GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

Eric Coffie: 00:00:00 Episode 20

Elliot Branch: If you have capability, don't give up because the nation needs you. It's just as simple as that. You know, come in every day. Learn from your successes and failures every day, how to get a little bit better at manuevering in the government space. Talk to people who are in that space. You'd be surprised how helpful they're willing to be both government and industry because everybody is looking for new sources and and be a mentor to the next guy who wants to get in the space because fundamentally we're all in this together.

Speaker: 00:00:37 Welcome to the Govcon Giants podcast, federal contracting for people on the outside looking in. If you are here to learn how to win a piece of the pie without getting your face smashed in, then you've tuned in to the right place. Now the Giant that not only walks the walk but talks the talk, your host Eric Coffie.

Eric Coffie: 00:00:57 This next guest Elliot Branch is truly a once in a lifetime individual who's absolutely brilliant. He was the Director of Contracts for Naval Sea Systems Command, which is the largest single buying activity in the federal government. And our team over here at Govcon Giants just happen to catch them a cool six weeks out of retirement at the time of this interview, so we got lucky to be the first ones to have him on our show. During the call today we discussed four must-do items for small businesses, special emphasis versus socio economic programs, how the government buys inputs, Ross Perot from EDS, the democratization of work and the acronym NOGGIS. A term that if you ever asked me about this particular episode, I will quiz you with, by the way, as a public service announcement, we can still use more apple iTunes ratings. If you've not already rated us, please do so.

Eric Coffie: 00:01:45 Now let me get to his bio. Elliot Branch was the deputy assistant secretary of the navy for acquisition and procurement and the office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy research development acquisition. He's the senior career civilian response for acquisition and contracting policy that governs the operation of the navy's worldwide multibillion dollar acquisition system. Mr.

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

Branch is the principal civilian advisor to the navy acquisition executive for procurement matters and the community leader of the navy's contracting workforce. He's a member of the senior executive service SES. Members of the SES serve and keep assistance just be able to top presidential appointees. They are the major link between these appointees and the rest of the federal workforce. SES members operate and oversee nearly every government activity and approximately 75 federal agencies. Let me introduce you to today's Giant Mr. Elliot Branch.

Elliot Branch: 00:02:39 I think I've had, you know, three jobs that really kind of inform what we're talking about today. I was, I guess first and foremost, uh, the deputy assistant secretary of the navy per acquisition and procurement, which, which meant that I was also the competition advocate general. Yeah. Okay. People used to ask me about that job and I used to say, you know, the job description is, is I'll, I'll talk to anybody. As long as it gives a both, folks who want to sell to the government as well as the government, a channel to meet the war fighters needs. The second probably significant job, that I had was I was the chief procurement officer for the government in the District of Columbia for a while. So, so again, my job description was very much I'll talk to anyone, you know, anyone who can provide goods or services to the district, Columbia, especially district residents, especially small businesses and minority owned businesses or people that I want to talk to.

00:03:48 And then thirdly, I was the director of contracts at the Naval Sea Systems Command, which was part of the Department of the navy. And it is probably, uh, either the largest or next, the largest single buying activity in the federal government. Uh, so again, part of my job description was I'll talk to anybody and what I've learned over the years. And that's, and that's a span of about 20 years of my career, by the way, with some, interruptions to actually work for a small business. What I learned is there are, there are kind of some timeless elements that, that a small business has got a master in order to be successful in selling to government at any level. So, so I think that's a great segment. Okay. So listening. So the first thing I w I would say is understand what your value proposition is. Well I talked to people, people would come and talk to me and they

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

would have these great ideas and, and I'll, and I'll put that in quotes.

Elliot Branch: 00:04:50 And I don't mean to be disparaging about it cause I think they were very enthusiastic about their idea and the idea it had a value proposition and I would listen and, and with an understanding of the government and how it worked, I'd say, you know, that's not really the market you want to focus on. Because what I hear you saying is this is not a tool for community acts, but this is really a tool for community y in the government. And let me tell you why it's a tool for community. Why? Because community-wide does function a, you know, and community x does function and while they're related, you know, community, you know, B as not gonna, not gonna use your tool, you know, it's best to community. I, so, so I would say the number one thing is, is, is, so no, essentially you know, the market that you really are going to target and know where your value proposition target.

Elliot Branch: 00:05:44 Okay. The second thing I would stay is understand who you're selling to. And I'm gonna use, uh, the district government as a, an example. And I also use the department of the as an example. So, so the goal is straight government procurement system. While I was what was called the chief procurement office officer, uh, was, was a hybrid because it was all of these satellite, when we call it agency chief contracting officers who had some level of autonomy depending on dollar value and complexity of the deal. Uh, and, and their obligation to me as the chief procurement officer was to follow the rules and regulations. But from a transactional perspective, uh, I did not do some of that work. Uh, now from a transactional perspective, I had a staff at what we call it, central office, who did do some of that work. The more complex work, the, the, the highly complex, you know, you're political, miserable type stuff.

Elliot Branch: 00:06:48 The high dollar value style. So you really had kind of this federated model and the district government. And if you don't understand that you've got a federated model and the district government and who really is from an agency and organizational perspective, uh, the folks that want to buy what you have to sell, then you're going to waste a lot of Shula. Uh, you know, in the navy is very much the same way. So people

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

would come and talk to me about, you know, doing business with the navy. And the first thing I would say to them is, well, you understand that I don't buy anything. And then the Pentagon here that I have, you know, 10 or 11 what we call, uh, echelon too, organizations that have all the contracting authority. And if you think about headquarters as being echelon one and you know, to draw a private sector or public sector or private sector analogy, I'm sorry, you know, as the operating divisions and a multi, you know, uh, business corporations being like, you know, the operating groups, we had about 11 operating groups that had different missions, right?

