Ever wondered just exactly what it takes to scale a consulting business while maintaining agility and delivering high-impact results? Keith Scott, today’s guest, has mastered this art and is here to share his journey. Keith is the CEO and co-founder of K.L. Scott and Associates, a consulting firm that has seen exponential growth, doubling and tripling revenue projections year over year. With a deep background in top-tier firms like Deloitte and Gartner, Keith has successfully transitioned from the structured environment of these corporate giants to running a fully remote, agile consulting firm that serves major federal and state government clients across the U.S. In this episode, Keith dives into the strategies that have propelled his firm to success, from leveraging data-driven insights for public policy impact to building a remote team that delivers top-tier results without the overhead of a traditional office.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The benefits of running a fully remote consulting firm
- How to transition from a corporate role to founding a consulting business
- The key differences between working at large firms like Deloitte and running your own consultancy
- Strategies for winning government contracts and scaling a consulting business
- The importance of agility and intimate client relationships in a small consulting firm
- Lessons on partnership dynamics and structuring a consulting business for growth
- Insights into the role of social impact in shaping a consulting firm’s mission and culture
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Welcome to the Consulting Success podcast. I’m your host Michael Zipursky, and in this podcast, we’re going to dive deep into the world of elite consultants where you’re going to learn the strategies, tactics and mindset to grow a highly profitable and successful consulting business.
Before we dive into today’s episode. Are you ready to grow and take your consulting business to the next level? Many of the clients that we work with started as podcast listeners just like you, and a consistent theme they have shared with us is that they wished they had reached out sooner about our Clarity Coaching Program rather than waiting for that perfect time. If you’re interested in learning more about how we help consultants just like you, we’re offering a free, no pressure growth session call. On this call, we’re going to dive deep into your goals, challenges and situation and outline a plan that is tailor made just for you. We will also help you identify where you may be making costly and time consuming mistakes to ensure you’re benefiting from the proven methods and strategies to grow your consulting business.
So don’t wait years to find clarity. If you’re committed and serious about reaching a new level of success in your consulting business, go ahead and schedule your free growth session. Get in touch today. Just visit Consulting Success – Grow to book your free call today.
Keith Scott, founder and CEO of K.L. Scott & Associates, LLC, is a seasoned leader in IT and management consulting with over 29 years of experience supporting local, state, and federal government agencies. Renowned for delivering results, he excels in optimizing client performance through strategic planning, organizational transformation, and IT strategy. With a proven track record, he has successfully led complex projects for over 50 government clients. Keith holds a B.S. in Computer Science, an MBA, and certifications in Project Management (PMP) and Business Analytics.
In this episode, you’ll explore the benefits of running a fully remote consulting firm and gain valuable insights into transitioning from a corporate role to founding your own business. You’ll also discover the key differences between working at large firms like Deloitte and managing your own consultancy, along with effective strategies for winning government contracts and scaling your business. The discussion also delves into the importance of agility and fostering intimate client relationships within a small firm, lessons on partnership dynamics, and structuring your business for growth. Additionally, you’ll uncover the role of social impact in shaping your consulting firm’s mission and culture.
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Hey, Keith. Welcome.
Hey, Michael, how’s it going? Thanks for having me.
Looking forward to our conversation. I thought we’d start off- You’ve built your consulting business now. You’re well into seven figures. You have a good sized team.
And so I want to kind of paint that picture on how you got to where you are today? I want to go back in time to begin because from the research that we did, you kind of got your start, or at least part of it, working at Gartner Consulting. Is that correct?
Yeah. And I would go even further back than that.
I really kind of got my start at Deloitte in the mid 2000’s, 2006, got my MBA, which got me the job at Deloitte and just kind of took everything in.
It’s almost like going back to graduate school to get your MBA.
But Deloitte, I cut my teeth on consulting there. I did a lot of independent work prior to that.
But at Deloitte, I learned a good bit of how to grow clients, deliver.
