140. My Secret Formula to Make Millions from Government Contracts (with Jason White)

0:00The U.S. federal budget reached an astonishing$6.5 trillion this year. Would you like to grab your share? There is a 100 % legal way to secure a few million for yourself. It's called government contracting. This episode is all about landing well-paid government contracts. Stay tuned to learn what it takes to land your first government contract, how to outsource these contracts so you don't have to do the work yourself, and the common pitfalls to avoid that could land you in hot water with the government. This is Ryan Atkinson, and you're listening to the Up With Podcast, where we uncover how great businesses are built, how they run behind the scenes, and how you can replicate their success.

0:34Our guest today is Jason White, a government contracting expert with over 15 years of experience in the field. He built a system that landed him tens of millions in government contracts, and he doesn't have to lift a finger to fulfill them. Today, Jason will give you a quick rundown on how to do it yourself. Jason, welcome to the show. Super excited to have you. What's up, buddy, man? Appreciate you for having me. When you say that word, truly, man, I just want a piece of it. That's the only thing I'm not. I just want a piece. I think everyone wants a piece of it because when I said it, I was saying the same thing.

1:01Maybe I need to be pivoting out of video marketing into government contracting. What I'm excited today to talk about is that, but before we dive into the nitty gritty of it, people are thinking, I want a piece. Let's first lay the groundwork of where you come from and how you got started with government contracting. So can you share with us kind of your journey into like federal contracts? Yeah, man, that's too easy. I'm from a town called Norfolk, Virginia. So all of my military veterans, you know about the Tidewater area, 757, man. So there is where I found out about government contracting. And that was via my friend, because even though I served in the U.S.

1:33Coast Guard for 10 years, the Coast Guard didn't teach me about government contracting. My homeboy did or made the attempt to. So while I was working at the gas station, he was trying to teach me about government contracting, but couldn't because he got locked up. So I had to be self-taught through the rabbit hole of YouTube University. And that was back in 2008, man. So you can imagine how terrible YouTube was back then. And that's how I got started, man. I love that. So we're starting in 2008. Yeah, it's been 15, 16 years now. I want to ask, because when I think of government contracts, I'm thinking of planes.

2:08I'm thinking of like huge machinery, like that type of government contracts. But what are government contracts? Let's lay that groundwork as well. So anytime I speak, I speak on the federal level. There's a state, there's a local, and there's the federal level. So I only speak on the federal level. So what a federal government contract is, the federal government is looking for a company to procure a certain product and or a certain service by way of bidding. And then they just take care of that product or service. That's all the contract is. Interesting. And so these contracts, can you give us some areas that you can want a federal contract in?

2:43Can you kind of give us that range? Yeah, man. So it's everything. Watch this. So I make it simple and then I'd be specific. Anything that federal government needs inside the federal government, they need it outside the federal government as well. So we talk about the planes, like you just talked about, we talking about military equipment, but now we've been talking about pens, pencils, laptops, TVs, digital marketing, digital equipment, glasses, hats, shirts, anything that you need outside the federal government, you need it inside the federal government and the federal government does a really good job of making a contract for it as well.

3:18Okay. I love it. So this is expanding beyond a billion dollars worth of like plain equipment into just like simple like pens and paper. Yeah. But pens and paper can be billions of dollars because the federal government isn't a local agency or a state agency. The federal government is across all 50 states, right? So now you're looking at all of these states that needs a federal government contract with pens and pencils, and that's a billion dollars right there, possibly. Well, I mean, we're talking about a$6.5 trillion industry. So just a small piece of a billion is - That's it. That's all I need.

3:50That's what I mean. Let's talk about like securing a government contract. We're going to talk about the whole process here and like how to like get your first government contract and all that stuff. But can you kind of lay out those steps of like from start to finish, like what this process looks like? Yeah, man, it's pretty simple. I think there's a lot of people online. There's a lot of people that got their YouTube channels and they make this thing so difficult. They make it so hard. They want to talk over your head versus helping them talk to you so you can easily digested so you want to get into a federal government contract.

4:21It's a simple process. You go to sam.gov, you look for the product or the service that you want to provide the federal government. You submit a proposal and you wait to see if you want to lose. That's it. And you do it again and again and again. And obviously there's a couple of learning curves because you got to understand government jargon. You got to understand pricing. And then you also got to understand who to properly partner up with. Because the way I teach government contracting, I don't do any of the work. I sub all of my work out. So you got to properly understand who to partner up with, their pricing and yours.

