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They don’t know what to do where to go, how to navigate. They don’t even know this program even works.

Someone told them to get a so they lucked up hire a consultant paid someone some money. Maybe they even fill out the application themselves. They got a certification and now they’re stuck well. If you are big hat no cattle stuck with a certification and want to learn how to navigate the program, stay tuned for this article coming up right now, we’re going to take you through a walkthrough on behind the scenes of 8a program and how it works.

All right, thank you for joining over the big screen today, we’re discussing the eight a business development program, the infamous eight, a quote, unquote license to steal program, so many people out there have asked me questions about it. It’s probably the most number one most best thing in government country. It’s Eric the ad program. Should I get n/a? Should I become a day when to start winning not to start, how does it work? I’ve had a date and haven’t been successful.

This is the notorious infamous in a article. So again I’ve been working and wanting to get this out for probably months, if not a year at dispatch. So now I’ve made this article we’re going to talk today about the AAA program and how it works. First and foremost, the three components of a successful 8a program is the agency, the SBA and the firm itself. So again, we all have to work together harmoniously and order to facilitate in a day contract right now.

The SBA and the agencies also will interchange that word between agency and procuring entity, so you’ll hear me mix and match the two words, but the SBA and the agency itself or the procuring entity has what between them called a partnership agreement. So the partnership agreement. The point of it is to help expedite contract actions between the agency, the SBA and the 8 a firm. So, in order to we make this whole a a process work there had to be some rules put in place by the government right saying how the rules work, how it governs a program and allow for those expedient transactions that we come to know that happened along The 8a pathway, and just to give you an example of where the partnership agreements were at any and every one of us can go on the SBA’s website and take a look here and you’ll see the actual partnership agreements, there’s 50 of them in place.

Right now, with most of the agencies that you guys learn to know and trust, and like probably the ones that don’t have partnership agreements are the ones that are outside of the continental United States, but the department, defense, Interior and again most of the agencies that we All do business with have established partnership agreements in place with the SBA on how to govern the actual 8a program and if they do not happen to have a partnership agreement place, don’t worry because they have two flaws.

They follow chapters CFR 124 dot 508 and the far 19:08 they’re good to go. This is an example of what that partnership agreement looks like here’s, the one between the SBA and the agency for international development and again it just states the small business act that they developed this 8a business program and how it works. And again, the rules govern the program, the do’s and don’ts, and what the agencies should be doing in order to enact an actual 8a contract so again how this works.

The gist for everyone is. The SBA has an agreement with the entities and that agreement governs the rules and then you, as the 8, a firm has been certified by the brain. So remember, in order to get any you’ve got to be approved by the SBA, so technically you’re on the under the umbrella of the SBA. So again all certified 8 a firms fall under the auspices of the SBA. So now what happens is the actual contract doesn’t take place between the entity and the 8, a firm it takes place between the entity and the SBA, and then you being one of their firms, then the SBA will then in turn, give you the contract, we’re going To explain how all this works towards the end of the article all right, but just so you know the dynamics.

The contract doesn’t go directly from the ad firm to the entity. It goes. The SBA is an intermediary between the two of you right so between the entity and the a the SBA is the actual intermediary so Eric. Why does this whole anything? How did it come about? I don’t really know the history of the 8a program itself, but what I do know about the 8a program and the benefits of it is a couple things. One is it’s a quicker way to procure projects to get them done and then, at the same time help I had some sort of economic impact to small businesses and upstart firms.

So the program serves twofold right, so it allows for an expedited manner in which agencies can do business, get their products accomplished, but at the same time satisfy a bigger requirement, which is to help involve small business Farms. Help put money back into the communities, help with a little start. Businesses who we know are the backbone of America. So, as you see here on the chart, the actual SBA, the agency and the 8, a firm together they’ll, put together, what’s called sole source or negotiated projects for that 8a entity, and then that allows them to bypass the traditional bid procedures that you see on the Right-Hand side of the screen, which is at first, they got to do market research.

So, whenever they’re going to do a traditional bid, they’re going to do market research that market research involves trying to determine whether or not a particular solicitation should be set aside for small businesses right. So they do initial market research, which that could take 3045 days. Then they’ll put out a pre-solicitation advertising, a solicitation is coming down the pipeline and then they’ll actually issue the formal solicitation and, during the formal solicitation they’ll out a window of time for bidding that questions site visits, things of that nature and then for the bids or Accepted then they have time to do what’s called a bid review and then there’s a lotta Beltaine for a protest right.