But I worked as a manager under some pretty aggressive partners. So I learned kind of the expectations at the partner level but also at the delivery level.
And it was mainly system integration type of work.
Right. So let me ask you, these are well recognized names, Deloitte and Gartner. I’m sure you learned a lot over those years and got exposed to all kinds of clients.
But are there a couple of kind of lessons or big principles that you feel really made a difference for you or that you feel were kind of integral that you took when you ended up starting your own consulting business?
Just like anything that really stood out for you that you might offer to others who have not worked at large firms like that?
I would say the difference between going at it alone without the benefit of a Gartner or a Deloitte is you’re starting to learn how they build models and statistical models and tools that help accelerate outcomes for clients.
And then storytelling. Death by PowerPoint.
I think everything that I did was a PowerPoint presentation of some form so I learned a lot about how to do analysis and structure into a story.
And that really helped me polish off my consulting chops.
Now, from a business perspective, running your own organization didn’t really get that from there. That was kind of learn as you go.
So in parallel, I kind of learned. I really started looking at how law firms worked with partners and billing and utilization and then practice areas and things like that.
So I kind of took both and morphed it into what I’m doing now.
Differentiating a Small Consulting Firm
We see that a fair bit where consultants or people who have worked in a, let’s say, larger, more established consulting firm, they have great analytical skills, they’re very good at consulting, but when they venture off to start their own consulting business, they reach out to us because they don’t really have the experience of how to grow a consulting business.
And so I’ve got two questions for you on that. I mean, the first is, what do you feel are the big differences of things that you didn’t get working at a Deloitte or at a Gartner that when you went out on your own you had to work hard to figure out?
And then the second question I have, I’ll just plant the seed right now, is, for a smaller consulting firm, whether it’s a solo consultant or a boutique, who’s thinking about, “How can I win business?”
Maybe if they’re in an industry that is really heavily serviced by these larger firms, what would you say to them is the advantage that the smaller boutique consultant has over the large firm?
I would say agility, flexibility to you’re still delivering the same quality.
I mean, I had the pedigree of Deloitte and Gardner at a much less price.
But getting into Deloitte or getting into Gartner is a task to get that experience.
I really learned a lot from the book The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but it’s kind of when you’re starting out on your own, you’re wearing multiple hats.
But if you build out your org structure on your vision and then reverse engineer it, you kind of plug away from each role and fill it with, as you grow, individuals that will deliver for you until the point that you’re just the CEO, and I’m not there yet, to be honest with you, I still have to touch on delivery.
Would you say that for you? I mean, that’s one of the things that you learned, or at least was able to kind of benefit from seeing how these larger firms work, how they structure their org chart.
So, that’s kind of a lesson that you took maybe as you started your own business.
And then in terms of what differentiates and what the advantage might be for a solo consultant or small firm compared to a larger firm, I hear you mention agility also potentially costs. The client is able to potentially pay lower fees, but they’re still getting the quality level, the value that they would get from a larger firm, but they’re not having to pay for the junior staff and all the fancy offices and stuff like that because you’re solo boutique or, I mean, today you’re much bigger than that.
But is that kind of what you’re saying or would you add anything else to that?
That’s exactly what I’m saying.
I think when you’re starting out, you’re able to build more intimate relationships.
There’s no levels of detail where you’re the partner at a firm and then you bring in your team to deliver.
And when you’re small, you are working directly with the client. You’re in the office, you’re whiteboarding with the client, solutioning, and they see you at work.
Problem with that is when you’re growing and you’re trying to replace yourself, they want you. They don’t want John Doe or Jane Doe. They want you.
That is probably, I would say, the transition from, in terms of growth for a solo consultant that’s trying to really grow a consultancy, that can be the most challenging aspect of it.
The Leap to Entrepreneurship
Let’s put a little kind of pin in that. And I want to come back to that a little bit later on because I definitely want to hear your experience around that. Just very briefly, why did you decide to leave? You’re working at these well established firms. I’m sure you’re making some good money. Why do you decide to go off on your own and start your own consulting business?