Elliot Branch: 00:07:58 So I had my aviation product line and my maritime product line and my space, you know, and an electronic, a warfare or product line. I had a the marine core product line, you know, for troops and so on. So, so if you don't understand how we're organized, you can spin your wheels talking to a lot of the wrong people. Yes, I agree. The third thing I would mention is, is this [inaudible] so going in with the idea that you're gonna listen rather than talk first, because a lot of folks have problems. And if you, if you've done all the other things right, if you understand, you think you understand your value proposition and you think you understand the organization, um, they're, they're still, you know, this issue of, Hey, I talked to a lot of people every day who tell me they can solve my problem.

Elliot Branch: 00:08:58 And as I started talking to them, they don't necessarily demonstrate that they understand what my problem is. So, so I would argue if you really want to make a sale, if you really want to establish a relationship, the first thing you need to do is you need to really walk in with what I'll call a listening heart. You know, here the person who needs something and listen to their pain points in the problem that they're trying to solve. And, and then the fourth thing, and this is the last kind of timely enduring thing, I would say network network, network. Okay. Uh, you know, often the, the entry into a buying organization is a contracting officer. Okay? All right. Generally contracting officers have no requirements. They simply manage the flow of requirements through the system. So you're going to have to go to trade shows and you're going to have to go to industry days.

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

Elliot Branch: 00:09:55 Uh, you're, you're going to have to talk to people who have real needs, uh, to, to get yourself into your product or service known, uh, and to have them, uh, you know, be cognizant when, when that need comes up, you know, you'll, you'll deal with the contracting officer eventually if you're going to pursue business. But, but if the technical folks is, we like to refer to them, don't know who you are or what your value proposition is. Yeah. Hard to get on the radar screen. So, so in industry days, professional organizations, trade shows, conferences, anytime the government, you know, you know, has, has uh, has folks available to talk to you take advantage of that. The, the other thing is, you know, and, and depending on the organization, we did a lot of business with very, very large companies, right? I mean, there are many small businesses that supply nuclear submarines or aircraft, right?

Elliot Branch: 00:10:54 Right. They have a supply chain wide and deep, and they have people whose mission it is to do outreach to small business people and, uh, and, and to, you know, minority owned business people, networking with them as well. Uh, you know, and, and in whatever government organization, if you're trying to sell directly, we have people who are called small business program managers whose job it is to look for opportunities for small businesses to get in there. And, and, uh, you know, we have website, federal business opportunities, Fed Biz ops, you know, folks should be looking at that. So, so a lot of this is a, what's my value proposition? Who needs it? How do I go find the folks that need it and organization I want to sell into and how do I build a network that gives me visibility to be able to take suspect to prospect? Hmm. I like

Eric Coffie: 00:11:53 it. I like it. Now you said, um, these are some timely principles. What would you say? Um, and I, and I looked back and I see you've been working in this federal contract since like around the 80s. What would you say has changed from then to now?

Elliot Branch: 00:12:10 Well, I, I think, uh, there there's been a lot more emphasis, uh, across different classes and, and that's a double edge sword because on one hand it introduces more opportunity, but on the other hand, it also introduces a level of complexity for procurement people and also people trying to sell it to them. So I started, uh, in this business with the navy. As a matter of fact,

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

in 1978, the summer of 1978 and, uh, when I started, we basically had yeah, three if you will, special emphasis programs, right? So, so we had small businesses, uh, set asides under the defense production act. We had small disadvantaged business and I'll include a it, you know, and that's our, you know, the AA program, uh, with small business administration. And we had these things called the labor surplus area set aside and, and if you yeah, well I'm, I'm dating myself, but you know, we're coming out of the mid seventies.

Elliot Branch: 00:13:22 This was policy that came out in the mid seventies, you know, when we were hitting stagflation, right? And, and yeah, we had these pockets of real, no unemployment and we had workforce there. So, so the federal government said, hey, when, when we have people in one of these pockets that can do work for us, we're going to set that work aside for them. So, so when I came in 41, almost 41 years ago, those were the three areas. So, so today we have small business that asides, we have all this advantage business program. Uh, we have women owned business set asides, we have service disabled veterans set aside, we have a, a preference program for what's called ability one, uh, which are, are a national industries for the blind national industries for severely handicapped. And, and, and, and in those, you know, kind of umbrella organizations cause it was very decentralized, but you find a lot of our wounded warriors, we have, um, got, we have what we call HUBZones, right?

Elliot Branch: 00:14:30 Right. Which is the historically underutilized business zone. So it says, basically if you've got a company in a, a geographic area, generally done by census tract, uh, which is, you know, got persistent higher unemployment and 35% of the people in this company, you know, and work in the zone, you know, we should set that a style. So, so as you can see, uh, we've moved from about, you know, three pretty well defined, uh, programs that didn't really overlap very much. So this plethora of, you know, preference and set aside for our grounds, uh, which overlap can overlap quite a bit. So, so there is, uh, a level of confusion for both acquisition personnel as well as the people who sell to them that that would be the big change. That was one of them. So, so another one of the big changes, uh, you know, that I see is, is the, uh, the application of technology here, uh, when, when I started in this business in 1978, uh,

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

literally in the government desk calculators were cutting edge. Right. You know?

Elliot Branch: 00:15:53 Yeah. I mean, I, let's, you know, you're like, uh, you know, sitting at your desk with a phone and a calculator and you have to find sources. Okay. Okay. Let me ask you this. Where did you ever work with a slide ruler? Uh, I owned a slide ruler and a slide rule in high school. [inaudible] to my great regret. I don't have any more because it would be worth a fortune on Ebay. Yeah, I'm sure. All right, please continue. I'm an engineer, so I, you know, I know those things. Right? So, so, you know, think about now what you have is, is, is you have this, uh, explosion, this information technology explosion, which was done a couple of things. One, it is really kind of, if you will, I've democratized work [inaudible] I like to say, right? You know, it's eliminated some of the clerical specialties we had, you know, just og refers type as the typing pool, that whole thing.

