solve your problem. You have to be ready for them to say, oh, we’re already solving that with this thing. And going, ah, but have you thought about this and this and this? These guys don’t deliver that. So know who your competition is. The fifth layer that almost never figures in, but you need to know about because their name is gonna get tossed around. They’re writing the strategic plan. They are accountable for everything that agency does is the stakeholder. This can be the CIO, the base commander, the cabinet secretary. They’re the ones whose front who are gonna be on the front page of the Washington Post below the fold if things go tango uniform.

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But they’re also the ones who are writing and signing off in the strategic plan. The priorities for how important is the problem that you’re helping somebody solve and how much money is gonna be put into the budget to solve those kinds of problems, which is why you need to know who the stakeholders are in there with the new administration. Those folks are about to change over. How do you create irresistible offer? Here we go. This gets fun and it gets creative. I love this part of the conversation. So get out another sheet of paper. Think about the product or service you offer. And if you don’t currently have a version or a type or a line or an example of an offer that’s worth under $10,000, think about how you could, if you have something that multiple users use, how could you put together a small limited number of users for a trial?

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You have something that could be set up for demonstration and assessment of results at a single location, even though you could be doing this thing at multiple locations. Could you customize? Do you, is part of what you do to customize an off the shelf solution for a specific user or program or operation? Just simply the act of customizing could be a micro offer. I love this. Do you do one-on-one training? Do you do one-on-one training for a particular problem or solution or product? Or do you support a well-known brand name product and you do training for, again, lunch and learn or video training? Maybe you do on demand training. Can you offer an evaluation copy of a software or a program or a manual or a procedure? Can you do a field trial or a prototype sample order in services? Can you do a situation assessment?

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Could you offer somebody a webinar to say, here’s how to understand if you have certain kinds of problems and what to do about them. Great. You’re, they’re gonna pay you to train them to understand when to call you. How great would that be? Do you do repair of equipment? Can you design a pilot program which again can be assessed and be the on-ramp to doing something bigger? I’m big fan of webinars or lunch and learns, all kinds of webinar based training. They’re a great and very popular offering, uh, for my company out in the field. And you do a research and an assessment and a briefing on a particular technical topic. And you prototype. You have an off the shelf tool, a limited time trial. So I hope this is getting you thinking for different ways that you could make that irresistible offer. You wanna have at least three ideas in your back pocket, but they’re not things that you throw out on the table.

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They’re designed to have your receptors, your creative brain working. When you’re in conversation with your end users and you’re listening to how they answer the question, what’s important to you? Many of you have heard or even been asked the question, what keeps you up at night? And it may sound like a cliche, but it is often the thing we most want to know. If you’ve ever had a, a lead magnet or a downloadable paper or a questionnaire on your website, something you can follow up with the people who downloaded that thing or click the thing, the question to ask is, Hey, I’m calling back from a BC expertise in Calgary. I’d just like to know, did you find what you were looking for? Did you find what you were looking for? Easy open-ended question Or are you still, are you still looking? Did you find what you’re looking for?

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Are you still looking? So what do you need to know before you call them? Critical way to flip over language makes a huge difference. Instead of asking, how can I help you say how? I can help you use the words in a new order. When you go to your DOD buyer and ask, how can I help you? You’re giving them more homework. They already have enough things to do. You wanna come in having done research and show them where you fit and that you’ve already done the homework into not only what, where they fit into their agency’s strategic plan and what are the programs, problems, opportunities, challenges they are tasked with dealing with and how you can help them shine, help working with your company, your product, your service, your expertise gets them across their finish line faster, more effectively with lower risk, less spend.

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So how I can help you, I fit here. The good news is that so few federal vendors do that. That if you do, you stand out already. People will often tell you, do your homework. This is one of the things that homework looks like. How do we grow from there? These tiny contracts, when you go back and get feedback, you can not only be looking at contract renewal, do they want another one? They can do a couple of repeat purchases. They may be able to buy up to $250,000. Who they would like to have a quarter million dollar contract. Anybody put me, if you could write, get a quarter of a million dollar contract without a big hairy proposal that is really expensive and takes half a year. Those kinds of simplified acquisitions. One of the places they grow up from is experiences that buyers have in doing micro purchases.

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So they offer you the chance not only to do some repeat purchases, the micro purchase could be something that’s a phase one and it grows to other phases. Something could grow out to other locations. And so you’re giving somebody a sense of how to envision the future with you when the requirement of the buyer not only outgrows the $10,000 threshold, but outgrows the $250,000 threshold, the purchase size and the complexity and requirements step up. And so you do have to do your research. And we covered that in one of our earlier sessions on how to do that. So you can see how the people you’re doing business with, like to buy in Canada, if you do business with DND or through public works, there’s something called master standing offer. Something called a general services administration schedule contract is the broad parallel type of contract. It’s a hunting license, it’s an open jaw contract terms and conditions are negotiated and signed.