I’m kind of rogue, right?
When you’re at those firms, you have to follow their process. And I love my experience at both companies, trust me.
But I have ideas of my own that were kind of suppressed there.
And having autonomy, you can pretty much take the wheel and drive your own car and go to the destination that you want, that independence.
And then social impact. I’m very big on showing that African Americans in general can have a consulting firm.
There was a somewhat lack of representation there. And I’m not saying it was on purpose, but I’m just saying organically, there was some lack of representation.
So I feel more fulfilled carving my own path than working at those organizations, though I have high respect and high regard for them.
Did you have a spouse or family at that time when you decided to leave the corporate world, if you will, and start your own business?
Yeah. My uncle had a lot of influence on me being an entrepreneur.
He owned a nightclub, he owned restaurants. He owned a lot of real estate.
And as a kid, I would come visit my uncle. He’s like my second dad. I would just see checks and bags of money that he had to deposit.
He even gave me an opportunity to run his record store- for the younger audience, there was a point that they had records and not, you know–
I remember, yeah, for sure.
Yeah. And so I was in charge of inventory, payroll, and things like that.
So that really got me going and thinking about doing it since then. I was maybe 19, 20.
Do you feel overall that you had support from family and people around you to make that transition, to leave this kind of established job and go off and build your own business? Or was that a tough one?
No, I did. Well, there were two areas.
I knew I could always go back to consulting for a bigger firm. That’s one.
And I had a very good support system at home in my parents. So if I failed, I could always move back in if it got that bad.
So they were always there, but they were always encouraging.
I think my father, and I have this quote on my wall here that I look at every day, he says, “I admire your tenacity.” To do this, it really requires that I’ve got to get this done.
So I never really stopped at Deloitte. I left Deloitte, started another company called Novel Management Group. That didn’t work out. We had some good years that didn’t work out.
And then I went to Gartner and then left Gartner and then started.
Lessons from a Previous Partnership
Okay. So you started a company before you went to kind of in between the two consultings. And why did it not work out? Looking back, what were the lessons there? What went wrong?
Well, the partnership just didn’t mesh right.
So you had a partner.
Yeah, and I have partners now. I have partners now in the firm we have now.
But the partnership then did not work out. The personalities, the styles just did not click.
And eventually it came to a point where we had to go separate ways.
I’m going to take it that you didn’t see– Like, the writing wasn’t on the wall from day 1, otherwise you wouldn’t have entered into that partnership. Or maybe it was there and you ignored it.
I’m just wondering, like, what were the- if you were able to go back in time, is there something you maybe could have done differently or look for that would have helped you to say, “No, this is not the right fit to enter into this partnership,” or to try and resolve issues before they got to the point where they got to where you ended up dissolving it?
I would say I didn’t see things until later.
What didn’t you see? Can just be a little more specific, if you can, whatever you’re comfortable sharing? But what were the issues or what was coming up?
Well, I resolve conflict differently. It’s more mediation versus force. I’ll leave it at that.
But totally different styles to the point where I was uncomfortable in how he would manage conflict and things like that.
But when you’re in a partnership, there’s an imbalance in effort, too. So I wasn’t comfortable, necessarily, with that.
Got you. Okay. So potentially how each of you are spending or the amount of time you are spending inside of the business, kind of the contribution, the value creation. There wasn’t alignment around that as well.
Right.
Going back, is there anything you would have done to try and deal with that earlier? Like, for example, having a clear partnership agreement in place or setting of expectations or just anything that kind of comes to mind for you?
With that situation I probably wouldn’t have entered it, but I would say you’ve got to have an ironclad operating agreement fully detailing responsibilities, contingencies if there’s disagreements, and an exit strategy if you don’t want to maintain the partnership.
Rebuilding and Rejoining Forces
Let’s then fast forward. You leave Gartner, you go out on your own. Were you building this business in some form or fashion before you left Gartner, or did you kind of start from day 1, once you had left Gartner?