Elliot Branch: 00:16:56 But, but the other thing that's allowed us to do is to aggregate, uh, information. So, so small businesses are selling into different platforms than they used to cause the platform used to be the telephone. The, the, the other thing that's happened is as we get a better understanding of, uh, the, what I'll call demand management, right? Which is, you know, how we essentially stimulate demand in your organization. Uh, and, and how does industry organized to supply that demand? Uh, there's real challenge for small business. And I'll give you an example. So 20 years ago, uh, we bought in the navy most of our, um, non tactical information technology, I want to say in a decentralized manner. I think that's the safest way to say it. So there was a real opportunity at the prime contractor level for small businesses to sell into that market. Right.

Elliot Branch: 00:17:58 You had resellers, you know, who could literally, you know, be outside the gates of you know, Cherry Point Marine, you know, air station there or Great Lakes naval training center and you know, when you needed toner cartridges or you needed an extra PC or you needed a copy of DBAs three plus they were your going to, okay, well today because we understand essentially how that demand is aggregated and we need to reduce redundancy and we also need to be able to do the information assurance information security work. We've

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

outsourced the entire administrative network of the Department of the Navy to a company called perspective, which used to consist of, and I, and I don't want to go through the entire genealogy of a perspective but it, but it started with uh, Ross Perot's eds and what to heal the Packard. And it's, and it's now kind of spun and reorganized and it's this, you know, very purpose built company that sells into this market.

Elliot Branch: 00:19:03 They play. So, so those guys that were sitting outside the gate, you know, selling toner or selling the one off PC or the one off software package no longer have that business. So, so, you know, they again have to go approach the big primes and some of these fields, you know, to, to be able to, to sell into these markets because the, the, the sh the introduction of technology has essentially changed the nature of some of the markets that they use to sell into in government. So I've never heard of perspective actually before our perspective. They do, they manage the, you said the administrative side, right? So, so the, the navy, uh, has an as a network, we call it the Navy Marine Corps Internet. It is probably the largest, uh, network, uh, in existence. It is 400,000 seats and 800,000 users, and it serves the entire department of the navy.

Elliot Branch: 00:20:03 So, um, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll give you a little bit of the kind of the genealogy. So we started out with, with eds, Ross Perot's old company, uh, after, you know, he and g m got divorced and they eventually sold it to Hewlett Packard. And Hewlett Packard then spun off the hardware and the services folks and two different, uh, and a different entities. And then pieces of computer science corporation Spun Out, uh, and merged with the government services part of Hewlett Packard to create a company called DXT. And then DXC a I, and I forget off the top of my head what the company was but, but there was essentially another company that was owned by a private, uh, owned by a hedge fund, basically a private venture that did a lot of this it type work. And they wanted to get out of that business and into the maintenance repair and operation business.

Elliot Branch: 00:21:09 So, so they spun that out and DXC merged with them to create perspective. Hmm. Okay. And they are, so they created this network for you guys. And how, so how long does it have, I mean, what is the actual network do was how is it used? Well it

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

is a no, so, so I wouldn't say that they created it. Essentially what they did was they, they aggregated the technology assets that the department of the Navy had. Okay. And they rationalized it and re architected it to be a coherent and cohesive network and, and it's essentially our administrative but network. And what did I mean by that is, is, you know, when I came in to work and you know, the, the analogy I used to use when I worked in the Pentagon was it was like, it was like going, uh, to, uh, you know, to watch TV on, on your cable.

Elliot Branch: 00:22:02 Right. So everything on, you know, my side of the wall plug was actually owned by perspective. The PC, uh, all the software, uh, the keyboard, the Monitor, the whole shooting match, and much like your cable box, you turn it on every morning. Huh. And, and you were able to essentially do a, your email, uh, you were able to do some spreadsheets, some PowerPoint, right. Some documents, uh, and use all of our navy specific kind of backend office software. Okay. And, you know, the expectation was that you would be able to do this in, in, in a, an extremely secure environment that was shielded from our adversaries. So, so this was the network they were running for the Department of the Navy, which consists of the navy and the Marine Corps. Hmm. Okay. But if you were selling toner cartridges years ago or printers or copiers for that matter, if she were the reseller of those things and you were already small business and you're not, you're, you're now selling those things to perspect that you're not selling them directly to the United States Navy. And if you don't understand that, you're not probably selling them at all. Yeah. And that's time at all. I would agree. Yeah. And that's why I'm at all interesting. Now, um, you mentioned a couple of things. Uh, the first thing he mentioned was there's a plethora of options, uh, between, before to now with regards to the special emphasis programs. Um, but we haven't said, I know we, we know it provides confusion, but, um, is there more participation because of

Eric Coffie: 00:23:45 this or is it less participation or is it about the same?

Elliot Branch: 00:23:50 Well, I, I can't, I can't, uh, uh, I'm, well, let me caveat this cause I'm quoting numbers that I've seen now from memory. Right. Okay. Okay. But as I, as I believe, uh, that the numbers demonstrated that we were, we were sending more dollars to

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

small businesses, but we were sending them to fewer small does.

Eric Coffie: 00:24:12 Yes. Those are the numbers I had. No, yes. Yeah. Those are the same numbers I've read. Yeah. I've said those are some of the same numbers I've read where yeah, we've hit I think, um, if at the largest amount that they've ever sent, which again makes sense because we're spending more as well. Right. So obviously we're spending a lot more in 2018 and we were spending in 1980. Um, and so just on sheer volume it would make sense that they get more. But yeah, it seems like the participation, um, has been significantly reduced. And I think that's where, um, the challenges are that the people my audience is running into is, um, how do you know, how do they participate? And, you know, [inaudible] right. Part of the idea is, you know, they've created these programs in these avenues. Um, but what it seems like people falling short on is teaching them how to use it, how to navigate it.