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But you still have to go and build relationships and market to win business. So you’re, as you look to grow, researching how your federal buyers like to buy is critical. Look and see who uses simplified acquisition to purchase more to step up. They may use GSA schedule contracts. If you have anything related to IT or engineering or professional services and you feel that you can be doing something that the United States Navy likes, you’re not gonna see GSA schedules as much as a different contract vehicle called seaport. NXG. Don’t bother talking about GSA schedules to the Navy. If you aren’t on seaport NXG, that’s their easy button. So how do you grow from there? You really wanna make sure you’ve researched their easy buttons before you show up for the conversation. One, introduce to you a new kind, a new easy button that in fact, my friend Will Randolph just launched.

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And so it is the newest way for federal, including DOD buyers to meet vendors who provide services. This is specifically for services and what are, what’s your type in the chat box? Me if you offer expertise or professional services, we can see this service is called micromarket. Okay? Um, I do not get any commission on that. I’m just telling you about something that has just been launched that a lot of people are just learning about. And now, uh, and that you as a company based solely in Canada can tap and access. It’s, think of it if you’re fishing, it’s just one more set of lines in the water. One more place that people can find you. One more place that you can lead your buyers and say, I’m here and we’re all set up to do business really quickly. And so micro market is tapping the demand for over $6 billion in spending that the US federal government made in services last year.

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And so thousands of new and growing small businesses. And that can, in this case include Canadian companies because it’s under that $10,000 threshold are seeking access to DOD buyers. This service helps connect the two in an online portal. Let’s buy or search for opportunities and buyers and vendors to connect and do purchases via purchase card. So it’s tapping this micro purchase market. The top 14 categories of purchase cards spend the top 10 categories of services that federal, including DOD buyers are making under $10,000 includes consulting, education and training, professional services, information technology. You can see the subsets of that. Transportation, janitorial, medical health and wellness studies, document scanning, experts, subject matter experts and speakers. Almost all of you have some subject matter expertise someone could pay you to speak about something that you’re really smart about. So these are all great examples. And so micromarket lets the buyers search for, I’m looking for a thing and there’s, they’re etching up.

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I think now over probably closer to 600 vendors are now on this portal to cost nothing to register. And there is just a minor service fee for, I think it’s a 3% service fee if you actually win any business. And so the buyers can post a request and the offers can come to them. Vendors offering services at or below the micro purchase threshold are not even to register in the system for award management. Honestly, you’re gonna wanna be in Sam anyway. If you want to help lower somebody’s risk threshold and look like you follow the rules, you’re ready to play, you’re ready to grow. But that being said, you don’t even have to be on sam. You don’t even have to have jumped through those hoops. If what you’re offering is worth is a service and it’s worth less than $10,000, you can do it through micro market.

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’cause otherwise, they’re really an official US federal platform to be doing this. DOD buyers make purchases of microservices like micro consulting, data analysis, webinars, lunch and learns, back office support, source selection, acquisition support, operational support, micro blocks of professional services. You could say, Hey, you can buy five hours of my time for $2,500. You do that. Keynote speeches, instructional design. Is this getting you thinking about problems you could solve that look like that? If it is, we’ve achieved our mission here today. So William Randolph, former Navy and DHS taught contracting professional, um, opened this portal in 2024. It’s grown. Well, you can find out more at that QR code. I’m gonna pause for a second so you can shoot the QR code, find out more, and you can register his company. He’s a service disabled veteran on small business and he’s a genuinely nice guy. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

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Tell him I sent you that first win can be small, but it can feel fantastic when I’m not doing government contracting. I’m a professional indoor rock climbing instructor. This is me at my home gym and taking somebody up a wall for the first time. I’ve taught literally over a thousand people to go up a wall and there’s a Canadian embassy link to the story and I’ll share that with you another day. Uh, but that first small step can lead to fantastic achievements and that is the place that I want you to get is taking the first steps that get you to peak achievement for your company. So how micro purchase offerings grow established government contractors. Then they help you build your past performance, establish price realism, increase your profitability. You get paid quickly and you can do something that doesn’t cost you a lot to produce.