After the prior company that I just mentioned, I was an independent, so I was doing work independently, and the partners that I have now, we were in discussion, “Hey, let’s eventually do something together.”
So then we started winning some contracts. We would get 1099s to fulfill it.
And then I had this opportunity to go to Gartner. And I said to my partner, “Hey, let me go to Gartner, see where this goes. But if it doesn’t work out, I’ll come back, we can get this going again.”
So he kind of ran the clients that we had landed before I went into Gartner. So it was still existing, and I was seeing where Gartner was going to take me.
And then I decided, “Okay, Gartner is great, but I think I can reach my peak or my potential by going back and doing our own thing.”
So, rejoined the company in 2022, and then accelerated growth right after that. But I had very, very good partners with this company.
And is the partnership structure, is it split equally, or does one person have a higher percentage, or how does that work?
Yeah, two of us have the majority shares, equal majority shares. We have two minority partners in there as well.
So you kind of have this independent business with 1099s generating revenue. You decide, hey, I think there might be a bigger opportunity for me to work with Gartner. So you kind of went off and did that.
Did you maintain any equity or any revenue from the work that your other partner was still kind of managing, even though you had left for Gartner, or were you kind of completely out of that and they were handling everything?
They were pretty much handling it. I was more of an advisor.
The company paid for his salary, and he kept it going.
There’s a lot of work there to do because most of our work is with the federal government and state and local.
So there’s a lot of contract administration that goes into it, certifications and getting contract vehicles that you can work, like BPAs, master services agreements, things like that.
So he was doing all of that work while I was gone.
But in terms of me working on an assignment outside of Gartner, I wasn’t doing that when I was at Gartner. It was really a test bed to see, “Hey, will this work?” And then I decided to leave.
Building a Remote Team and Infrastructure
I know today you have about 27 full time employees. Then another maybe, was it 7 or so contractors? I think you said up to about 35 that you staff up to as needed.
When you hire people and when you kind of built out to that number, were you hiring just based on, “Hey, we won this contract. We now need to go and find people to service and deliver on this contract,” or were you hiring people even full time before you would land a contract?
How do you kind of go about it in the early days?
We did it based on demand.
So we would win something and then grab a few folks to help us.
We started out as 1099s, converted some to employees, but initially we would win work and then hire full time people.
And where would you find them? Because, like, some people would hesitate to do that because they wouldn’t feel confident to go out trying to win big business if they don’t actually have the people ready to deploy right away. So what gave you the confidence that you could find people?
I was all in.
I said, “If I don’t go full throttle at this and make it work, it won’t happen.”
And it was also from lessons learned in prior engagements.
So I knew in order to make this work, get talented people to work on the contracts, take the profits from those contracts, invest in a recruiter, Ops person, build systems, we’re building systems with the profits from the initial contracts.
And then once you have the structure in, it’s an engine.
So, I don’t do any interviewing anymore unless it’s at the manager or above level.
We’ve got a consulting bench now that we actually forecast out of core consultants.
So everything initially that we did was the investment in the building infrastructure so that we can have a full- And I will tell you, that is lessons from Gartner, that is lessons from Deloitte on how they manage utilization.
So let me ask you about that. I mean, some people will go, “Okay. That makes a lot of sense. “ Others might think, “Well, doesn’t that mean that your margin is going to suffer pretty significantly in those early days because you’re not going to be able to take as much home?”
What did that look like? I mean, in as much detail as you’re able to share, Keith, like, when you’re bringing on a client and you’re just reinvesting instead of taking money out, what does that look like financially inside of the business?
We believed in building a consulting company, not being independent, like three or four independent folks just pocketing the money.
And then we’re trying to build something bigger.
And in order to do that, you have to reinvest in the organization, and you have to have a roadmap.
So we built a strategic plan in financial forecasts. Every year, we beat the forecast, so we’re even able to extend more.