Eric Coffie: 00:25:06 Um, and the education piece. So it seems like there, I mean, and we know that we've got support agencies like the p tax and the veteran, uh, all the V box centers and all this development centers, the SBA, we, you know, we know we have, but it still seems, um, we're seems like we're gonna still not closing the gap and I'm not here just so we can really talk about a solution. Just more just trying to understand, um, the issues that are present and maybe help provide some insight into ways in which we, they can close that gap. At least, you know, some of the people who are listening to this. Um, going back to, uh, when you said people were meeting with you and talking with you and having to understand your value proposition, I mean, as the director, how did someone get to, how do they get to you? Was it at a networking event of some sort?

Elliot Branch: 00:25:59 Well, yeah, yeah. I had a really simple philosophy. Right.

Eric Coffie: 00:26:04 You know, I would imagine you're probably pretty difficult to get to.

Elliot Branch: 00:26:07 No, it was actually pretty easy to get to really. Um, yeah. You, yeah, you'd have to call some of my former EAS, I think I used to drive them crazy, but, but I was very serious. Uh, you know, one

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

of my official functions was at the competition advocate general. Uh, and, and my really believed very strongly that that meant my job was to talk to anyone. So I, a couple of things, I mean, just about kind of how I did business in, in that role, uh, I was a pretty visible speaker. Uh, you know, I was out, uh, when, when people ask me to come and talk to them, if, you know, if I could justify that from a, from a financial and emission perspective, I would go out and talk to, to industry groups, to other government groups, to professional associations, uh, and, uh, and, and fairly widely.

Elliot Branch: 00:27:00 Uh, I worked fairly closely with, with Emily Harmon, who was until she retired, uh, our offices, small business program, so the director and now a a gentleman by the name of Jimmy Smith. And, and we would do things much like we're doing, you know, we would do, I think then the last six months of her tenure there, I think I did three Facebook lives with her. Okay. And, and we talked about, you know, one of them specifically focused on small business and another one, uh, focused on, uh, just kind of the regulatory environment and what was going on. Uh, so, so I would do that. And, uh, yeah, I used to tell people all the time, if you want to get on my calendar, you know, I was on Linkedin and I think I've probably got about 2,800. Uh, yeah. Um, yeah, my network on Linkedin, I would say, if you, if you want to talk to me, you know, call my EA, here's the number, here's the email and he'll find some time on my calendar for you.

Elliot Branch: 00:28:00 Okay. And then people, you know, would also people I knew in the business, uh, you know, former federal employees who are now, you know, consulting with small businesses and so forth. W would bring folks to talk to me. So, so I, I don't perceive myself as as being hard to get to, uh, you know, so I, I w I would say that, um, I, I wasn't standing on the street corner with a billboard that says phone questions answers here. Right. But another hand, if you said to me, hey, I'd like to come and talk to you about something. Uh, I never turned anybody away.

Eric Coffie: 00:28:38 Okay. Okay. No. And that's, that's great information to know specifically because when we see, um, people in power, maybe the perception is that they're difficult, right? Maybe they didn't even attempt to reach out. I've always found a lot of success with calling DC. Um, it seems like people in DC call you back.

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

That's just been my experiences personally. I've, whenever I've called some of these, they may send you down to a different office or different division or you know, they may steer you somewhere, but they, I've always found that when I've called reached out to someone and d c, um, they called me back and that's just been my own perspective. But it's great to hear that so that people listening to this will know that again, based on all the information we've shared, that is not impossible to reach someone at the director level.

Elliot Branch: 00:29:28 No. Here, here's what I think, uh, makes this somewhat difficult part. Part of it is the security environment we're in. Uh, yeah. Well, I, I first came to Washington in 1980, uh, I started in Philadelphia and came to Washington a couple of years after I started. And I can remember, uh, in working at the navy, we literally had a department of Defense telephone directory. Yeah. We could go into that telecom, first of all, you could buy a copy of it at the government printing office. Right. You know, so, so if you had a local federal courthouse and they had a government printing office, you could buy a copy of it generally there, or if you didn't, you could send off in the mail for it and you know, pay you or whatever it was, nine 95 and they'd send you a copy of, yeah, I remember that phone book because I was in that phone book and I was in that phone book as a, as a fairly low level functioning.

Elliot Branch: 00:30:25 Uh, you know, we, we, we have codes in the navy, right. And they tend to be alphanumeric codes. Uh, and you know, as an Alphanumeric Code, I was, uh, you know, I wound up being a two digit code, uh, at retirement, but I was in that phone book when I was a six or seven digit code, you know, and my room number was in there and my telephone number was in there and my name was in there and I was listed under my organization. Okay. Ah, so fast forward now to, uh, two to two things. I think, number one, both the technology and number two, nine, 11. And, and we decided at the department level, I think that that, okay, that was what we call personally identifiable information. Uh, and that caused, you know, some level of security threat to individuals. And so we gradually went, I don't know that we can, we even publish the dod phone book anymore.

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

Elliot Branch: 00:31:24 But the last one I saw simply gave office titles and telephone numbers and there were no people. So I think there's this perception, uh, some of it, you know, for reasons others than people might think that it's harder to find government folks now. And it isn't that, you know, we don't want to talk to you. It's that, you know, when we look across, you know, the, in the Department of the Navy that the 200,000 civilians that work there, putting that information out in the public domain may pose a risk to their personal safety. So, so it takes a little more effort to find those people. But generally when you find those people, they're willing to have a conversation with you if you have a legitimate question. Fair enough. Can you talk about the times where you worked at procurement central link? Uh, sure. Um, yeah, I, it seems like it was a startup.