So, against someone has a concern or question regarding how the bid went that allows time for a protest and, if, depending upon how complicated the actual solicitation is the the request for Proposal the work of scope, it may require presentations depending upon how many people participate. There may be a set of negotiations and then finally, the selection process, and so, as you can see here, the amount of time that it takes to do all of this and from what I’ve heard.

The estimates could be up to nine months and timeframe, whereas on the 8a side, if they do a sole source, a negotiated type of solicitation acquisition, then you’re talking about six months or less so again, the amount of time that’s saved and also another key factor. Is you see those dots in the middle? I intentionally drew them because if you are the person on the government side right and you’re responsible for giving out contracts, you don’t know the quality of the people that you’re receiving bids from so you’re going to have some good ones, which I haven’t green you’re.

Going to have a couple bad ones in red, and then you have some, you know some ones, an average and yellow. So you’ve got to go through and assess all that and make the correct determination and that’s not an easy task for anyone to do so again. The traditional print procedures first is the acquisition selection when using 8 a firms. Now, how does this all work, or how do we make this happen? So again, let’s go back to the initial slide.

Well, first, we have the agency and typically an agency will set out what the requirements are, and then we have the 8 a firm right which your ADA is a bit firm. You have your existing capabilities. So now the procurement Center representative is the person that was tasked on behalf of SBA to carry out their policies and their procedures. So the PC, our person, is the point guy or girl that helps carry out the policies procedures to ensure that the a firm’s capabilities match up with an agency’s requirements and then that’s how we put together a particular contract action.

So there’s three ways in which they do that we’re going to go over the three ways today and how they select actions. If anyone has any questions or want to double check behind what we’re talking about today, you can go to subpart 19.8 o3 select an exercise for a day program. I just made it visual and I’m going over it today in a way that I think, makes a little bit easier to understand for the majority of people out there, because I myself, I like to see little pictures and diagrams and slides so rather than just reading.

Just blank text, so hopefully we can get some add some clarity to the process for you guys out there. So the first way in which we handle the acquisitions. It’s what’s called a search letter you’ll see here. It says the SBA advises contracting activity of any participant capabilities through, what’s called a search letter, a search letter. Basically, what it is is a search letter comes from the SBA to a procuring entity, slash agency right and what this says is.

There’s a request letter sent from the procurement officer of the SBA for an eight on behalf of an eight a participant to reserve a requirement that matches that participants qualifications, so we’re going to say to them. Okay, we have this 8a from over here, and so we have this person’s qualifications. This is his list of his or her list of qualifications, and so we want. We know that your particular agency buys these products and services, so we just want to find out if there’s an opportunity available for this particular eight a firm, and it’s it’s really as simple as that.

Now, when did you actually request a search letter and then how do you request a search letter, so one of the things that I’m telling all the companies that I represent, that are part of my program in my courses and things like that, my clients is first, You go out and you want to try to find out an opportunity as early as possible in the pipeline right. So the earlier you find out about opportunity, the better it is, the higher your chances of successfully having it set aside to be and a day particular in a set-aside of a day procurement so again, as early as possible in the process that you’re aware of something The better it is to initiate setting out a search letter, so the earliest possible that we know that’s on paper.

Right is a forecast list. So again, most agencies put out a forecast list. You have the ability to go through and look at what’s coming up in the next two or three four or five years, and at that point you can request for the SBA to send out a search letter on your behalf. We’ll talk about that coming up sources. Thoughts are great places also to identify future opportunities that are coming on the pipeline.

It’s also the same token, where the government is using to do market research anyway. So there are a lot of times they’re trying to determine whether or not this should be set aside for a day or HUBZone, service-disabled veteran-owned and then a pre-solicitation, it’s still not too late, because it has not turned into a formal solicitation. There still is an opportunity to have that set aside as 8a.

It’s less likely to happen, but it’s not impossible. So again, these are three stages: finding out about upcoming opportunities, where it’s appropriate to have a request. A search letter be sent out. How do we do that? So what we do is we the entity right, so we me I’m the 8 a firm right, and so I look at what agency has this particular opportunity? What’s the information I have about the project coming up and what capabilities or experiences do I have that align with those particular requirements? I send that to my SBA, rep and I say hi you know, is it possible that you can send a search letter on my behalf to for this particular opportunity? The SBA rep then in turn, writes up a search letter sends it along with your capabilities over to that agency on your behalf, and that’s it right so a lot of times the stuff that you, this happening is happening in the background.