4:57But it's just as simple as that. Go to SAM.gov, find a product, find a service, submit the proposal, watch, rinse, repeat. You're making it sound so simple where I might be making about 100K here in the next few weeks just doing federal contracts. I want to make it known. I make it sound easy because the process is easy. And I've been doing it since 2008 because you're talking to me. Now, obviously, somebody that has never heard of a federal government contract and or has never dabbled with it, it's not going to turn out that easy to them in the beginning. But nothing is hard about it. Nothing is overwhelming about it.

5:33You take your time. You understand what you're doing. It will become very easy, just like I'm saying it is. I love it. Let's talk about winning that first contract? Because basically you just need to go to sam.gov. You need to put your proposal in, all that good stuff. How do you stand out on that first government contract? What are some tips that you have? Man, a lot of these people think it's all in your numbers and how long you've been doing business, but it's really not. The federal government took a chance on my company back in 2008 and I had no experience at all. I had no network and I had no government contract and affiliations.

6:08They gave me an opportunity because I knew how to properly network and my paperwork was amazing. I knew how to properly network, right? Just by having human to human interaction, because a lot of people think you still need to do everything by computer and email. That's not always how you get a government contract, especially with no experience. Also too, my paperwork was immaculate because over each submission, I got better and better and better. I would never tell anybody or make it seem like soon as I submitted my first federal government proposal, I won. No, I lost way more proposals than I've been awarded.

6:46I started in 2008, but I didn't win my first contract until 2011. So it personally took me three years because I didn't have any guidance. I'd have a mentor. I hate to read and I don't have no patience. So I barely graduated from high school. So that's just a little context on why it took me so long. But, you know, it's not taking people that long today, but I just stuck with it and understood, all right, the key to winning this thing is me properly networking and me having my paperwork in order. And that's the best tips I can have for anybody. Yeah, I think the networking one is pretty intuitive for people.

7:20The paperwork one for me, though, is like kind of interesting. What do you mean like you had your paperwork in like order and like you stood out that way? I think that's super interesting. Yeah, yeah. So you got to think about it, man. these contract specialists and these people that work for the government well let me say this every time i say networking a lot of times people think that's the easier out of the two that's the artist out of the two how you gonna network with a contract specialist where you gonna go i'm not telling you to go to a government contracting conference and follow these people around and when i say network a lot of people say like you just thought too i saw it and we like yeah that i can network yeah you probably can but networking for a federal government contract is a different beast right so that is a different skill set but when we specifically when we talk about the paperwork you have to make it so somebody can read this information well most people are corporate minded so they add all this glitz and glamour to stuff that the federal government don't even care about the federal government is black and white they ask for some documentation send it to them that's all if they don't ask for no documentation don't send them extra documentation.

8:27And most people send all this extra stuff that they don't care about and it ended up getting lost in the sauce. So whatever they're asking for, provided for them, that's all, no more, no less. All right. I like that. I think that gives some good tips on the paperwork, but of course, then I have to ask about the networking. What are the different skill sets it takes to network with federal contracts? Number one, you got to understand this individual that you're going to properly talk to or properly talk to is not the federal government. they're a human being that has a job with the federal government agency that's the first thing so you gotta switch your mindset and you don't gotta do a whole song and dance they're not the government they're just a person that works for the federal government the second thing is you can be very vulnerable with these people when this is what i mean by that if this is your first time getting ready to submit a proposal for a federal government agency you can say that i don't care who you are everybody hates the person in the room that thinks they know everything everybody hates that individual.

9:20Don't try to network with a contract specialist thinking you know everything because they're going to instantly start to say, well, if you know everything, why are you talking to me? So understand that this person is not the federal government and exude a high level of vulnerability because human action or reaction will always kick in. Anytime I see somebody needs help, I'm going to help them. Obviously, if it's my job at the moment, it's the contracting specialist job to help out. I like that. So I think we've kind of hammered home how to stand out early on networking, your paperwork and all that good stuff.