Elliot Branch: 00:32:25 It was okay. It was and, and uh, procurement central link, I think [inaudible] was ahead of its time. Okay. What we were trying to do was we were trying to build um, procurement, uh, software platforms for state and local and uh, health care and education. Okay. And, and I think a couple of things, you know, I, I look back in in those days cause cause I've always been involved in this business to greater or lesser degree from an information technology perspective. And as I look back, uh, I think there were, there were a couple problems. One is that tech analogy from an architecture standpoint really wasn't ready for the level of sophistication that you needed to really run, uh, a web based, uh, application kind of a market. I mean, you think, think about, and I, the way I would put this is, is that we were trying to do, you know, Amazon, like things before Amazon was trying to do them.

Elliot Branch: 00:33:35 And we had, we just didn't have the technology, we didn't have service oriented architectures. We didn't have the computing power. You know, I think, you know, people think through this, there was a lot of co-development that had to happen, you know, for Amazon, Facebook, Google, uh, to get where they are today. Right? Right. Uh, in terms of, you know, and, and they built some of that. I mean, Google, you know, and it's search algorithms. And the way they deployed them. Worldwide, server farms, service oriented architecture, uh, you know, XML coming along too to enable, uh, you know, if you will, real semantic distinction in terms of, of, of building things, you

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST MICROSOFT OFFICE USER

know, ontologically, uh, you know, we, we, we just weren't there. Uh, and the, the other thing that I think that, um, uh, was, was the a, was it a challenge there? As I look back on it, and I think it's a challenge that, um, you know, the, you know, the Amazons and the googles face today, which is buying organizations are by their nature somewhat conservative.

Elliot Branch: 00:34:46 Yes. Um, and number two, competition really is the law of the land. And, um, and you know, that does that not only extends to what we buy, but also the tools that we use to buy them, you know, so, so we would go out and, and, and I'm not sure our business model and that environment of competition was sufficiently mature, uh, to really, uh, you know, to, to really pull it off. But it was a great learning experience for me and I would not have traded it for anything in the world. And it gave me a real appreciation, you know, for, for the, the types of concerns, uh, and challenges you had to deal with when you're trying to make a payroll. And that's interesting cause that's what I was thinking that,

Eric Coffie: 00:35:37 you know, it looks like you have had various careers and you've moved from government to private and then back to government. And to me that increases your, you know, your depth of experience to be able to talk to people like myself and others out here. Whereas someone who spent the whole time in government that, you know, they can't maybe, maybe or not have as much appreciation for some of the challenges like you said, of making payroll and what that is.

Elliot Branch: 00:36:04 Yeah, I am grateful. You know, I, I did that for a brief time. We, we couldn't, we couldn't get enough financing to get a product into, to really a good product into Beta. And, and then I went to work for a company called Atlantic Management Center. And I did that for about five and a half years. They were a small business, uh, and the services space, the, the consulting services space. And that gave me a real appreciation for, uh, the struggles that small businesses, you know, an underground daily. I, you know, I used to tell people all the time, I understand that when the CEO goes to the bank, the banker's not really interested in the resumes or for key personnel and how wonderful we are. And they really want to know how much equity she has in summer house.

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Eric Coffie: 00:36:50 Yeah, that's exactly right. That's true. That's very true. Which, you know, it's so the opposite is, is correct. Right. When I work with small businesses that, um, they're aware of that equity part, then when I tell them the importance of the government wanting to see the resumes and the workers experience, they go, what difference does it make? I have a line of credit, you know, that's, uh, so vice versa. They don't have an appreciation for why the government cares about, uh, the resumes or some sort of work plan or self behavior. They go, what difference does it make? My Er, our rating is low. I've got, I have workers' compensation insurance. Um, you know, I have a line of credit, I have my bonding. So why does it, why does it matter? Um, the resumes of some of these guys?

Elliot Branch: 00:37:34 Well, let me talk to that firm and I think that's a really important point for your listeners, especially those who are selling professional services into the government space. Uh, you know, and I, and when I was at it, uh, Atlantic management center, you know, my practice area folks focused on what we call performance based services acquisition at the time. And what we found was this. So, so I can't perform, I can't define as a government person, one unit of engineering support. Goodness. Right? So, so I can't take you and your technical background and say, okay, I know Eric's going to deliver one unit worth of engineering support, goodness. And I want to buy 15,000 units to that next year.

Eric Coffie: 00:38:26 [inaudible].

Elliot Branch: 00:38:26 So what we have a tendency to do, because engineering support goodness would be an output, right? I mean we get some quality, you know, assistance to accomplish mission. So, so what we have a tendency to do, since we can't really describe the output and we can't measure the output, is we buy inputs. So what I say is not, I want 15,000 units of systems engineering, goodness, but that I want three man years of a senior systems engineer, two man years of a systems engineer, two and a half man, years of a junior systems engineer for man years of it, an engineering technician and a manager of administrative support. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to look at those resumes and I'm going to look at how you manage

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those people. Cool. And your management plan. And I'm going to look at your past performance.

Elliot Branch: 00:39:22 I'm going to look at your organizational, uh, structure and history and I'm going to use those things to infer. But if you put all of those together correctly, you will deliver me 15,000 units of systems engineering. So that's why the resumes are so important. If I could define program management, goodness, systems engineering, goodness, logistics, goodness, IP goodness, if I could define a unit and say, Hey, I don't care how you deliver that, but you'd deliver me one unit or this, it would be one thing. But since I can't do that, well I do as I tend to buy the inputs and this is why you see a lot of solicitations structured with levels of effort and the number of hours we want to buy and labor categories. And then I would want to see strong resumes too because that's what gives me the high degree of confidence that you can deliver.

Elliot Branch: 00:40:17 Mm. I, you know, I've never heard it explained in that manner and that's, that's why the technical proposal oftentimes is ways higher. Yeah. The price proposal. Yes, absolutely. Because, uh, yeah, it, yeah, I used to, as I said, I, I this, this was my practice area and uh, and I used to tell government people, you realize the way you dress, solicitations, you're going to get what I used to call Noggin, which, which is an acronym for nice offices as good guys in suits, right? So, so what I could get is I get a proposal writer to come out and he looks at what you put in an Arc p and he writes this wonderful proposal about how wonderful this company is and how it has of the years of experience and it has all these systems that build synergy and they're committed to the customer and they have a wonderful culture and blah, blah, blah.