And what did that look like? Was it saying, like 10% a year, 15%, 20%? Like, what was the number you got?
2 or 3x projection.
You beat it by 2 or 3x? Or your forecast was for 2 or 3x growth each year?
We beat it by 2 or 3x.
What was your forecast, though?
In 2022, we forecasted 1 million and then doubled that. And then 2020, triple that.
And now we’re projected to do 2x of that. We’ve been really building a great company.
Stepping Away from Delivery
I want to come back to that growth and what’s contributing to that rapid growth inside your business. Before you do that, let’s go back to the pin that we placed, and we said we’d talk about that kind of situation that for some can feel very sticky and uncomfortable and hard to kind of figure out, which is if you are the one known as the brains, the expert, the go-to guy or gal or whoever it might be, how do you shift, and how did you do this, and what would be your best advice? I’d love to hear how you yourself did this. Remove yourself from delivery, from client facing work, so that you can spend more time on other areas of strategy and building the business.
I brought in a former practitioner or practice leader at Gartner, and he freed me from delivery.
So that means just, sorry to interrupt, so you hired a senior person, which some people might hesitate because it generally means you’re going to pay more.
We’re paying that.
Okay, so you’re paying them well. Are they receiving the same that they would receive at a larger firm like Gartner?
No, we negotiated some equity and things like that so that it would make it worth his while.
There’s upside potential, more growth, more freedom, more flexibility, probably, maybe better value alignments. There’s a lot of things that founders often don’t think enough about. They kind of go to the status quo of, “Oh, yeah, I can’t get great people and a high level senior person because I can’t pay them enough.” But oftentimes, you don’t have to match the salary of a larger firm. You need to attract them with other things like values and freedom, flexibility, upside, potential, and so forth.
Okay, so you went, “I’ve got to replace myself by essentially cloning myself. Finding somebody who has a similar skill set or can deliver at that high level.” And then you made that investment. What did that do for you and for the business, and how quickly do you see the benefit of that?
I immediately saw it.
It gave me capacity, and then we were able to really exponentially grow the company.
At the end of the day, if your goal is to grow the company, if you’re trying to win a championship, you need to fill it with all stars.
I mean, if you’re a coach and you don’t have talent on your team, you’re not going to win. I don’t care how good a coach you are, you have to have talent. Talent will take you far.
But also there’s the dynamic of, can we build a culture here that’s following our values?
So going back to the investment early on, we built a culture here that is very mission oriented. So everybody that we bring into the company, they’re about social impact. Our organization is about social impact.
So everyone that works for us has some type of empathy towards society, and we’re able to really attract that talent based on that model, if you will.
At the end of the day, if your goal is to grow the company, if you’re trying to win a championship, you need to fill it with all stars. Share on X
Time Management and Growth Drivers
How do you spend your time right now? I mean, if you kind of break it down for us, like, what percentage- are you doing any delivery anymore? Any kind of client facing work?
Take us through like a typical week. What are the different buckets that you spend your time in and what are the percentages?
I’m still challenged with more of account management when things require escalation, I come in and I’m aware of everything that’s going on in every project, just not hands on the keyboard.
So I meet with my managers on a weekly basis, kind of do a scrum, if you will. What’s going right? What do you need? Just keeping those metrics?
That’s part of it, I think a lot of time answering emails. One thing that we have not done is I need an executive assistant.
I was going to ask you, what kind of emails are you spending a lot of time on?
It’s a lot of different types.
I mean, either clients, leads, partnerships. I’m looking at my email and other screens here, different types of events. I even schedule my own events where I’m speaking.
So I do a lot of the work there. Do need to get an executive assistant, though.
It sounds like you definitely do, Keith, based on all that. All right. So let’s come back now to the growth that you’ve been able to achieve. You’ve experienced 2 to 3x growth year over year, almost a couple of times. Another 2x coming up.
I know that your clients, that you work very heavily in the government sector, federal, state, so forth. Can you give a little bit more insight into what you feel is the rocket fuel? What is allowing you to achieve that level of growth and not just for one year, but multiple years and it’s continuing?
