Lesson 3 of 4
In Progress

Warnings and Tips

Collin Gabriel April 1, 2022

Daucey Brewington (00:01):

I had a couple come to me. She was native. He was not, and, uh, wanted to talk about certification. And so I said, well, tell me about your company. Oh, I’m not very good at that. I’ll let and I, all of a sudden went well, I might as well stop listening. Cause if she can’t tell me about her company, I doubt that she is in full ownership and management controls, uh, pass throughs. And this is why they look at, at not only site visits and resumes. They wanna make sure that all of these things are, are not being an happened. Uh, I have no of a situation recently that ended up in this one down here. It was really nasty. And keep in mind that if you claim something like the question earlier, the you can claim veteran own status. You can there’s self-certify, you can self-certify as native on and put it on all your, your things.

Daucey Brewington (01:09):

You don’t have to have any third party proof. However, uh, and folks say, well, the federal government or the state government, they don’t have enough manpower right now to police this. You biggest problem. If you’re claiming something that you’re not is gonna be your competitors and whoever came in number two, or number three on the contract award that you won. Uh, I had a lawyer from Denver. Come make a presentation to lay up a few years ago. And he says, the majority of my business comes from small businesses that came in second and they come with me to me and say, find a way to get the winner thrown out. And, uh, the fronts pastors, false claims, uh, one of the primary is using the wife as a woman own or native own to when the husband resume has the skills. I had one guy, he actually told me that his wife, uh, who it’s my company, uh, he brings the checks home for her to, if you ask her, who’s your primary client, she had no idea.

Daucey Brewington (02:30):

And the husband says, as long as she’s got a company card and a credit card, she’s happy. And I just kind of hang my head and I go, and you want me to help you? I don’t think so. Uh, and a lot of the site visits, they come out, we had one agency, the one that ended up, uh, with jail time and bankrupt and whatnot. She ran a company that needed some equipment, large equipment that a, she was not qualified to drive or operate. Uh, she could not, uh, finance or lease ’em. She had no equipment whatsoever assigned to her company. She had no employees and she worked full time for another company. And so the company that she was working for was actually performing all of the work that she was getting as a woman owned hub zone company. And her competitor says, I know that she works as a contract administrator for this other company. There’s no way that she can be doing the, and it was on federal contract. So the fraud portion came in, the protest came in and, uh, there were, was jail time associated with that all because, well, geez, I can claim to be hubs on I’ll partner with somebody up in Alaska. I can run my little all down here and we’re good to go.

Daucey Brewington (04:06):

Now, when you get ready for the application process, make sure that you don’t what all the requirements are and that your qualified review review review on before you submit on your resume. Uh, there are folks out there that are good at English editing fiction writing, uh, et cetera, take a resume and look at it. Uh, if you say I did well, I was an office man. Well, who was in charge of ordering supplies? Well, that was part of my job. Then you wanna look at the logistic side. So take a look at your resume and your former job titles to see if there’s keywords within what is generally considered that job description that applies for what your you application states that you can do don’t lie, but you can, uh, I won’t say embellish, but just use the correct words to get across the meaning to, yeah, I know.

Daucey Brewington (05:14):

I know what we’ve. I know what they want and that’s what I can do. I didn’t have the job title of logistics manager, but as office manager, I oversaw the logistics of the operation. If you follow what I’m saying, because whoever reads your resume as part of your application, they know things like that. So put things in there that are gonna show that you have the, the qualification, the onsite review. Uh, when I applied for DBE certification with Olympia, they came up to, to my house here in north bend, and I’ve been working outta my home office for 30 years. They took pictures of my two printing machines, my computers, my bulletin board, uh, so that I had everything that the only thing in this room that I’m sitting in, uh, the bookcase, everything is it’s, it’s an office and it has a direct access to the outside.

Daucey Brewington (06:14):

So they’re gonna the, now that’s not to say that you cannot fully operate a business from your kitchen counter and your dining room table and a file cabinet. But if a site review comes out, uh, they’re gonna take that into consideration depending on, uh, if it’s that small $10,000 landscaping company we’re talking about, you don’t need a lot of facilities, but if you are in the construction and concrete work, they’re gonna wanna see if you got room to park, a dump truck. Do you have licenses? Do you have, uh, the things associated with running that type of business and something that extensive, you may not be able to out of a briefcase in your, in your kitchen?