Elliot Branch: 00:41:09 And you're going to look at this and you're going to draw from all of that. The conclusion that they can do the work. And My, you know, my, a admonition to government people was, why don't you just say, hey, here's the outcome I'd like to achieve. Give me your approach to achieve that outcome. Tell me what risks you've identified in that approach, working or not working. Tell me where you seen those risks before and other work you've done and tell me how you manage those risks. Hmm. And I can't, I can't get, I'll couldn't get my colleagues to, to kind

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of accept that frame of reference and get away from resumes except for an a in a, in a few instances where I think we had some people who were, uh, we're willing to think a little differently about the problem. Wow. Wow. Um, it says that you are helping design at Atlantic management center.

Elliot Branch: 00:42:05 You helped design some course material. Yeah, I did. I did. Uh, I worked in that, that again, the performance based services acquisition area, uh, doing, doing training and consulting. Okay. Is that organization still around? Um, yeah, it went, it went virtual, uh, some years back. I'm, I'm not sure they're still around and you know, and this is it, but that, that's a, that's a great, that's a brewery question. Okay. Uh, because Atlantic Management Center I think is a cautionary tale for many small businesses, especially ones that want to do business with the government and ones that are taking, uh, advantage of these preference programs. Right. Because, you know, they got there were successful in that they became not a small business. Right. But, but they never got large enough really launched into that next tier. Mm. Uh, and, and so what happened was they lost the base work that they got us a small business from these preference programs and, and had to kind of rethink their entire strategy.

Elliot Branch: 00:43:19 Mm. So, so, you know, my, my, you know, advice to small businesses is okay as, as you, you know, you can rely on these preference programs are a good foothold or a good toe hole, but if you really want to grow, you've got to have a strategy that will launch you in terms of growth, steeply enough that you kind of overcome, uh, the, the, the, you know, if you will, the inertia that's pushing you back to be this small business. Because as soon as you get out of those protected programs, that base work, you are depending on disappears. Wow. Yeah. And I've heard that from multiple people. I've heard that from multiple people. Yeah. But you know, I think, um, for a lot of the, the business owners that I'm talking to, I mean, they would like to have at least some of that initial inertia, right?

Elliot Branch: 00:44:13 I mean, they, they just want to start, um, and you know, they're working in a private sector that maybe they're looking to diversify their income, but for various reasons they haven't quite a worked over into this marketplace. And a lot of times,

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um, you know, I, I, and again, they don't always particularly have certifications or they're part of the socioeconomic programs, but the ones, even the ones that do, um, they will just like some initial inertia th th to, to reuse the words of choice, uh, to get started. And I think for them, um, W I hate to say anything would help, but something would give them some confidence that this is a marketplace that they want to continue to pursue. Well, I, I think this is where mentorship a comes in and this is where some of the networking that I talked about earlier really comes in.

Elliot Branch: 00:45:07 You know, you need to sit down with people, uh, in this, in this particular business. Um, and I'll, and I'll give as an example, and this is just Kinda my personal view, uh, when, when you look at the people in the commercial it space, and I mean, uh, and I, and I don't mean the, the software vendors cause it's cause they're really kind of in the licensing space, right? Right. But people who are doing kind of the value added high end services to work, um, you know, there is a tendency for folks, perspective is a really good example to focus on in government marketplace. And I think as you, if you go back through some of the m and a history of m a of these it and these information companies, uh, you'll, you'll, you know, you'll see the segmentation. And I, and I talked to some people about this, you know, who were in this business and what they told me, Oh, w w you know, which was really interesting and said, hey, of course what we've done, segregation, because your government sales cycle is too long.

Elliot Branch: 00:46:14 You know, it's, it's off a commercial sales site. Yes, yes. Right. So, oh, totally, totally. I hear that all the time. Yeah. So, so if you're going to go into this business, you need to understand what business you're going into because the government does things differently because it is, does the government and frankly the taxpayer expects them to do things differently. Yeah. Cause it's about integrity. It's about transparency. It's about opportunity for everybody to participate. And unfortunately what that does is to some degree limits the amount of discretion that the buyer might have, you know, versus private industry. And I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll give you an old example. Uh, you may remember back in the day, uh, when, when Ford had the problem with, uh, [inaudible] Firestone tires, Onyx, right? Yup. I

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remember that. And they, and they immediately said, this is, this is, this is going to be a polic relations problem.

Elliot Branch: 00:47:25 And, and they cutoff Firestone, which why Firestone in part I think is now part of Bridgestone. Um, we in the government couldn't have done that. Oh, we could have stopped installing, you know, Firestone tires on our vehicles and you know, we could've worked through some things, but, but to just defacto say we're no longer going to do business with this company, we couldn't have done that. There has to be some due process. So a number of things in government procurement take longer and are more complex because frankly, you and others on myself as a taxpayer expect, uh, opportunity to be equal. They expect integrity in the system and they expect a level of transparency that private companies don't have to exhibit. Right. Right. So you've got to understand that, that that's part of the territory of doing business with the government and, and it is a different model than doing business and private sector.

Eric Coffie: 00:48:28 Interesting. That's, uh, that makes a lot of sense. But it also the, the, the first part of that statement, which is learning, um, if you are segmenting into this marketplace learning, you know, what this, what that means and understanding it and then, uh, I would say setting the expectations for, you know, what that looks like. Because if you can set your expectations, then you won't be as anxious, I guess to say it was to be in terms of why things are not going the way that you would expect them to if you were working in a commercial sector in the private sector.

Elliot Branch: 00:49:04 No, I think you're absolutely spot on. Yeah.