9:51But how do you identify and target like the right government contracts for your business? Because a lot of people are thinking, okay, well, the process is there, but like, how do I identify which contracts actually go after? All of them. Every last one. Let me tell you what, I am subbing out the work, right? So if I'm subbing out the work, that means I'm just doing what? I'm just managing the federal government's expectation to another company that's doing the work and everybody can manage expectations. We do it all the time has anybody under the sound of my voice ever submitted their car to the auto mechanic and when you went to the auto mechanic you say hey man i just need an oil change and they say okay cool they sit you in the waiting room when they come out the waiting room what does that mechanic say you need a transmission unit fuel line you need this you need that and guess what you go back and say hey thank you for all that but i only need an oil change so guess what you did you just managed the expectations of an auto mechanic on your car that's been doing a job for 15 years.

10:47If you know what the expectation is from the federal government, you can easily relate that and articulate that there's somebody that's going to be doing the work. So I don't teach how to niche down. I teach there are 96 ,000 opportunities. So if it's 96 ,000 opportunities, why would I teach to only be in one lane? And we're going out to every opportunity because there's a business and a company out there made for that particular opportunity. I just got to partner up with them. I think that gives some pretty good context on you don't need to niche down as long as you're subcontracting. And of course, that leaves me into the next question that someone is going to intuitively think of is how do you find these subcontractors for a contract that you win?

11:25Yeah, man. So you're not going to reach out to your mama and them. You're not going to network with your cousin and them. Why? Because they don't look at you like the boss that you are. They look at you as the little cousin that used to pee in the bed when we was five years old. you know what i mean so you're gonna find the subcontractors in all of these areas with my best friend google that's it right google is going to give you who you can reach out to to partner up with to do that particular work or to find that particular product you can't worry about how to properly vet and do all this and that and the third because you have to trust your instinct everybody can have what i like to call a bs radar so even if you get on the phone and give somebody an interview they can still be lying even if they ask for documentation to be sent over that could be false documentation you only gonna know this company can do the work until they get out there and start to get busy that's what the government did with me the government gave me a shot in 2008 they have no information on me i had no experience and the name of my company was called i get money LLC.

12:35But they gave me a shot. You know what I mean? So ever since then, I kind of took that model from the federal government and that's how I do my subcontractors as well. So just use Google. You'll be fine. Dude, I absolutely love that. Is that still the name of your LLC? Not anymore, man. I had to change it. But back in 2008, I was like, man, I need a company name. I'm about to get some money. Okay. I get money.

13:00That's amazing. I love that. And I feel like a super important part. Since you won your first contract back in 2011, I think you said 2008, is it easier once you start getting those contracts to get renewals on contracts because you built a working relationship to actually know what you're like? Or can you talk about that a little bit? So the word easy is relative. So I'm going to say yes, because the goal for anybody with federal government contract is to be what I like to call, what the government calls sole source, where you don't have to bid anymore. You don't have to look through sam.gov anymore.

13:30You One of the agencies just reaches out to you. And the next thing you know, you're telling them how much you want to charge for that particular job. And then that's all that's it. So, yes, over time, after you win so many awards, it does get super easy because you're showing your past performance and showing that you could do the job and you could do different jobs underneath the same company umbrella. So, yeah, it definitely becomes easier. Yeah, I feel like that's just like with anything in business. once you've like proved to someone that you can do the work, even in business like this and like just service businesses in general, it becomes a lot easier.

14:02What are some other things about like subcontractors? How do you build that reliable network of subcontractors? Because obviously like there's 96 ,000 contracts out there to be one. I'm sure you've done jobs repeat, but like, yeah, what are some ways to like really vet out and find those good ones? I mean, you don't know who was good until they do the work. I'm talking about even down to some of the big major companies, right? Some of the big major companies can't be garbage. They can literally be trash. So my whole philosophy about subcontractors are getting on the phone, talking to them, and using your gut.

14:34Like I said, everybody got a BS radar. Even right now, whoever's listening to the sound of my voice, they can tell, man, this dude BS and he don't know what he's talking about. Or they can say, man, this dude sounds like he knows what he's talking about. I'm going to give it a shot. It's the same way with the subcontractors. As you're going through some paperwork, as you're going through some documentation with your subcontractor and you're on the phone, you can tell if they know how to do this work or if they Google and stuff as they go. It's like, what? And you don't even have to be in that particular industry to know they either mine or they stand and talk.

15:06So you got to give them the opportunity. I think one of the biggest misconceptions with federal government contracting is the federal government will blackball you or they'll ban you. If you don't get this job done, oh my, you're in so much pressure, you can get blackballed. That's not the case, man. You just can't make the same mistake with the federal government over and over and over again. So once your subcontracted to make a mistake, you just get them out of there and put somebody else in their place. Can I get a drum roll, please? Because we are giving away a free lifetime access to the Academy for one lucky listener.

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16:14The winner will be announced on July 26th. All you need to do, leave us a review on Apple, send us a screenshot of proof, and you guys can find more details in the show notes below. If someone is just getting started, if someone is listening to this and they're like, man, that guy does know what he's talking about. I'm actually giving this a shot. I'm pulling up sam.gov right now. Would you advise them to check out certain contracts over other ones because they're easier to complete? They're just getting started. If so, what would those be? all of them like i'm trying to take you man listen the word easy is relative but if i'm not doing the work they all easy now as i say that i will say this if you can't properly articulate what you're reading over to a subcontractor then just go to another contract right so now we're going to use the word easy in this tense if you can't articulate it then it's not easy if you can articulate it then it's easy and then you use that information that you can articulate and find a subcontractor but we going for everything man i never want anybody to start out thinking that oh let me just go for some janitorial because it's cleaning or let me go for some lawn care because it's cutting grass to truth be told those are some of the hardest contracts to do in the beginning because you as a newbie actually got to teach the person who just started a lawn care company how to actually conduct themselves in that government facility.

17:34And it's not easy. So those aren't the easier contracts like everybody thinks. So everything is easy. You just got to be able to articulate what the expectations are. I am curious, does the federal government ever ask you like, well, are your employees like in-house? Are you subcontracting? Like, how do you kind of navigate that with that question that really comes up? Yeah, no, it comes up all the time. You don't navigate it. You just tell the truth. Hey, Mr. White, are you doing this work or are you subcontracting i'm subcontracting it up okay thank you the biggest misconception with federal government contracting the way i teach it is that you have to have some type of long drawn out corporate answer to the government they ask right if they're asking just tell them if they're not asking you still go tell them like you still gonna be your paperwork be your conversation you're still gonna end up telling them that you're subbing out this work we don't hide we don't try to find loopholes.

18:25If they say, hey, Mr. White, you can't sub this work up, thank him. And I go on to another solicitation that I can. So I don't try to navigate it. I just be honest and truthful and upfront with the federal government because at the end of the day, ain't nobody going to jail for this. Ain't nobody. You know what I mean? And don't nobody want to tiptoe the line of what's right and what's wrong. I don't find loopholes. I don't tiptoe. If I can do it, I'm going to do it. If I can't do it, I'm not doing it. I'm black and white, just like the federal government. I love that. I like how just like straight up and like to the point you are with like all of this, honestly, just like, here's your answer and basically black and white, as you've been saying.

19:00I want to ask about like some of the most profitable contracts that you've secured. Can you talk about like some of the best contracts you've had just to kind of get the wheel spinning for some people? Yeah, for sure, man. I think over time, my sub leasing commercial space to the federal government is very profitable. My experience and elevator maintenance contracts have always been very profitable and portable toilets and portable hand washing stations too and it's always a festival it's always a festival that the federal government want to put on it's always a ceremony it's always a closing of a base or opening of a base man they need porta potties and portable hand washing stations like crazy and obviously elevated maintenance take care of itself right so these are just a few and let me go way way left i've been awarded a wig making contract as well so i just want to give everybody Look at your face.

19:49That's insane. I just want to give everybody what the possibilities are because when I say everything, I'm literally talking about everything and I'm not niching myself down for nothing. A question that came up to mind, let's stick with like the port-a-potty one. So do you first like get a quote from like a port-a-potty company and then submit your proposal or do you submit a proposal for X amount of dollars and just try and find like a subcontractor that's like beneath that or like, how does that work? Yeah, you can't do it that way. You can't submit a dollar off first and then circle back and say, hey, man, I only got a thousand dollars.

20:23They like what? Our port-a-potties started three thousand. So no, you can't do no work with us. So you got to go find out how much they charging for their port-a-potties in the hand-washed stations first. After you find out how much they're charging, then you put your money on top of that. Then you submit. But you got to find out what they charging and go from there first. Yeah. What do you typically mark up? Are you able to kind of share that? Yeah, no, I'm definitely not sharing that. But I will say this, though. But I say this. I don't do percentages. Percentages will suit you in the put every time.

20:54Anybody that does federal government contracting and does percentages, they are losing money. Number one, we already losing money. Why? Because we're bidding on contracts. Because we're bidding and we don't know what the full price is from the federal government, we already leaving money on the table. But you're definitely leaving money on the table if you are starting to do percentages because every contract will be different. So if you go into each contract saying, I'm going to charge 15 % each contract, man, you're doing it wrong and you're not profitable. Not like you can be, but no, we don't do percentages.

21:24I'll definitely say that. Interesting. Okay. A question that also came up from that. So the government, do they set like a magical number of like, we're going to spend up to$100 ,000 on this project and you don't know what that is. You just kind of throw your number in and hope it's like close as possible to it. They got companies doing like fighting each other like gladiators, man. And to your point, yes, we do not know what the full price is of this job, right? Because if we did, if everybody bidding on it knew it was$100 ,000, how much would everybody bid? $100 ,000. Everybody bid would be the exact same.

21:56And now it's not a competition. The government is having us compete against each other with pricing, paperwork, and availability. Ah, okay. Pricing, paperwork, and availability. But if you tell us, hey, this job is going to be one hundred thousand, you're going to lose out on half of the people that can possibly do the job. And then everybody going to come in at one hundred thousand dollars. So that's why they don't do it that way. So, yeah, man, they got us competing against each other and not knowing what the price points are so we can come in with the best, most capable price. Holy smokes. I think that is crazy that you don't know what the price point is.

22:31So you're just kind of like throwing a number out there and hoping it like lands with them. Right. Right. I mean, at the end of the day, you're going to win. are you going to lose? Nothing is a sure thing as it relates to when you submit your proposal. Nothing is a sure thing. My mindset is I'm cool with that because if there's 96 ,000 contract opportunities, man, I got 96 ,000 shots. I'm putting them up. You're putting up like Seth Curry in a game seven. Do you have like a formula then or does it just kind of come from intuition on like how you should price your contracts? Yeah. Over time, you're going to get better.

23:03Like I said, everybody in the federal code family knows how to accurately price these solicitations based off what I've been successfully doing since 2008. But over time, you'll get better. You'll understand industries. You'll understand the time frame you're in. What I mean by that is, is it an election year? Is it not an election year? Have we just had a big national disaster? Whatever's going on in the world can affect your pricing up or down and you'll get better over time understanding what that looks like for you. I was just going to ask, are there like seasons to this where like in the summer it gets busier and like in the winter gets, or is it like very high demand at all times?

23:38Yeah. So remember the 96 ,000 opportunities, that's every single day. That's not up and down. That number doesn't get higher, but it's because it's hotter outside or lower because it's cold. Because remember this federal government contract. So where it's cold at, it's warm somewhere else. And where it's warm at, it's cold somewhere else. So that doesn't matter. Now, there are fiscal times. So the federal government operates on a fiscal calendar. So there are times during the fiscal year where the activity of the contract specialist is higher than others. And that's a no brainer. That's the fourth quarter.

24:12The fourth quarter of the fiscal year is the highest activity level. But the contract that's available is the same. OK, I like that. Yeah, because we're Q2, Q3 here. So everyone get ready for a busy Q4. It sounds like I'm curious that during an election year, do the budgets go up or they do they like go down? Most of that stays the same. It's just you will start to see more of a certain industry. You'll start to see more security contracts. You'll start to see more IT contracts. So based on the time of the year, you'll just see a heavier load of a certain industry based off of what's going on.

24:45OK, perfect. That makes sense for us. Before we get to our fan blitz questions, if there's one thing someone should know about federal contracts and winning these things, I'm sure we talked about it, but can you please reiterate, what should they know about federal contacts before we move to our last section? Yeah, man. What they need to know is they but need to be consistent. If they don't know what consistency is, federal government contract, not for them. This is a skillset business based off of consistency. So if you don't know how to work on your skillsets, which is reading and communicating, and I know a lot of people say, I already know how to read, Jay White.