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Create an upgrade path or a phased approach to doing business with you. Increase the speed to deliver your completion. Make it easy to scale up if you’re successful and you can get not only feedback to develop your offering, but referrals. Who do you know who would like, who el who would also like this thing that we’ve just done? So learn more about simplified acquisition and micro purchase federal acquisition regulation Part 13 and defense federal acquisition regulation supplement part 2 1 3 is where you’re going to learn about the ooey-gooey details of how this works. Learn the rules if you do nothing else, dedicate a half an hour of your life to looking this stuff up so that you can not necessarily understand it all. But ask intelligent questions to show that again, you tried to do your research and now you’d like to know how does it work in your shop?

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How does it work where you are? I’m a sponge. I wanna learn, teach me. That always opens up great conversations. So the section on federal acquisition regulation part 13 and DARS part 2 1 3 cover purchases under $10,000 between 10 and $250,000 purchases over $250,000 of using those procedures and even things that are worth up to three quarters of a million dollars if there is disaster response and contingency operations. To learn more about the players at all five layers I have for you, the GovCon Personas guide tells you more about the players at all five layers and what to do and say and ask to build relationships with them. This guide is free. I hope you’ll find it, share it, use it and tell me what happened. When you do, I also have something about how to get in front of your federal buyer, win your meeting, win, win a conversation, and get invited back.

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This is one of my favorite webinars. You can tap that. That includes the recorded course, a presentation file, and a transcript at this QR code. It’s, uh, a hidden gem and one of my favorites. ’cause these are different ways to prepare for your meeting and to do that homework, to really connect with a buyer who needs what you do and that you know you wanna serve as well. I promised you the link to an on-demand webinar simplified acquisition simply awesome. These are the bare bones of how to step up to those contracts worth more than 10,000 or less than $250,000. And you’re going to wanna do that if you wanna be eligible for the Canadian Commercial Corporation services down the road. CCC could help you once you bump up over that 250,000. But the interest that DOD has in working with you, even with those arms around that, that CCC provides the great guarantees of performance.

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They’re gonna be more interested in you if you’ve already proven yourself and done some smaller projects. So this is gonna help you find that pathway for you to be truly ready for those big contracts. CCC can help you bring home. So with that, I’d love to pause for a second and ask, what is your aha or your takeaway from our session today? Would you drop that in the chat? Let me see what, uh, questions or what seem valuable to you. Um, I, we’ve got a couple of questions here. My said, well you mentioned DODs that include NGA National Geospatial Agency, Navy Air Force, and the like. Department of Defense is its own thing and the military services are part of the Department of Defense, but they are separate buying commands. So National Geospatial Agency, I’m not gonna make something, I’m say they are, they are part of DOD, um, but they are neither is, um, the, uh, national Security Agency for example.

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So, um, but the rules for micro purchase and simplified acquisition do apply. So, uh, Navy and Air Force are military services. They, they have their own acquisition commands and they’re gonna have some of their own acquisition regulation supplements. Rob says, my takeaway is the realization of just helpful you in your presentations are all Rob. Thank you. Um, eh says, is there a chance for new companies? Yes, absolutely. Um, it is really tough to be a brand new company and say, and my first customer is gonna be a DOD, but if you solve a problem that a Department of Defense or Navy or Air Force or Marine Corps buyer has, then if you’re willing to invest the time and sweat equity to build those relationships, they could be your first client. It’s not out of the question, but research shows that it takes even American small businesses anywhere from 30,000 to $233,000 in 12 months of time on the road to that first win micro purchase.

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If you’re understanding how it works in building relationships can drastically shorten the amount of time to that first win. Roma says, love it. I’ve approached it wrong. Micro purchases make so much sense. Thank you Romas Maxwell d wanna know what’s the role name of the person purchasing contracts at these departments? Acquisition specialist. Okay. Maxwell Contracting officer is the name nickname. Either co in civilian agencies or say National Geospatial or ko because CO is a commanding officer in the military. So they’re gonna call a contracting officer A Koko God love it. Okay. Contracting officer has a power the president of the United States does not have. And that’s the power to legally bind your company to these United States in a legal agreement to provide products and services. Contracting officer is supported by the contract specialist. They don’t have the signing authority, but they do help dot the i’s cross the T’s help bind vendors, help review and qualify solicitations, help write requirements.

(41:10):

Okay? There is in the end user layer, a super user called the contracting officer’s representative. And so when someone in the end user shop says, we threw it over the wall to the co to contracting, this is the person who translates the user requirements into contracting language. They’re an industrial translator between those two layers. They’re the liaison, they’re also the person that says, yep, they performed, you should pay them. And the contracting layer are the ones that award the contracts and process your invoices. Okay, Derek says, everything you shared is super helpful. I’m prepping my business capability statement for a major event in Vegas this march where I might be meeting with DOD agency reps and other government and corporate reps. How cool. I’m delighted to meet with any of you to chat about what’s going on here. And so, um, love to hear more of your comments and questions as we go along, whether it’s in the chat or one-on-one.