Eric Coffie: 00:49:07 Yeah. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. Going back, you know, I was, as we were talking about the technology, uh, and we were talking about procurement central and, and we were talking about the navy w why is Nico. Dot. Navy. Dot. Mills set up that way?

Elliot Branch: 00:49:26 Um, I'm not sure I understand your [inaudible]

Eric Coffie: 00:49:29 Waco, so you know, Nico, uh, yeah, that's that. I mean that is a very antiquated system.

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Elliot Branch: 00:49:35 Um, you're, you're, you're absolutely right. A guilty as charged. Um, but this is part of, you know, this is, so this is part of the, the dynamic and I think the it space. Um, and, and I think you'll find this across, um, government agencies, uh, regardless of whether inside defense or outside defense. Right? So if you're in the private sector and, um, I'm, I'm gonna pick on somebody if you're, if you're in the private sector and your Toyota, right. Okay. What you understand it is that your, um, applications and systems to ensure component quality is ty and component cost is low. [inaudible] just the bottom line directly. Right? [inaudible] so, so you're, you're going to make investments in those systems to ensure that they are, stay the art and modernize if state of the art and modernize can help you shave a dollar off the cost of a car?

Elliot Branch: 00:50:48 That's correct. Okay. In the Department of the Navy, uh, the Department of the army and the Department of the air force w we have to, or three jobs. And, and I used to tell people they are to put an ordinance on target, take ordinance to target and keep soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines from becoming targeted. And, and I think when you look at the priorities and, and department, right with respect to modernization, personnel and readiness, some of the back office systems like Nico take [inaudible] backseat. So it is often very hard to build support to modernize those systems, uh, when, uh, the, the needs of what our CNA if you will, as direct product delivery are, are so high. Okay. So Nico I think is eventually going to go, uh, you know, the way that, uh, all, all old and faithful software should go. Um, you know, uh, before I left, uh, we awarded the Navy award and they contract for what was called the electronic procurement system, uh, which is a modern version of a contract writing system that was supposed to subsume a lot of those functions.

Elliot Branch: 00:52:12 Okay. And so as that gets deployed, I think Nico will be sunset. But, but I will tell you from personal experience, because I was a functional proponent for eps, it took us a lot of years and it took us a lot of effort to build the alliances to make the case that the department should make that investment. Really? Yes. Wow. So I guess, um, from a, from a, I guess an outside perspective, was it not enough people complaining about it? Well, again, I, I go back to this, right? So would you rather have a, a destroyer to protect an aircraft carrier or more standoff missiles or a

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development and hyper velocity? Or would you rather have a contract writing system? Yeah, and I think it's very hard sometimes to make the case that hey, you, you can't get another destroyer. You, you can't get, uh, you know, a hyper velocity, you know, projectile, unless you can actually write a contract to do it. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I think, but it took us a lot of, a lot of time too, to get folks to understand that the ability to do business with industry, to get capability in the hands of the warfighter matters and the, these kinds of tools when there are modernize help us to do business with industry.

Eric Coffie: 00:53:48 Yes, definitely. No, no, that, that, I mean, you know, and again, I'm willing even the fee, even just making it so it's accessible to normal browser, things like that or, I mean that's, you know, that's extremely difficult. Um, but I, but I understand what you're saying and I, and I, and I'm, I'm glad you clarified that out because that makes sense, right? To the other people that are looking at it and saying, Hey, we want, you know, our job, our job is to protect and serve and, and that doesn't serve that purpose. But, um, what I have seen, and you can tell me what you think about this is, and looking at the eight oh nine panel and some of their reports that they talked about not allowing some of the new technology companies, they're being distance from the government because of those same reasons that you just discussed.

Elliot Branch: 00:54:43 Yeah. And it, and I, and I think, I think there's some, um, I think there's some truth to that. I mean, I, you know, I, I've sat in those deliberations for almost three years, um, and, uh, you know, we understand that, yeah, that would've been a game changer, right? Um, although there are probably some lawyers and contracting officers who would of already do that looks an awful lot like a blackberry. I'm not sure you could give us that as an unsolicited proposal, but the plan and get the point, I mean, it has to be a real game changer for which there is no existing requirement.

Eric Coffie: 00:55:18 Okay. So let's, let's step down from, um, on solicit proposal to a new technology.

Elliot Branch: 00:55:25 Okay. So maybe, maybe it's not, um,

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Eric Coffie: 00:55:29 so maybe it is similar to the blackberry, but it's the iPhone,

Elliot Branch: 00:55:35 right? And, and I think it, again, this is the, the hard part is if I have a requirement for it, uh, under the current regulations, I will invite you to compete poor. Um, and that's about as, as that's about the best I can do under, under the current rules to be an unsolicited proposal. It's really gotta be absolutely new and novel. Yeah. That said, I, I think, you know, I go back to, you know, kind of timeless principles. You got to network, you got to network because here's, here's what happened. Uh, and I, and I, uh, you know, kind of look at it from a, from a perspective of what I call demand management or how you described the right. So, so if I'm used to driving around in a car, uh, and, and steering that car, um, and you come into me with a driverless vehicle, right?

Elliot Branch: 00:56:38 Uh, what I will say is I will say as a procurement official, well, I have requirement for car and you're welcome to compete. And then you say, well, okay, fine, and, and you've got a copy of the RFP for cars and, and you look at the specifications, uh, for cars and you see all these things that refer to the driver, right? And you go, wait a minute, I'm offering you a car, but my car has no driver. And, and the procurement, you know, officials as well. Then I ditched your cars and, you know, responsive to my requests. Yes. So I think the key is, you know, how do you get to the folks, uh, who made the kinds of decisions to broaden the specifications, to consider unique and innovative proposals? And that's, I think where the networking comes in. So for example, uh, in the department of the Navy's system, we have what we called the laboratory system.