So you never actually really see it, but you have to first initiate a search letter and it referred to happen they’re not going to do it for you without you requesting it so again, try and get in as early in the process as possible too. So that way, it gives the particular agency the procurement entity, time to analyze what the requirements are, how the goals are aligned and see whether or not this is a possible potential opportunity set aside and the 8a business program all right.

This is an example of what a search letter looks like this is an old one that I have because again, like I said a lot of times, the search letters you don’t really, you don’t receive them and your SBA guy doesn’t necessarily send them to you. So it’s something to request they sent in to the entity and you never really see it. You can’t request them to send it to you but oftentimes again. This is something that’s done between the SBA and the agency and you’re not really perfect to the information, but I was able to find an old one just to give you guys a rundown, an idea of what this looks like, so you can see a real-life example.

This one was sent to mr. Spadaro since US Small Business Administration is requesting assistance and the identification of potential procurement opportunities for award on the provisions of the section. Eight, a small business act, 637 a opportunity sought for and again it lists. You know they’re going to put your company name and address. It has come to our attention that your agency has a pending procurement opportunity for this particular regional contracts, we’d like to introduce you to the name owner the name title company.

There were services able veteran from there 8 a firm HUBZone they’ve, had a successful government experience, and then it says on third paragraph with the SBA signed an agreement with Department of Defense for a opportunities. This contract opportunities request is made pursuant to the s section 8. A small business act identify the requirements again listing to approve business plan of the company city and state and within the 8, a business development program.

So you can see the letters B, referencing laws and acts and charters and agreements that they have between the two entities. The government entities and just putting forth the fact that okay, we’ve got this rules between us. This is a company that we want you to consider for an opportunity, no guarantees, but it’s letting them putting you in the peripheral vision of that particular agency. Right number, two way in which to source acquisitions is what’s called a requirements letter.

So the SP identifies a specific requirement for one or more 80 participants and it sends over a requirements letter to the agency’s office of small business dispensed utilization. And so what happens is in the requirement letter? What they do is this is more of instead of like one to one. This is one too many, so they say: okay, you guys have all these bundled contracts. We want a piece to go to the eight, a business development program.

We set up a requirement letter saying we want you to give a piece of these recurrent contracts and to the 8a program so that we can have companies in our portfolio 8. A firms participate in those particular activities. This is great specifically when it’s like recurring contracts, because once you’re able to get a recurring contract vehicle into the 8a program, it’s really difficult to get it out of the program.

There’s specific laws that govern how to remove something that is in the 8a program outside of that. So, if you have let’s say, for example, I had one of my students who’s in my pilot program and he sent over his informations to the DLA. The DLA asked him because they actually provide you know products to the government. Dla says: okay, we have a list of products and they’re innocent numbers that are already set aside for the 8a program.

However, if you have additional products that you sell, that NSN numbers that your particular company who’s, an eighth a certified provides, we will be willing to consider putting those additional NSN numbers on the a date. And so this is a good way of showing you that it’s not necessarily set aside for one particular eight a firm, but what it is is they’re going to put those requirements inside the pool of eight a contractor’s allowing it.

So now it’s only 8 a firm’s within that group that can actually participate. Those opportunities, great news, because again, if you have 8 a this, is music to your ears. You want to try and get as many potential opportunities put into the 8a pool so that you’re not competing when against. You know every Tom, Dick and Harry right. So if there is, for example, anything coming down a pipeline that may benefit the group as a whole.

This is where a requirements letter will come into play: number three market research, so the agencies may also on their own review, other proposed acquisitions for the purposes of identifier requirements which may be offered to the SBA. Where is the agencies either independently or through self marketing efforts of the any participant identify requirement for the program? So the way that I see this is there’s two ways and right now it’s commonly happening because you know you’ll see agencies that already have a day set aside so they’ve already say: okay, look! We’re already doing these XYZ 8a set asides, so the agency that’s one way.

The other thing is the agency itself is saying. Okay, we’ve got some upcoming stuff. We got some stuff coming out of pipeline and, like we showed you before, when they do the market research, they sit down the source of sought notice. How many 8 a firm’s out here, can do this project right. So now they’re doing market research saying okay, how many 88 firms could do the project? And if we get a favorable response with the appropriate capabilities, then we can set it aside a day.

So that’s another way. The other way is that you, the 8, a firm and I’ve done this. In my own personal experience, I was on a project and we were working and then someone and one of the commanders officer asked us. Could I take a look at their building to see it had mold in it, and so we took some samples sent it back to a lab tested and we determined that there was mold in that particular building.

They asked us to do a write-up for them. What it would take to to redo the mold to eliminate it and read through the walls and things like that, so it was more of an unsolicited proposal. We submitted that to them and because it was mold and it was time-sensitive, urgent, critical and we were the ones that had already done the analysis. They went ahead and converted that unsolicited proposal into an a a particular action.

So that was an example of how we took so you know, just by being on site being present being around. We were in and also being the ones who were actually doing the construction on site. You know they were able to convert that into an ad opportunity for us. So again, if you are looking down the pipeline, you’re saying forecasts list stuff, you’re talking about the requirements you’re meeting with the engineers, and you have a way in which you can help them meet or exceed those requirements.

You have some ideas about how to get that done. Those proposed solutions can be converted into opportunities to put into the 8a program. There’s an example here of where the actual government themselves were seeking out qualified 8 a firms to meet their missions to do business with. So it’s said that in this case this was a DLA and they were saying: hey, listen. We are looking for qualified 18 firms to meet our missions.

Work to do business with. Please see the attached information to see if any of your firms meet the criteria that we can do business with, and so they set this out. The procurement entity sent it to the SBA to sit out to the firms in that particular region, so that thought that that was great market research. Now, let’s assume that we, you know, we know the three ways in which they do that. So what’s the next step? Well, after the entity themselves, right they’ve done their evaluations, I’ve done analysis and he said: okay, whether through the requirements letter, whether through the search letter or through their own market research, they said.

Okay, we want to work with your company right. So, what’s the next step it happens, so the next step is what they do is call an offering letter. So the procurement entity, slash agency, we’ll send to the SBA, what’s called an offering letter and then what it says is: okay, the contract office shall notify the SBA to the extent of its plans to place an 8a contract with the SBA for specific quantities.

Items of work I mean it’s called an offering letter. Here’s an example of an offering letter. Again, the government agency is sending this to the SBA, so it says to SBA this requirement, it’s being processed under our partnership agreement, you keep hearing those words partnership agreement in place right. Those things are critical to know so. Remember I always tell everyone in order to be an expert or considered I’d say an expert in order to be considered proficient knowledgeable in this place must use the lingo.

So again, I would you know if you don’t use the lingual and you’re not talking about these types of things. Then it’s very easy for someone to look past. Your look beyond you as oh, so you don’t have any idea or understanding of how any of this stuff comes together. But if you start using the same vocabulary as the government entities, they’re going to have to respect you and they’re going to have to start acting and the best interest of your behalf so again learn this to understand the lingo.

But it says here the requirements being processed under a partnership agreement between the SBA and DOD under which for cereal changes. The aid process been made. The Air Force Reserve contracting officer will solicit proposal whole discussion to make contact work directly to the 8, a firm pursuant to the procedures they’re offering this requirement to the ATA country program as a sole source set aside, and then it tells you what the scope of Work is and therefore so, that’s an offering letter so now they made the offering letter and so the SBA upon receipt of the contracting officers letter.

The SBA must determine whether or not they want to accept the requirement and to the 8a program they have, and then they have to only ten days to do so now. I know what you’re thinking and I thought the same thing and say well, but why would they not accept something to the program? I don’t have any good basis for agreement why they would not own unless okay. So let me retract that statement, there’s a couple reasons why they may not accept the letter from what I understand from talking with people within the SBA.

Let’s say your company exceeded the size stay in it right so now your company has grown to this much for his company and people. Clapping officers still trying to give you projects. That may be a reason why they won’t accept. You number two. Let’s say that your company failed to do their annual requirements, so you forget, failed to update your taxes or fail to do an a report, and so now, even though you’re with an 8a program, all of your information is not updated.

That might be a reason why they fail to accept the letter on your behalf and then the other reason. Maybe maybe your company, they don’t have the necessary experience or expertise in order to do that. So maybe you’ve failed at some other projects that you at the government. Sb is aware of that. This particular agency may not be aware of so maybe you’ve had poor performance of other similar type jobs of size and scale, and so the SBA to protect their inches will not accept on your behalf, so, but assuming that none of those three things hold true.

The SBA is more than likely going to send out, what’s called an acceptance letter on your behalf, accepting this particular solicitation project be entered into the eight a business program for you all right now. This is what an acceptance letter looks like, so it says: okay, this letter is a serve as acceptance of the offer submitted by your agency on September 9th, in accordance with the AAA small business Act, and if I like resistant regulation, Vic’s hated partnership agreement between us Small business and the Department of Air Force hereby accepts your offer for the requirement and it lists the requirement on behalf at listed companies name.

It says the dollar value that max killed the size standard. We’ve conducted an analysis of the requirement with the provisions and we don’t see any adverse impact. The results that analysis is real, that no small bits performing a crime for at least 24 months, and it tells you some other rules, things like that that they must comply with all right and so congratulations. You’ve won your contract, but wait Eric what if my 8a rep doesn’t know what to do well, the reason why we have you know I’m put up these articles.

The reason why there’s books on this stuff there’s reason why there’s rules on how this stuff, if, in my opinion, if you’re a a rep, doesn’t know what to do or you’ve never heard of this stuff before it would behoove you to take it upon yourself to Try and learn it right, so go back, REE, read the article and try and learn how to do this stuff. Here’s a couple things that I can suggest that may help you out in your endeavors of trying to learn and crassus information for your own benefit right.

So procurement center reps remember. We talked about that earlier on the article, that’s in subpart 19.4 cooperation with small busted ministration. It discusses their roles and responsibilities, but also states that if you have a procurement center of rep, that’s not doing his or her job that they can be replaced that you can go above that person’s head. It’s only two pages in one paragraph long.

So really, I think that anyone who has a date should absolutely read it and try and digest these two pages in one paragraph. The second suggestion I have is: what governs the 8a program, how it works is subpart 19.8 contracting Small Business Administration 8a program. It’s 11 pages, but really the first four is all the meat potatoes and it talks about general and how this begins administer and also about the selection acquisition that we just went over in today’s article and then a couple recommendations before I let you go today become Friends with the ESPE staff, I just finished doing a podcast interview with one of the recent 2016 and 2017 NASA Award winners.

Also 2016 SBA Award winner, and let me tell you, the SBA was her best friend the SBA for all of its faults, criticism and comments. They are really good people they’re, just really busy they’re understaffed and probably underpaid more than likely so again. But if you show interest and you participate and you’re out there doing things, let them know send your SBA rep an email to let them know what you’re doing letting updates.

If you went out met with an agency, let them knows who you met with, who you spoke with, you know, give them what kind of what’s going on show interest and they were so interest in you. Another recommendation make connection with a few agencies. I know we want to go out there and want to do business with everybody. We want to do all services, but stick with just a few agencies get to know them be where they’re at go where they go participate in their events volunteer if you’ve got to but again make connections with a few agencies become friends which are SBA staff and Then stay interested, it’s very easy to become discouraged.

I know the feeling again, you know when we had a day we didn’t have anyone to show us. The ropes we’d have one to help us, but I do remember one time when I was at the airport and the diversities rep from this large major contractor. He told us he said: listen, you know what happens, is we’ll bring people in, but do the whole dog-and-pony show right. They’ll. Take you around show you all these money all these contracts and then you won’t, nothing will happen and you won’t hear from anyone and then a lot of us.

What we’ll do is we’ll say: well, this thing doesn’t work and then we’ll give up and it’s those persons who stay interested, who stayed coming back, who stay inquisitive and ask ok, listen. You know, I came here last time and nothing had happened. I came here again. Nothing happened. You told me to follow these steps. You told me to do these activities. I did those things I increased. My bonding. I increased my credit line.

I increase. You know I built my team, you know what do you guys didn’t give me a shot? It’s those people who stay interested and are persistent they’re going to win and the long-term, and so with that set. I want to say to you guys, happy 8a. I hope this article helped some people out there. I hope that I was able to explain the process. A little bit add some clarity to it. I know it’s probably confusing if you’ve never seen it before so maybe it’ll go back and read it a couple times.

Hopefully in the future. I can add, maybe some more examples, some more slides. We can talk about this and have some further discussions about the a day, but at the very least, you’ve got a huge macro, little perspective on the a program and how it works so that you can now take that back to your office to your team and Start implementing some of these steps that we talked about. Ok, listen, hey! As always thanks for reading, hey guys, thanks for reading that article on eight listen.

I know the 8a program. I’ve been part of the 8a program for the last 12 years and it’s not a simple program to use, but it’s very valuable. It can be instrumental and now people’s success growing from zero to millions of dollars in revenue. So again it’s a fabulous program. You just have to learn how to use it, how to work it, and, unfortunately, the government doesn’t have funding to teach us how to take advantage of all the benefits of the program.

But hopefully, today with this article that will help some people further their journey and we’re going to have some upcoming articles about 8a coming down the pipeline. As always, if there’s anything that you want to hear about, you want to see, let me know send comments below and with that said, I’m going to go back on and we’re going to tell you big hat no Cal I’ll, see you next time.

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