Joni McSpadden (07:02):

Oh, see, we have another question in the chat and it’s, are there contracts for all kinds of work specifically? Is it worth the time for an EMRO an embroidery business to, uh, get certified?

Daucey Brewington (07:21):

I will cover that in a minute specifically, but the short answer is yes. Okay. Very much so. And, and whoever that is on the embroidery, I, I can go into, I I’ll go into a lot of detail. Thanks for bringing that up. Uh, more tips when you’re writing up your history and it says, demonstrate the firm’s majority owners outside employment. Most of us that start, uh, a small business, we start it while we’re still employed with someone else. And as a side job nights, weekends holidays, like the ABRY business, that may it be something that you started at nights in the weekend while you’re, you’re doing another job to pay the bills. What they look at is to make sure that your outside employment doesn’t, uh, conflict. When I first did my federal a day application, I was full time employed by a major corporation.

Daucey Brewington (08:27):

Of course, my job title at the time was pilot. And I only flew six or eight days a month. And those eight days a month could be weekends and holidays. And so the other 20 days of the month, I could do whatever I wanted. And so the investigation from the SBA included a letter from the aviation department that whenever I was not physically flying, that I was not required to be at the office or on standby. The my time was my own. So I had an outside job, but it clearly did not conflict with running my company. And as I mentioned, mine was a training company, mostly doing just training analysis, looking at at paper. So I could do that from a motel in DC while I’m on somebody else’s nickel. So it saved my small, uh, business, a lot of money. Some certifications once you put ’em in will give you an opportunity to correct any deficiencies, particularly if it’s an online federal certifi. And in some cases, they’ll send you a letter saying, uh, asking questions, could you please clarify, and they’ll give you 15 days to respond. And those 15 days, uh, that’s a hard number. If you don’t respond by that date, then your file gets put into the end. And you’ll have to start again.

Daucey Brewington (09:59):

Now, in some cases you can appeal an adverse certification. I know with all federal, if you are denied certification, uh, it’s now you have 45 days from the date of the, uh, on the letter of denial to appeal that process and try to overcome any deficiencies they’ve seen now in the federal government. And with most cases they certify people of and persons and companies of good character and nowhere, where can you find a definition of good character? So some of the, the rationale is subjective. Uh, some of the, uh, if you’re looking at, uh, all the data you’ve sent in and what you’ve worked like, yeah, I started my company once I got out while I was on parole. Well, that might create a few questions, but, uh, what I’m getting at is, well, I’ll be specific. The initial denial for me for a federal program, uh, included such terms as Mr.

Daucey Brewington (11:13):

Burlington, doesn’t appear to have the requisite skills to manage a small business. At the time I had a, on my resume, showed a, a degree from the air force academy, 10 years as a officer in command and an MBA. And I’m looking at if a person with an MBA is deemed not to have the skills, uh, why didn’t they put in their Indians need not apply? So it was all subjective and there was no way I could rebut that. Uh, when he says, well, we don’t think you’re qualified. That’s a whole different story on that one. Uh, that’s one of the reasons I got so heavily involved with helping people through challenges again, all right, now, final one on the tips, use a checklist, make sure you got electronic and hard copies. If they ask for a hard copy, send it by certified mail, because if it doesn’t show up or if it shows up and gets lost, uh, it’s you need a record.

Daucey Brewington (12:21):

Well, here’s when I sent it and I have a receipt of when it was sent. Uh, okay. Now here is the biggest tip whatsoever. Anytime you’re working on an application, PAX procurement, technical assistance center, their services are free, uh, and I’ll give you their local address on the next slide. So the Ptax can help you, uh, write your resume and help you create any of the stuff that you might not have that goes the application package and can work with you. In fact, when I ran the Indian PTAC here a few years ago, I actually partnered with the office of minority and women business, enterprise and Olympia. And we, uh, did a road show about every six weeks. We showed up at different places around the state. At the meeting, we had a notary public, we had a person, an intake from om WBE, and we could went through all the application processes.

Daucey Brewington (13:34):

And if you had your, with you, we’d get it notarized and submitted on the spot. And that was all at no cost to the client. And this certification month, uh, my DBE has to be renewed every year and my B has to be renewed every three or vice Versar. Uh, if you have different anniversary dates, you can go in and update your certifications at different times. Like the Sam registration for federal system of award management, it is do a year from when you last updated. So you can always early and update, try to get everything moved to the same month. So, oh, I gotta do my certifications. So you just set aside a couple of days and I’m just gonna do it all at one time.