(42:06):

I have resources for you. First of all, government contracts made easier. Second edition and the compli and the companion workbook are Amazon number one best sellers. It’s easier ’cause easy is fiction. Thousands of companies have found the book in the workbook helpful. My mom uses her copy to prop up her television. You can use it for all kinds of things, but, um, by all means, go grab a book and a workbook off Amazon and uh, go at it. Let me know how you do. Here’s the cool thing. Almost all of the success stories, and there are many, are actually of Canadian companies in this book. So you are there, you’re in my heart and in my book. The MicroG engagement principle is super powerful. I would love to be talking more about that. Our players at all five layers have different goals, different milestones, and get this different kinds of micro engagements.

(43:06):

What I think about informally is catnip, little tiny wins. Little things you could bringing be bringing them that make them think, oh, every time Marcel calls something amazing happens, I’m gonna return Marcel’s call. It doesn’t take much for people to realize what a win looks like and that they feel like woohoo every time Brian calls or every time Michelle emails. So if you are taking the time to not only learn what’s important to them, but to be always bringing them something that matters to them because your goals are aligned with theirs, your effort to help them achieve their goals also takes you to yours, who’s gamechanging. Find out more at about the micro engagement principle at the blog post, at this QR code and share and enjoy. We talked about the gov cod personas guide. Again, here’s the link and where you can get it.

(43:57):

Learn who your buyer is, what they care about, how to engage them, and tips for success q and a. We’ve got about seven minutes up at the top and if you’d like to book a call with me, you can go to the Bitly link here and fill out a form and there’s a qualifier piece. And so even if you get, um, a real quick response that says, here’s some resources for you right now, I read every single one of the forms and I often have what I call honestly, a drive time slot. I live in southern Maryland. I spend much more time driving than I ever to when I moved to this place for the beautiful view of the Chesapeake Bay. Um, and so that means that, um, you may be able to have a whole hour of free q and a. I’m not on video, you get to take the notes, but even if you get a drive time conversation, I’m happy to answer your questions. Anu, how are we doing?

(44:47):

We’re doing great Judy. Uh, do you mind just taking off the, um, slideshow for a moment? Sure. And we can just address a few of the questions there. Yeah. Excellent. Um, so

(44:59):

Derek wanted to know how you can you book for a one-on-one, um, excuse me. Um, you’ve got my my email on the, on the screen and I will drop my, uh, email in the messages as well. If you wanna book an hour of time. Yeah, we’re not gonna charge you for a half an hour of time. I type talk to anybody for half an hour. But, um, the, I’m absolutely delighted to do that. Let’s chat one-on-one about how that works and um, uh, just here, Judy [email protected]. Also, please connect with me on LinkedIn that not only costs nothing, but that brings you one degree of separation closer to thousands of people who might be good contacts for you. So please connect with me on LinkedIn. Do not just hit the button, send me a message saying I was on the CCC webinar and, and something like that.

(45:44):

So practice good connections, connection, skills when you do, okay, if you’re gonna be best friends with anyone in the department, would you wanna be closest with kos? Nah. End users. Have the end users fall in love with you? Something to know is that the contracting shop, their clients are the end users. In some places the contracting shop and the end user shop are holding hand and skipping through the daisies working hand in hand, hand in glove, not always in other shops. The end users think the contracting shop is the purchasing prevention program and the contracting shop thinks end users shouldn’t be trusted with 5 cents to buy bubblegum. So gotta find out, make friends, but the end users are always the superpowered place because contracts not gonna buy something and force it on the end Users. You need to have end users fall in love with you. And the good news is, I would bet that 99.9% of you who are on this call are happy subject matter experts who if you never had to spend another oxygen molecule or electron doing anything that’s smack of sales, you would be really happy. So end users are happy to talk to you.

(46:54):

Excellent. Uh, so the one question that I see here is how does the new US administration and tariffs on Canadian goods, which I don’t think is quite an effect yet, but might be, uh, affect micro purchases?

(47:09):

First of all, US federal contracting officers behave according to what the regulations tell them. If there’s not a change in regulations, then they’re going to follow the regulations that exist Now. The regulations now say that Canadian products are sold free of tariffs to the US Department of Defense. That is the law and the regulation today. If that changes, watch that space. I’m not going to predict what is happening tomorrow or next week or even after lunch. Follow the law laws, follow the regulations, wait and see. Uh, the good news is that the some, if somebody loves what you want and wants it badly enough, there is usually a legal way for them to get what it is that they need. Build strong end user relationships, that’s long. The short of it also co decel, the pretty airplane always wins.