Elliot Branch: 00:57:43 And, you know, we have three of our largest, uh, organizations are through the navy, has through its largest organizations that Ron worked pure labs, uh, that enable sea systems command, you know, does surface and underwater, uh, labs. Uh, the, uh, the air systems command does aviation warfare centers and our space and warfare command, the space in Warfare Command, uh, does information warfare stuff. In addition to that, we have the office of naval research and we have naval research lab. So, so you've got some unique proposition that is, if you will not embedded in the consciousness of people who are responsible for providing those capabilities. You have to walk through those

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doors and network with the folks that are capable, that are capable and charged with bringing those sorts of things forward. Um, but they're not unsolicited proposal, you know, don't call them unsolicited proposals because we call them unsolicited proposals and get a very specific category.

Elliot Branch: 00:58:48 Right, exactly. Well, how would you, what would you call them then? Um, so that, so I mean, and the reason why I say that is just so that, you know, like you said, someone won't automatically throw you into this box and say, okay, no, no, we can't, you know, unsolicited proposal has to meet these other requirements. I guess I was at an event, what would I, well, I'd say I have a revolutionary product or revolutionary idea. No, you know, I, you know, so, so, you know, and, and what I'm telling you, it was worth what you're paying for it. Right. So, so let's caveat that, but, but if this were me and I were doing my networking thing, you know, I, you know, I would say, Hey, I think I have something that, you know, can enhance your ability to deliver capability of the war fighter in this area.

Elliot Branch: 00:59:34 Right. Um, you know, AI in the area of, um, information, you know, assurance, information, security, blockchain, you know, whatever, whatever that area is. Right. Can I send you a white paper on that? Yeah. And I start with the white paper. You know, I don't start by exposing my entire idea. I start with a white paper and I try to start a conversation that, that gets me to a place where I'm not necessarily looking for somebody to shape a requirements so that only I can bid on it. But I'm looking for somebody to shape a requirement, so at least I can bid against others.

Eric Coffie: 01:00:15 Right. Veteran at saint that are doing the same thing. Okay. Okay. I like that. No, that's, that's worth more than what I'm paying for. That's pretty good. I like that. That's actually, uh, you know, cause I think your white paper think about a quad chart and that's, you know, another similar format.

Elliot Branch: 01:00:32 Okay,

Eric Coffie: 01:00:33 that's good. I, you know, I have a lot of questions. I know we were at the hour mark. Um, but what we could do if you like, I, I'd rather if you'd like to summarize up something that you save

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small businesses, um, because I typically respect people's time and when I commit to something, I, you know, I stick to it. Um, if you want like to give some advice, I mean I've, you shared a lot of advice already this far. Um, we talked about the mistakes they made, we talked about their approaches. Um, if you'd like to say any final words to the small businesses before we close out, that'd be wonderful.

Elliot Branch: 01:01:07 Well, I, I, I don't, I don't know that I have any advice, but, but I will, let me, let me close with a story. Um, you know, back in the 90s when the Berlin Wall fell down and the Soviet Union imploded, we were involved in a fairly, um, quiet but intense a submarine conflict with, with the Russians. Right? You know, this was not hot stuff. Uh, but, but it was, it was clearly a segment of the Cold War. And when the wall fell down, uh, the navy said, we're not going to make investments. And that technology, that submarine combat system technology, um, because the Russians have tied up their boats at the dock, you know, so why would we want to make that investment? And we have other investments we need to make. And in a couple of really foresighted individuals from that community, uh, we're scanning the horizon and saying, you know, we build these things purpose-built customize, but there's a revolution going on in it.

Elliot Branch: 01:02:23 And if we rip these things out and we put in blade servers and, and we, uh, deploy middleware to convert our summary and software, we can open this up to put disruptive and game changing technologies into the server marine forest with what little money we're going to have. And that's exactly what we did. And, and small business played a major role in that. And some of those small businesses became fairly good size businesses because of that. So, so my advice is if you have capability, don't give up because the nation needs you. It's just as simple as that. You know, come in every day, uh, learn, you know, from your successes and failures every day, how to get a little bit better at mover in the government space. Talk to people who are in that space. You'd be surprised how helpful they're willing to be both government and industry because everybody's looking for new sources and, and be a mentor to the next guy who wants to get in the space because fundamentally we're all in this together.

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Elliot Branch: 01:03:34 So that's, I guess, uh, the best set of final words I could leave here. Um, one thing I just remember that we didn't touch on it. KJ, I'm consulting. What do you, what do you, what is it, what are you doing? Is there anything that you'd like to talk about or on that, what are you doing now that you're retired? Right. Right now I'm taking the summer off. Okay. And, uh, I, you know, so, so ask me what, what I'm doing about the 15th. Oh, September. But, but I essentially, yeah, you know, did a colleague of mine, uh, said uh, to me, um, you know, you'd been in this business 41 years and, and to not share what you learn would be very selfish on our part, on your part. [inaudible] and he went on to say, and for us not to ask you would be very stupid on our part. So, so I've set up KJ m consulting as a vehicle. Uh, if I'm asked to, to help folks, uh, that, that I can go out and help folks. But, uh, um, you know, at this point I am taking the summer off, which is the first summer I've had off in 48 years. Wow. Yeah. Well, I would agree with you to take it some off. Enjoy your summer. Thank you.

Eric Coffie: 01:04:56 How did you enjoy the episode today with Mr. Elliott Branch? Did I not tell you the guy was a genius? In fact, I would not be surprised if many of you had to go back and listen multiple times just to get all of the information that he shared throughout today's interview. One of my key takeaways was that so many people have their hands in this government pie and with each new guests, I'm learning about old programs, old SBA and government programs and solutions that were devised by household names, and this gives me so much encouragement as I know that I've chosen the right arena and the right market that has withstood the test of time. For the notes from today's interview, transcriptions book recommendations link to his bio and profile, please visit us over@gulfkhangiant.com slash podcast may God bless you in all of your challenges this week.

Speaker 5: 01:05:42 [inaudible].