Service providers
Find ones you like before you need them
- Why you need service providers: The federal market is complex and highly regulated and as a new business owner you don’t have the time to learn and do it all. So we recommend identifying service providers you like ahead of time.
- Who you need: We recommend finding at least one provider in each of these categories:
- Legal: To review contracts, flow down clauses and teaming agreements
- Accounting: To help you build your rates and check your pricing
- Staffing (for services companies): To help you find people to staff when you are in pinch
- A financier: To help you with liquidity
- Cyber compliance: If you do anything IT related.
- Do not pay them now: Many service providers like to work on a retainer (monthly fee). We highly recommend against this. Identify people you like now, but don’t give them money until you have a job for them
- Tracking: There are pre-built tasks to identify each of there providers
Example: Service provider pipeline
Rants and Reflections
My unscripted thoughts after coaching hundreds of small government contractors over the last 10 years
Video Transcript(s):
The last thing in your work plan is to identify service providers that you like. And compared to other things in the plan it's a relatively low priority. But we recommend interviewing service providers now to understand what they do, what they charge, and to find people you like.
And we recommend finding the following providers:
- Legal to review flow down clauses and teaming agreements
- Accounting to help you build your rates and check your pricing
- Staffing to help you find people when you're in pinch
- A financier to help you with cash flow
- And cyber compliance consultant if you do anything IT related.
In your work plan there’re tasks to find each of these providers and recommendations on vetting them.