A lot of the work that we do is assessing public policy’s impact on demographic groups, specifically any overly impacted demographic group.
So everything that we do is data driven.
So if you have a government that’s about to implement a policy, we have data scientists, data analysts on the team that really do deep dives on social impact. So we do community engagement, things like that.
I think our secret sauce is more along the lines of taking subjectivity out of policymaking.
And when we looked at the marketplace, a lot of companies weren’t necessarily doing that. That’s really kind of our differentiator.
We help organizations with digital transformation, organizational strategy, health and social science in those areas. That is our secret sauce, the data driven, evidence based impacts.
Working with Government Clients
Talk to me about working with the government. Are these projects that you’re landing, and first of all, actually, what would you say is the range or maybe even average deal size? When you go and you land a new project, what does that typically look like in dollar value?
We have two on both ends.
I think the smallest deal we’ve done recently is $25,000, and then the largest is $25 million.
Over how many years?
Over four.
The $25 million. Four years.
So a lot of the work that we do is really depending upon, if it’s small, will it lead to more work with that organization?
And we kind of do the farming and hunting. So we’re concentrating on growing the existing clients. We’re really focused on that and doing less hunting and more farming.
When people hear a number like $25 million even split over four years, it’s a sizable number.
Can you give a bit of insight into what that actually looks like in terms of you got to pay your team and you have a bunch of people that are dedicated to working on this?
What kind of a margin would a project like that actually end up delivering to your company?
So when you’re structuring your team, there may be, let’s say, for math purposes, you have a team of 10 consultants.
You may not make margins on a few of maybe 2 or 3 of the 10. Your margins will be more on your junior associates, and there is more density there.
So you have to really structure it based on your resources.
So we’ve been able to bring in really senior folks almost at cost, and then structure the junior and mid level consultants and have a little bit more margin there.
So the aggregate is something in line with what we’re more aligned to or projecting for.
If you were to look at somebody else’s consulting business and they’re in the government space they’re taking on, just call it a $10 million project, if they’re doing things right, how much of that $10 million – after paying their consultants, both the senior and the junior – how much profit should be left over for them?
They should at least be getting net profit, at least 20% to 30%. If they’re really good with expenses, 35%.
35%. Okay.
Yeah. We are fully remote. We don’t have a big building with rent or mortgage that we have to pay for.
So we try to keep our fixed costs down so that we can be competitive there, and I think we’re going to stay that way.
And that hasn’t clearly doesn’t seem like it’s been a factor for you in terms of your growth. I mean, you have a team of 27 full time people, even more spread out. You’re winning large contracts in the tens of millions of dollars, and you’re doing that working from a home office is what I’m hearing you say.
This is my home office. Yeah.
The reason I bring it up is because I wrote in one of the books, The Elite Consulting Mind, this concept of, the grass is always greener. People are always thinking about, “I can’t be successful because I don’t have x.” If they’re young, they go, “You know, I’m not as old and wise. I don’t have the experience.” If they’re old, they say, “Well, you know, I can’t keep up with all the technology. I don’t have the energy of a young person.” Or if they live in a big city, they say, “It’s so competitive here.” And if they live in a small, rural area or whatever, they go, “There’s not enough business here.”
And so here you are, you’re winning very sizable deals. But some people might say, “Oh, yeah. I can’t do that working from the home office.” Or, “I can’t run a business with 20, 30 people.” But I think you’re showing that you definitely can, and you can do it very well.
Some of that is timing, though, Michael, I would say. Because COVID happened and everybody was home.
We were able to get clients out in Boise, Idaho, Sandy, Utah, out west, where we’re in Atlanta.
And I doubt that if COVID, if everyone wasn’t working from home, that that would have happened, because we would have had a factor in traveling, sending a team out there and things like that.
But by having a fully remote team, we’re doing business over Zoom, or Teams, facilitating meetings over Teams, workshops. It’s really that opened up the door.
Yeah, there’s no question. It certainly accelerated it 100%. So coming back to the government clients, are these projects typically won? Are you going after RFPs that are put out publicly, or are you finding that you’re doing business with people who you’ve invested time and energy and resources into building the relationship first, and because of that, you’re getting access to these opportunities? How are you kind of finding the opportunities?
In the federal government, you know, death by RFP, everything’s an RFP.
By the time it’s an RFP, you’re probably not going to win it. Very low P wins with RFPs.
But when we started, it was Whack-A-Mole. Let’s just go after everything at once and see where we land.
And we were able to win some.
And then once we won some, we started building past performance to a point now where we have a catalog of good past performance.
We respond to a lot of RFIs because you can shake the deal.
We go to a lot of conferences where we’re building relationships.
Keith, sorry to interrupt you. Just for those who aren’t familiar, the difference between RFI and RFP.
An RFI is really the government going out to the market and say, “Hey, we have this problem. Can anyone in the vendor community help us solve it?”
So in that they’re going to ask about your company’s capabilities.
They’re even going to ask you, they usually come out with a draft statement of work. They want your input on it.
And what we’ll do, because we’re experts in particular fields, we’ll say, “Well, have you considered this? Or the best approach would be that way.”
And then you’re able to have those conversations and frame the solicitation and potentially get the sole source opportunity.
If you land it, if you hit it right on the mark and your pricing is accurate and your capabilities aren’t pointed, you may be able to get that sole source or limit the competition.
So you’re saying an RFI, it’s earlier than an RFP. You’re helping it to craft what a potential RFP might look like. And in some situations the government might, based on if they find, let’s say they’re interacting with you and they’re going, “Wow, you’re really helping us. You seem like you could actually help us to solve what we need.” Would they not go out for an RFP in some cases they might just say, “Let’s just work with you,” or would they still go out for an RFP but you’re going to be heavily favored in that one?
So the answer is yes to both. So we are HUBZone certified and 8(a) certified.
What does that mean? We’ve got a global audience.
Oh, that’s right. That’s right. I’m sorry.
So the federal government has two certifications. Well, they have several, but our certifications are small disadvantaged business certifications.
And then the HUBZone, which is a historically underutilized business, where you’re locating your operations. Our main office, which we rarely go to, is in a HUBZone.
And what they do is the government tries to invest in those areas so that you can employ people from those areas and improve the income level per capita of that specific zone.
So there’s government preferences given to those organizations and the federal government is really asking or requesting that the departments really favor small businesses and give them more of an opportunity to do that.
So that’s where we can compete against your Deloittes, where they don’t fall into those spaces or your Gartners. They don’t fall there. It’s mainly a small business preference for the government to do.
Back to your original statement is, the RFI, if we did a good job on it and we built confidence and even had some conversations, and sometimes you get an opportunity to do an oral presentation.
If you do a good enough job, it may never hit the street. You may get a sole source or smaller competition. Maybe three vendors will be asked to bid.
And that’s kind of why we respond to RFIs versus RFP.
Navigating RFIs and RFPs as a Small Consulting Firm
Can people go after RFIs even if they are not certified? You mentioned the two-
Yes.
Okay. So it’s open to anyone generally. Okay. And are RFIs, I know there’s some databases like and different ones where opportunities get posted through the government. Is that similar with RFIs? Are there certain kinds of databases or websites where somebody can look for these opportunities?
We’re on SAM.GOV every morning, every morning.
With a cup of coffee, SAM.GOV.
We’re just combing through the notifications, keeping up.
We use a CRM that we monitor in each state of its sales cycle and utilize that.
Our sales team is like four of us that are really just honing in on sales.
Let me ask you this. So, again, you’re a team, 20 plus, 30 people, depending on what’s going on. If somebody’s listening to this going like, “Yeah, that would be– I would love to tap into government work. The idea of RFPs always felt maybe a bit of a waste of time, but this RFI thing feels like there’s a bit more promise.”
