Game Changers for Government Contractors

What if your real customer is the prime and not the government? In this episode, I interview Rick Stengard from EBWATER, who took a business unit from zero to about $55 million a year in federal revenue and an exit to private equity. More than 90% of that revenue came as a subcontractor, and that was by design. Rick walks through the 18 months it took to win the first contract, why his company had 8(a) and SDVOSB status and built the business around the primes instead, and what debriefs and CPARS taught his team. He also coaches drivers at the Porsche Experience Center in Atlanta (yes, we talk about that too).

In this episode, I walk through the four rules I give every client before we start working together. Be a good communicator. Follow through. Have high integrity. Stay solution focused. My clients have won more than $14.6 billion in government contracts, and these rules are how we work together to get there.

These rules start with me! I hold myself to them first (and you can steal them for your own team and clients).

After more than 400 episodes of asking the questions, Michael LeJeune takes the other seat. In this episode of Game Changers for Government Contractors, the microphone turns toward the host for a conversation that puts his own experience and perspective in the spotlight. It’s a change of pace for longtime listeners and an introduction to the person behind the show for anyone tuning in for the first time.

Is the sky falling again for government contractors? SBA's proposed size standard changes could add 37,000 companies to the small business pool, and the panic is loud. In this episode, I give you my take as an SDVOSB who's watched this market survive CMMC, COVID, DOGE, and three administrations. I get into the question nobody's asking: how many of those 37,000 companies can qualify for a socio-economic status when those programs are controlled by ownership? And why would a $200 million company want to fight over a $4 million contract in the first place?

In this special episode, I interview Alex Buggy and John Wayne Walding, from the Best Defense Foundation. together they built the Stronghold program, where special operations veterans spend a week at 10,000 feet in Utah with doctors, NFL players, and operators who've already made the transition. It's peer-led, it costs the veteran nothing, and more than 100 have been through it.

In this episode, I get into vanity metrics, using a high school friend of mine who took home nothing out of a company doing $3 million with 40 employees. Before he hired me he asked two questions, how much revenue I make and how many employees I have. My numbers were smaller than his, so he passed. I also break down the numbers I would put in their place. Margin per product, per service and per job instead of one blended average, whether you are paying yourself and your people above market, and why you look at all of it weekly instead of once a quarter.

In this episode I break down the X factor of working with a women-owned small business, why they make outstanding teaming partners in government contracting, and the four things I find myself coaching them out of every time.

In this episode I get into what I call putting in the reps. It's the boring, repetitive stuff almost nobody does consistently, and it's what quietly decides who wins. I run through the reps that matter in your business, including the one almost everybody quits on way too early.

What do you do with the employee who was perfect for the company you used to run?

In this episode, I get into what I call the loyalty trap, the thing that catches a lot of owners between $5M and $10M. The business grew, the skill the job needs grew, and the person you hired on day one stayed right where they were. Most owners read that as an employee problem. It is usually a company problem.

I also walk through the sit-down conversation, the fork in the road, and the exit that keeps everyone's dignity intact.

What would you do with eight hours back this week?

In this episode, I interview Luke Thompson from The Operations Guide about the work he has been doing to implement AI in organizations. One of his favorite implementations is an AI agent that wakes up periodically, checks your systems, and then makes decisions and takes action based on your rules.He also talks about how this can all be managed (once it's setup) from your phone and a simple text.