Government Contracting

Marketing: For Marketing Success…

Date
Wed, 2011-05-11 00:29

…Skip the Social Media Hype

Social media hype has hit epic proportions. The promise of its ability to make a success of even the shabbiest business model is everywhere. Business owners are no longer asking, “Should I run an ad in the newspaper or on Google?” They want to know, “Should I be on Facebook or LinkedIn?”

Use Discussion Forums to Build Your Reputation

Date
Wed, 2011-05-11 00:17

 

Discussion forums have been around a long time – so long that they may be overlooked for their power in connecting and networking.  So first a little review on discussion forum terms and structure:

How To Articles
Published May. 10, 2011 application/pdf icon

Becoming a contractor or sub-contractor for the U.S. government can bring in lucrative, ongoing revenue to your small business. But doing business with the government is very different than typical business-to-business selling.

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Global Advanced Technology, Inc.

Shirley Young’s first visit to SCORE’s Boston office in 2003 couldn’t have come a moment too soon. The owner of Global Advanced Technology, Inc. (GATI), an information technology engineering and management services firm, Shirley had tried without success to secure contracts with the federal government and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She felt her business offered the necessary expertise, plus a stellar track record working with some of the nation’s leading telecommunications and networking companies. Unfortunately, much of that work had disappeared due to major shifts in the technology industry and Shirley urgently needed new business in order to keep GATI afloat.

Owner/Founder
Shirley Young
My Location
Scituate MA
United States
Employees
10
Year Company Formed
1995
My Successes

“Fred Larson’s insights and ideas provided GATI with an immediate—and much-needed—boost in business.” says Shirley. “Within a year, we had six contracts with the state and had become a subcontractor on a project for the Department of Defense,” she says. “And where once our proposals would generate no response, we regularly receive positive comments about the quality of their organization and content.”

GATI’s success has also enabled Shirley to share her knowledge and experience with other minority women entrepreneurs. She is an active member of the Outreach Committee of Massachusetts Affirmative Marketing Program, which works to help other woman- and minority-owned businesses participate in the state contracting system. She has also participated in a variety of high-profile events with Massachusetts’s legislative and business leaders.

What's Great About My Mentor?

Fred shared his wealth of knowledge about public contracting with Shirley, including some critical steps that she had overlooked.

“Fred helped me prepare an application to be certified under the SBA’s 8(a) small business development program and began reviewing my proposals to make sure I could justify my prices,” Shirley says. “He’s very detail-oriented, often playing Devil’s Advocate to help make my proposals as strong as possible.”

Shirley adds that Fred has also become a trusted mentor. Their meetings usually follow an agenda that covers action items for current or pending proposals; marketing, personnel and financial matters; and personal issues. “As a single mother who is the sole owner of a company, that’s very important,” Shirley explains. “Whatever affects me personally directly affects my business.”

 “We meet several times a month or even more often, depending what’s going on with GATI,” she says. “Fred is so accessible. He also passes along information that he feels will be helpful to me and my business. There’s no doubt that Fred has had a tremendous impact on GATI.”

How SCORE Helped

Attending a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) workshop on federal contracting helped introduce Shirley to SCORE and volunteer mentor Fred Larson, who had spent many years with a leading defense contractor.

Patriot Taxiway Industries

Kevin McDermott and Steven Smits originally intended to operate a small company producing aviation lighting systems. They soon grew their business when only 20 months into operations, the company was awarded a $7.7 million contract from the Air Force to supply lighting at 28 bases. Kevin, vice president of business development, says, he and Steve, the president of the company who is a service-disabled veteran, made a conscious decision to hire veterans for the workforce they’d need to meet the contract.

Attending meetings at their local SCORE chapter, Kevin and Steven met with Milwaukee mentor Joan Burke for small business help.

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Owner/Founder
Kevin McDermott and Steven Smits
My Location
290 Pleasant Hill Road
Lomira WI 53048
United States
Employees
10
Year Company Formed
2007
My Successes

"There was an awful lot we didn't know" about starting a business, Kevin says. They must have learned a lot quickly, because Patriot Taxiway Industries received the 2010 SCORE Award for Outstanding Veteran-owned Business.

What's Great About My Mentor?

Attending meetings at their local SCORE chapter, Kevin and Steven met with Milwaukee counselor Joan Burke, and they were given checklists to understand what it takes to start a small business and to understand what they'd be up against.

How SCORE Helped

SCORE, Kevin says, gave them the framework to ask the right questions that would help them succeed regarding banks, liability insurance, marketing to the federal government. "In the military, we have a role, we have a task. The environment doesn't bother us; we fix airplanes," Kevin says. "It's different when we have to go out and hire people."

Education

Kevin and Steven each have more than 20 years’ experience in the Air Force National Guard. They met in 1988 and have been deployed together all over the world including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo and Somalia. Nevertheless, Kevin calls starting a small business one of the most challenging, albeit rewarding, things he’s ever done.

With Kevin's background in electrical engineering and optical design, and Steven's in avionics manufacturing, the two had strong credentials for producing their aviation lighting systems, which makes lighting systems for aviation customers, from the overhead lights in an airplane cabin, to the runway and anti-collision lights utilized by airports.

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