But they are a solo consultant or maybe it’s just two or three people. Would you recommend that they spend time looking into RFIs and RFPs?
Or do you think that it’s potentially a waste of time because, especially the RFP level, there are many elements that they can’t control, as you said, it’s kind of like a Whack-A-Mole?
So I’m wondering, how would you suggest and are there any stages or what’s the thought process that somebody should have if they’re interested in actually going after government business?
As a smaller consultancy, I think it’s very good to look at everything that comes out through an RFI.
And quite often subcontracting with a larger company is a great way to get federal experience. The federal government and state and local are similar to this.
If you don’t have experience in that market, it kind of counts against you somewhat.
And when you say in the market, you mean actually like working with–
Working with the government. Yeah.
Right. So you could be a real expert in water systems, but if you haven’t worked with the government in some form or fashion, providing, let’s say, water system services or something relevant, that’s probably going to be kind of a bit of a knock against you, that they’re looking for “Do you have experience working with the state or federal government?”
Correct. And it’s hard to– It’s like the chicken and egg scenario.
So in order to really get that experience subcontracting with a larger company, it doesn’t have to be a big company, it could be a small business like ours where you’re getting one or two consultants on a project or even one or even doing it as a solo practitioner.
And then you start building your portfolio of past performance, and then each deal builds on the next one.
So if you win something that’s $25,000, the next deal could be $100,000, and then the next deal can grow to $500,000 and so on and so on.
But starting out subcontracting would be a good path forward for that.
And the way for people to find those subcontracting opportunities would not be through SAM.GOV. It would be reaching out to actual other companies that you believe would be going after that business. Is that correct? Or is there some other way that might be better?
It’s a portfolio of things that you have to do.
There’s also a subcontractor database. I think it’s SubNet, if I’m not mistaken, that you can reach out to larger companies or just register and they can reach out to you.
Every agency has some form of an industry day. Go to the industry day. You have the buyers there. They tell you what they’re looking for for the next fiscal year.
The federal government puts out a procurement forecast with the contact of the person that’s in charge of that program.
And there’s also, if it’s an incumbent, there’s the incumbent’s point of contact on there. You may want to reach out to them as well.
So there’s several different things that you have to do. All in parallel, though.
You’ve got to build a capability statement, a one or two page capability statement that summarizes what you do, where you’ve worked at, your certifications, your NAICS codes, things like that that will help you market yourself.
Niching Down and Focusing on Government Work
Do you think it would be wise for somebody to kind of dip their toes into the waters of going after government work while also going after more private sector work? Or do you feel that if somebody is, especially a smaller firm with only a few people, that if they’re going to go to the government, they need to kind of go all in? And what are your thoughts on that?
I would say, I actually learned this from you, niche, right? Don’t boil the ocean.
You either need a service expertise or an industry expertise.
If you want to go into the federal government, I would go all in and understand the intricacies of the federal government.
If you’re going to do state government, the same thing, really focus on the industry, leverage the experience over time, and then maybe go into those private sectors, because sometimes there’s a natural progression.
For example, HUD is one of our clients. You can go from HUD into financial institutions, like the mortgage industry, for example. There’s some leverage that you can do.
But I would focus really on the industry.
Well, it’s been great. Keith, I know that we’re just kind of scratching the surface on so many of these elements, but I appreciate the time and I want to be conscious of the time that we have.
I also want to make sure that people can learn more about you and your company and everything that you have going on. So where would be the best place for them to go to learn more?
I’m heavily on LinkedIn, Keith L. Scott. You’ll find me somewhere up there.
And then klscott&associates.com.
You can reach us on our website and definitely reach out to me. I’m definitely interested in conversing and sharing our lessons learned and partnering. We’re always looking for good partners.
There you go. We’ll link all that up on the show notes at consultingsuccess.com. Keith, thanks again so much for coming on.
Thanks, Michael.
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