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Hard to Market
Trailer
Bonus
Episode 47
Season 1
How Small Businesses Can Get Government Contracts with Danita Cummins
Danita Cummins is a business strategist, coach, and the Principal Consultant at Cummins Consulting Group.
Danita spent 27 years in the Defense sector designing and deploying complex nuclear, Intelligence, and Information Technology solutions, and developed a passion for helping organizations within the Military-Industrial Complex and Technology industry grow. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of The Consulting Trap:
- How small businesses can get involved with Government contracts.
- The nuances involved in working with Government.
- How to navigate Government contracts as a small business.
- The drawbacks to working with the Government.
- How to get started working with the Government.
- What it’s like working with the Department of Defense.
Resources:
Connecting with Danita Cummins:
Connecting with the host:
Quotables
- 4:06 - “I don’t think a lot of small businesses really understand is the Government is the target market, the defense industrial base is a market and it's nuanced and it has a culture and it has biases and it has needs and strengths and weaknesses and approaching it from that perspective small businesses when they go and market themselves to the Government you have to understand all those factors for you to be able to be considered a valuable asset.”
- 4:58 - “There’s a percentage of work that the Government has to give to small businesses so the small business administration oversees that small business program for the Federal Government and then each one of the agencies like the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, they're all different departments they all have certain work share percentages that they have to give to small businesses, and then there are a lot of incentive programs that the Government gives funding to small businesses and a percentage of contracts just for small businesses.”
- 13:13 - “There’s a lot of different ways for small industry to make a difference but they have to be willing to stay in it for the long game. Which means you have to have a lot of financial runway to even consider the conversation, you need to have meaningful operation costs handled before the first check-ins of your account. It will be a while that’s for sure you don’t get an invoice and the Government won’t pay you for a while after the work is done.”
- 18:22 - “The number one thing I’ve picked up in my life journey is failure is your greatest teacher that’s the thing I’ve learned so don’t look at a situation as something that is, it’s not always go no go, there’s always a spectrum, there’s always an opportunity to learn from your failures.”
- 19:09 - “Relationships matter, we’re not made to live in the world alone so my greatest catalyst for change and growth are the mentors in my life that have spoken to my value and seen my outside myself and they tell me who I can be vs who I think I am so just finding a group of people that can be honest and real and authentic with you that is life-changing.”
Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks: