GovCon Unscripted

Mark Amtower has marketed to the government for more than 40 years, and he calls the federal market a vast Where's Waldo picture.

A Partner at Amtower & Company, he has hosted Amtower Off Center on Federal News Network for 19 years, contributed to Washington Technology for 18 years, and written 10 books, 5 on GovCon, including the new Findable.

Your firm can be fully capable and still invisible to the one buying office that matters. In a market of hundreds of federal activities, being capable and being findable are two different jobs, and posting more, connecting with everyone, and giving yourself a bigger title only add to the noise.

Mark's sequence is to differentiate first and connect second. Describe what you do in terms that resonate with a particular agency or type of activity, share past performance if you have it, and build educational content around that expertise. Only then should you connect with the agencies using that technology and the companies embedded inside them. He walks through his annual census of feds on LinkedIn, which by his count covers 820 federal activity pages and about 2.7 million feds. He also explains why a seat on an Army vehicle means sorting through 130 Army URLs to find the actual buying activities. He unpacks Army Directive 2026-17 and why consolidating official accounts does not make the people behind them disappear.

From there, the conversation turns to how he vets every connection request, why content should educate rather than end in a pitch, and why account-based marketing matters more for small businesses as agency information gets harder to find. Mark shares how he uses Gemini to sharpen his own ideas without handing it the writing. He describes the 18- to 24-month runway he puts in front of new entrants, and why the market, not the author, decides who earns a leading voice. If you use LinkedIn for GovCon business development, this one resets where the effort goes.

Timestamps:

02:06 Is LinkedIn still a business platform for federal contractors, or is it turning into Facebook?

03:28 How should you ask an established GovCon voice to connect with you on LinkedIn?

06:57 How do you tell whether a GovCon expert on LinkedIn is legitimate?

07:56 Does refusing most LinkedIn connection requests limit your reach in GovCon?

10:00 How long does it take a new federal contractor to win its first contract, and what does it cost?

12:13 Do small business set-aside programs still help new federal contractors under the current administration?

14:37 Are the recent executive orders actually speeding up federal procurement?

16:03 How should a small business differentiate itself to a federal agency?

16:47 Why is it so hard to stand out in the federal market, and should your content end with a sales pitch?

18:15 How can small businesses use LinkedIn to find the buying activities inside an agency?

19:55 Is the Army shutting down its LinkedIn pages, and what does that mean for contractors?

21:31 Why does account-based marketing matter more when agency information gets harder to find?

22:48 How should GovCon professionals use AI to write content without losing their voice?

24:48 Can you give yourself a leading title in GovCon, or does the market decide?

25:33 Is there a legitimate path to building a subject matter expert platform in GovCon?

Resources:

• Connect with Chelsea Roberts
• Connect with Mark Amtower

Other Resources:

• Federal News Network Website
• Amtower and Company

Listen now on:

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GovConUnscriptedUS

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GSA's new AI clause hinges on whether AI is a material feature of the buy, and "material" is the one word nobody defined.

With Shauna Weatherly, President and Founder of Federal Subcontract Solutions (FedSubK) and a former federal chief of contracting with 35 years in acquisition, and Jaime Gracia, Chief Innovation Officer at The Wolverine Group and a former federal procurement executive at Treasury, DHS, and State.

GSAR 552.239-7001 is a class deviation, not a final rule, and contracting officers can use it now. Shauna and Jaime cover several points with host Chelsea Roberts:

• Why the clause is about protecting government data rather than AI ethics.

• How industry feedback changed it after the first draft treated every contractor using AI like an AI provider.

• How the two-part test and its exceptions work.

• Why the requirement language and the contracting officer end up deciding whether it applies.

From there, they follow the clause past award. They look at who administers it, whether it stays inside GSA once it reaches MAS, and what it does to pricing, no-bid decisions, and MAS discounts.

You come away knowing three things. First, what to ask before award. Second, why the impact analysis is worth reading before you comment. Third, how CO discretion ends up in your price.

This is The Discretion Premium. When a clause leaves the deciding calls to the contracting officer, contractors build that uncertainty into their price, and the government ends up paying for it.

Timestamps:

04:21 What is GSAR 552.239-7001, and when does it take effect?

08:34 Does GSA treat every contractor using AI like an AI provider?

12:06 How do contracting officers decide whether the GSA AI clause applies?

23:24 How does contracting officer discretion create risk for contractors during the deviation?

27:58 How should contractors prepare for the GSA AI clause, and what does it do to pricing?

34:54 Will GSA MAS discounts shrink as new AI requirements roll in?

Resources:

• Connect with Chelsea Roberts
• Connect with Shauna Weatherly
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/shauna-weatherly/
• Website https://fedsubk.com
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@FedSubK
• Connect with Jaime Gracia
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimegracia/
• Website https://wolverine-group.com/

Listen now on:

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

Like and follow us:

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Join our GovCon communities:

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Winning the federal contract is supposed to be the good news. Evan Henris, CEO of Parabilis, explains why it so often starts the cash crisis instead.

The Launch Budget Trap. Contractors budget to win the work and stand it up, but not to carry it until the government pays. That gap pushes the financing decision into a crisis, right when every option gets more expensive.

Evan joined Parabilis in 2018, when the McLean, VA lender had four people, and worked through underwriting, operations, and capital markets before being named CEO in early 2026. Parabilis finances growing small and mid-size federal contractors so they can perform on the work they win. He sits down with Chelsea Roberts to walk through where contract financing goes wrong and what it costs when the decision gets made under pressure.

You will hear how much operating runway a new award really consumes (two to six months of expenses, in Evan's estimate), why selling a $1M invoice to cover a $15K bill rarely makes sense, and why rescue cash taken after a recompete slips usually costs more than the hard call it was meant to avoid. Evan also covers when debt is the wrong answer to a contract loss, what lenders weigh beyond the award itself, how AI can build a cash flow model a lender will actually read, and the calendar test every founder should be able to pass.

If your pipeline is growing, this is the conversation to have before the next award lands.

Timestamps:

00:06:05 How do you spot a lender whose pricing will eat your margin?

00:10:13 How much working capital does a new federal contract actually need?

00:10:56 When does invoice factoring stop making sense?

00:13:51 Is factoring a federal contract invoice legal?

00:15:47 What is a merchant cash advance, and what does it really cost?

00:16:44 Why do contractors reach for rescue cash after a recompete loss?

00:18:39 What should you do instead of taking a rescue advance?

00:21:14 When is debt the wrong answer to a contract loss?

00:25:12 Is your company too small for a line of credit?

00:26:45 Should a capital partner be part of your growth pipeline?

00:28:52 What do lenders evaluate beyond the contract award?

00:30:48 Can AI build a cash flow model a lender will accept?

00:34:49 Can your company run for two weeks without you?

Resources:

Follow Evan Henris on LinkedIn

Follow Chelsea Roberts on LinkedIn

Other Resources:

Parabilis Website

Listen now on:

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GovConUnscriptedUS

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Your capability statement gets you into the room. Then you spend the first 20 minutes introducing yourself anyway.

It's called "The Introduction Tax", and small firms pay it in every meeting and at every event. The cost comes out of the two resources they have least of, which are time in front of the customer and the budget to show up.

Chelsea Roberts sits down with Will McCormick, Editorial Director at Set-Aside Alert and creator of GovCon Games. Will has been a writer for about 20 years and covers federal small business policy for Set-Aside Alert, which has been publishing since 1991. Will explains why he built GovCon Games to help firms lead with personality and expertise before they lead with past performance. He also walks through the problem, cause, consequence, and solution sequence that turns a single conversation into content that keeps working for a year.

The two also cover the policy picture small firms are working in right now. They talk about why HUBZone is holding up better than other set-aside programs, the quieter pressure on WOSB, and why the CMMC Phase II suspension does not take NIST SP 800-171 off anyone's plate. Chelsea shares what separates a post-event follow-up that gets a reply from one that gets ignored.

If your BD plan still depends on handing out cards and hoping someone calls back, this episode will change how you budget your next event.

Resources:

Connect with Will McCormick

Connect with Chelsea Roberts

Other Resources:

Set-Aside Alert LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/setasidealert/

GovCon Games Instagram https://www.instagram.com/govcongames

Personal Email: [email protected]

Listen now on:

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

Like and follow us:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GovConUnscriptedUS

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Join our GovCon communities:

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The FAR overhaul was sold as 500 fewer pages. The person who reads every rule expects it to land back near 2,000.

The rules that bind you get decided before the proposed rule ever reaches your inbox. Almost no one from industry is in the room when it happens.

Chelsea Roberts sits down with David Mullis, Regulatory Affairs Consultant at Gov Contract Pros LLC, who tracks Federal Register, OIRA, and Unified Regulatory Agenda activity for the small business community. His firm has requested an OIRA 12866 meeting on the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul, and by his account it is the only contracting industry group engaging in that process right now.

They get into what the RFO actually removes and what it quietly adds, including new CUI incident reporting, cybersecurity frameworks, and termination protest timelines. David explains why moving forms and examples into the FAR Companion takes them outside notice and comment, why contracting officers' own liability may pull a more flexible FAR back toward large incumbents, and where commercial-first buying lowers the cybersecurity bar. On CMMC, he walks through a 60-day pause that doesn't reach the November implementation date, why primes may require it regardless, and the planned move to NIST SP 800-171 Revision 3 with its supply chain focus.

The back half is The Upstream Window. David makes the case for the 12866 meeting as 30 unfiltered minutes with White House staff and the FAR Council, explains why the SBA size standards methodology white paper now at OIRA is the part that actually binds, and flags why this will be the first size standard reviewed in a post-Chevron, Loper Bright world.

If you run capture, BD, or a small business with a size standard to protect, the time to engage is before the comment period, not during it.

Timestamps:

00:04:20 Is the RFO actually making the FAR shorter?

00:05:40 What does moving forms and examples into the FAR Companion change for contractors?

00:06:50 Will RFO flexibility actually help small businesses win?

00:11:05 Does the commercial-first push create a security gap?

00:15:18 CMMC is paused. Should companies stop preparing?

00:15:52 What changes when CMMC moves to NIST 800-171 Revision 3?

00:23:05 How can contractors actually influence the RFO before it's final?

00:24:38 Will a government shutdown delay the next round of RFO rules?

00:26:52 Are SBA size standards going up or down?

00:27:30 When is the comment that actually changes your size standard?

00:31:35 What does Loper Bright mean for the next size standards rule?

Resources:

• Follow David Mullis
• Follow Chelsea Roberts

Other resources:

• Gov Contract Pros on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gov-contract-pros
• Gov Contract Pros Website: https://www.govcontractpros.com

Listen now on:

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

Like and follow us:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GovConUnscriptedUS

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Join our GovCon communities: 

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In the 1990s, the government decided proposals had become too easy to fake, so it started asking to hear from the people who would actually do the work. That is the oral presentation, and it is now one of the fastest-growing phases in federal source selection.

In this week's episode of GovCon Unscripted, orals coach Lisa Shea Mundt, a 15-year veteran of federal proposals, sits down with Chelsea Reberts to explain why the skill that wins on paper doesn't win in the room. She covers confidence ratings versus adjectival scoring, the solicitation language that quietly grades collaboration, why a corporate representative who cannot survive Q&A is a liability, and how to prepare a reluctant technical expert to carry a live presentation.

Whether you are building your first orals team or tightening a capture plan that treats orals as a formality, this conversation is a practical guide to winning the room.

Chapters:

00:00 Why the government stopped trusting proposals

02:00 What an oral presentation actually is

03:30 The unwritten requirement hiding in “performance risk”

05:30 Why COVID made orals explode

07:30 Confidence ratings vs adjectival scoring

11:00 Writing a script is not reading a proposal aloud

16:00 Logos, pathos, ethos in the room

19:00 “The words need to conform to me”

22:00 Scripts, notes, and teleprompters: what is allowed

27:00 When your best technical mind is your worst presenter

32:00 The Q&A round nobody prepares for

Resources:

Follow Lisa Shea Mundt

Follow Chelsea Roberts

🎧 Listen now on:

🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

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Most organizations think they lose performance first. They don’t. They lose capacity quietly, and performance is just the last thing to go.

Robert Rivers has watched it happen from the inside of government for nearly two decades. Here is how to see it coming.

Leading federal teams through budget cuts without gutting capacity is the core of this Success After Service episode of GovCon Unscripted. Host Chelsea Roberts talks with Robert Rivers, Co-Founder of QTR Foundry and author of Running With Scissors, about organizational readiness: the capacity that drains out of a team long before performance ever dips.

Drawing on 19 years inside government, from the flight-test culture at Edwards to acquisition and defense healthcare at Hanscom, Robert breaks down what erodes first. He introduces TOIL, time on inefficient labor, the bureaucratic tasks that quietly consume your best people. He unpacks the structure-versus-clarity trap, where leaders reorganize when the team simply needed clarity. And he reframes culture as community intelligence: how fast a team can regenerate, fill gaps, and adapt under pressure.

The through-line for anyone leading through DOGE-era change: you do not need to get smaller because the mission shifted. You need to protect readiness, separate the human work from the machine work, and rebuild capacity before the performance number forces your hand.

Timestamps:

00:01 — What Success After Service means and who Robert is

01:30 — Running With Scissors and getting through the red-tape maze

03:00 — 19 years in government and the innovation origin at Edwards

05:30 — Top cover, risk, and reorganizing instead of clarifying

09:00 — Resilience and the DOGE-era workforce toll

16:00 — TOIL: time on inefficient labor, and human-machine integration

21:00 — Right-sizing without shrinking, and second and third order effects

23:00 — Inside QTR Foundry: strategy to execution, and AI is not the enemy

26:00 — Why AI adoption fails on the human, not the machine

29:00 — Culture as community intelligence

31:00 — Where to find Robert, QTR Foundry, and the book

Leading federal teams through budget cuts without gutting capacity is the core of this Success After Service episode of GovCon Unscripted. Host Chelsea Roberts talks with Robert Rivers, Co-Founder of QTR Foundry and author of Running With Scissors, about organizational readiness: the capacity that drains out of a team long before performance ever dips.

Drawing on 19 years inside government, from the flight-test culture at Edwards to acquisition and defense healthcare at Hanscom, Robert breaks down what erodes first. He introduces TOIL, time on inefficient labor, the bureaucratic tasks that quietly consume your best people. He unpacks the structure-versus-clarity trap, where leaders reorganize when the team simply needed clarity. And he reframes culture as community intelligence: how fast a team can regenerate, fill gaps, and adapt under pressure.

The through-line for anyone leading through DOGE-era change: you do not need to get smaller because the mission shifted. You need to protect readiness, separate the human work from the machine work, and rebuild capacity before the performance number forces your hand.

Timestamps (provisional, reset in Descript)

00:01 — What Success After Service means and who Robert is

01:30 — Running With Scissors and getting through the red-tape maze

03:00 — 19 years in government and the innovation origin at Edwards

05:30 — Top cover, risk, and reorganizing instead of clarifying

09:00 — Resilience and the DOGE-era workforce toll

16:00 — TOIL: time on inefficient labor, and human-machine integration

21:00 — Right-sizing without shrinking, and second and third order effects

23:00 — Inside QTR Foundry: strategy to execution, and AI is not the enemy

26:00 — Why AI adoption fails on the human, not the machine

29:00 — Culture as community intelligence

31:00 — Where to find Robert, QTR Foundry, and the book

🎧 Listen now on:

🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

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🔹 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/govcon-unscripted/posts/

🔹 JOIN OUR #govcon #community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14618490/

Resources:

Follow Robert Rivers

Other resources:

QTR Foundry: https://qtrfoundry.com

Personal site: https://robertsrivers.com

Book, Running With Scissors (Robert Rivers): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H4NQ6GMD

🎧 Listen now on:

🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

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He spent half a million dollars of his own money, put his platform inside the VA’s own cloud, and then told the government he didn’t want a pilot. In this Success After Service episode, a 100% service-disabled Marine explains why refusing the pilot is the whole strategy.

In this Success After Service special episode of GovCon Unscripted, Mike Schmitt retired from the Marine Corps in 2004, spent years in medical devices at Medtronic, and then did something few small-business owners attempt: he self-funded a clinical toxicology lab, built his own laboratory information system, and stood it up inside the VA Enterprise Cloud through Syncly Direct so it could do imaging, lab, and AI in one place.

As a 100% service-disabled veteran running an SDVOSB, he learned the federal market the hard way. In this conversation with host Chelsea Roberts, he lays out the argument at the center of his approach: the pilot-and-funding cycle rarely produces anything, so instead of asking the VA for money and two years, he arrives already built, already authorized, and sells the result. He talks through the siloed VA and its VISNs, the records gap that leaves veterans carrying binders between systems, the credibility discount a small business faces against Deloitte and Oracle, the commercial dual-use of the platform in substance-abuse testing, and why, for him, this is about veterans taking care of veterans.

Timestamps:

00:00 Welcome and who Mike Schmitt is

01:00 From the Marine Corps and Medtronic into toxicology

02:00 Going in as a 100% service-disabled veteran (2018–2019)

03:00 Crossing the Rubicon: the MOU and interservice agreement

05:00 Building his own lab system and moving to AWS GovCloud

06:00 Syncly Direct inside the VA Enterprise Cloud

07:00 The records gap: a pregnant veteran and the PACT Act

09:00 The siloed VA and the VISNs

11:00 An agnostic platform: “Uber healthcare”

12:00 Lobbyists, the Hill, and why he walked away

13:00 The credibility discount: “if I’m not a Deloitte or an Oracle”

16:00 HIPAA and the compliance gap

20:00 Why he refuses the pilot

21:00 A nine out of ten, and the 2026 FORUM Innovation Award

23:00 Commercial dual-use: substance-abuse testing, the 97-compound panel

25:00 The heat map: reading opioid and health risk by region

29:00 Advice for transitioning veterans

31:00 Veterans taking care of veterans

33:00 How to reach Mike

Resources:

• Michael Schmitt's LinkedIn profile
• Chelsea Roberts' LinkedIn profile

Other resources:

• Central Tox (Semper Fi Labs) Website
• Syncly Direct Website
• Email: [email protected]

🎧 Listen now on:

🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

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She could have become a full-time executive years ago. She refused to stop being an engineer.

Twenty-five years later, that choice still shapes the company.

Dr. Sarbari Gupta founded Electrosoft in 2001, walking away from a steady job with nothing else lined up. Twenty-five years later the company runs around 200 employees, and she is still a technologist at heart. In this conversation with host Chelsea Roberts, she covers the leap that started it all, winning early contracts on relationships rather than pedigree, learning GovCon accounting from scratch, the difference between RMF/ATO and Zero Trust, pursuing CMMC Level 2 as a cybersecurity firm, learning to delegate, and the two things she has never been willing to hand off: the customer relationships, and her own connection to the technology.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:01 From electrical engineering to cybersecurity

01:00 The leap of faith: founding Electrosoft in 2001

02:30 Early challenges: GovCon accounting and learning to sell

03:30 Why federal — PKI, NIST and NSA connections

05:00 Has the compliance load grown? CMMC and FISMA

08:00 RMF/ATO vs. Zero Trust, explained

11:00 Barriers, focus, and growth

12:30 Scaling and the mid-2025 rebound

14:30 Learning to delegate at ~200 employees

16:00 The two things she will never hand off

18:00 Staying a technologist, and betting on AI

20:30 What is next for Electrosoft

22:00 Where to find Dr. Gupta and Electrosoft

Resources:

• Follow Dr. Sarbari Gupta
• Follow Chelsea Roberts

Other resources:

• Electrosoft's LinkedIn page

• Electrosoft's website

• Resources page on Electrosoft's website

🎧 Listen now on:

🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

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🔹 JOIN OUR #govcon #community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14618490/

Your bank account cannot tell you what next month looks like. A forecast can. Bud McDonald has spent 35 years proving the difference is the whole ballgame.

Most small business owners manage by their bank balance. Bud McDonald, founder of McMay Business Services, spent more than three decades leading turnarounds, managing P&Ls, and running large teams before he started helping small businesses do the one thing that separates the ones that grow from the ones that stall: see their money before it arrives.

In this episode, Bud and Chelsea get into the 13-week cash flow forecast, why a four-page business plan beats no plan, the receivables conversation every founder dreads, how to price the outcome instead of the hour, and the real signal that tells you when it is time to make your first hire. Practical, unglamorous, and exactly the kind of thing nobody hands you when you start a company.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:00 35 years of turnarounds, and why Bud started McMay

02:00 The business plan that fits on four pages

03:00 Budget, forecast, and the 13-week cash flow

04:00 The bank-balance trap

06:00 Chelsea’s spreadsheet lesson

07:00 Bookkeeping as the foundation

08:00 QuickBooks, Wave, and picking a scalable tool

10:00 The mistake behind most turnarounds: processes nobody uses

13:00 A turnaround story: communication first

20:00 Receivables, and the conversation nobody wants

22:00 When to fire a customer

25:00 Pricing: value your time, then price the outcome

30:00 There is no magic number for your first hire

34:00 Working on the business vs in the business

36:00 Where to find Bud

Resources:

• Follow Bud McDonald's LinkedIn Profile
• Follow Chelsea Roberts' LinkedIn Profile

Other resources:

• McMay Business Services Website

🎧 Listen now on:

🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482

🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy

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