yeah well, there's nothing like trying to sell $1000 worth of code safety where it isn't enforced HotOne...

but anyways, i wanted to post what might be good news here, seems 23% of our grandkids stimulus $$$$ is going to go to small biz (correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't the SBA consider that 500 or less....?)

Here's the article

copy/paste for those of you who don't have a Wall St Journal script....




ENTERPRISE MARCH 10, 2009 Opportunity Knocks and Uncle Sam Is at the Door Companies Hope for a Piece of the Pie as the $787 Billion Stimulus Plan Looks Likely to Create an Array of Projects
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By KELLY K. SPORS
Many small businesses, buffeted by declining revenue and tight credit, have set their sights on a possible new customer: the government.

The $787 billion government stimulus promises to create a bevy of federal, state and local government projects that would give small businesses an opportunity to win contracts and cash in on a slice of the stimulus dollars.

There could be plenty of opportunities: By congressional mandate, the government aims to award 23% of all contract dollars across all agencies to small businesses every year. State and local governments have their own rules.

Attendance at contracting expos and seminars is up as more companies try to learn the intricacies of government contract work. Many government contracting consultants are also reporting a surge in new inquiries from small companies looking into contracting for the first time.

Coldsweep Inc., a Mountain Green, Utah, company that provides dry-ice blasting to clean things such as industrial equipment, recently won its first federal contract cleaning two power generators for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Montana. Randell Heath, the company's president, learned about the contract job -- valued at about $56,000 -- from an Army engineer who called after finding his business online. The Corps was so pleased with his job that they asked Mr. Heath to submit a bid to clean a third generator this spring.


Coldsweep Inc.
A technician for Coldsweep working in Flathead Lake, Mont. Coldsweep recently won its first federal contract.
Mr. Heath says he hopes the stimulus money heading to the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as to the building of clean-energy technologies, will result in more opportunities for his company to get work cleaning government-owned property and equipment. He has started scouring government databases for other contracting opportunities. Mr. Heath also is looking into applying to get his business on the General Services Administration schedule, a list of pre-vetted companies that government agencies can use to find contractors.

"We see a lot of government [uses] out there for our technology," he says, "so we're very excited about this."

Diana Dibble Kurcfeld, a Bethesda, Md., government contracting consultant, says her office has seen 50% more meetings with small businesses interested in government contracting, compared with a year ago. But while there may be a "blizzard" of federal, state and local contracting opportunities on the horizon, she says, many small businesses are unprepared for how time-consuming, expensive and bureaucratic pursuing contracts can be.

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Treasury Plans Small-Business AidA business first must figure out what federal or state agencies, if any, are buying their products or services and then network with the right people at those agencies. Then they often must submit lengthy proposals. It can often take weeks or months to hear whether a company has won the contract. Given such hurdles, Ms. Kurcfeld says, small businesses are often at a disadvantage compared with larger businesses that have a staff well-versed in the intricacies of government contracts.

Shelby Scarbrough, former president of the Entrepreneurs' Organization, an Alexandria, Va., executive-networking group, says many times it is better for a small business to start out as a subcontractor on government projects to get a sense of what government work is like.

Inexperience with contracting isn't stopping One to One Leadership. The Pelham, N.Y., management- and sales-training firm is hoping to reverse its fortunes by winning a slice of the government stimulus spending aimed at retraining workers who have lost their jobs. The four-employee firm has seen revenue fall by 50% in the past six months, as many large companies slashed their training budgets. It had roughly $500,000 in revenue last year.

"In my industry, there's a lot of concern about what our world looks like not just this year, but next year and the year after," says Sean O'Neil, One to One's 39-year-old principal. "Even tapping a little of that stimulus money would be a big help right now."

Mr. O'Neil recently spotted a notice on FedBizOpps.gov, a public online database that lists federal contracting opportunities, seeking bids to offer training to child welfare administrators through the Department of Health and Human Services. The project is so involved, however, and requires providing feedback to the government on its effectiveness that Mr. O'Neil is talking with other companies about teaming up to pursue the opportunity.

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Hiring and Managing EmployeesStarting a Business with a PartnerSome contracting experts say the small companies best-positioned to take advantage of the stimulus money are those that already have established relationships with government officials and have experience doing government contracting work. Walton Construction Company LLC, a Kansas City, Mo., construction firm with about 550 employees, currently gets about 60% of its revenue from public and government projects such as constructing military barracks. Chief Executive Dan Frisbee says his company has seen the number of inquiries from prospective subcontractors double to more than 300 in the past six months.

But even with his experience, Mr. Frisbee says the process isn't easy. "The government has a lot of regulations you have to be aware of," he says.

Sometimes, all the time and money spent on trying to secure a contract doesn't pay off. Shajahan Merchant, chief executive of Intellectual Capital Services Inc., a New York software-development firm with 33 employees and contractors, has submitted full-length proposals for about three state and local government contracts since last summer. He has yet to win one.

Mr. Merchant says the process sometimes requires numerous photocopies of 100-some page proposals packed with information about his firm and previous work it has done. One proposal to create a software program for a government agency took 2½ weeks by two employees to organize. Several weeks later, the company received a two-sentence letter that thanked Mr. Merchant for submitting his proposal but said that his company wasn't selected.

Mr. Merchant says he has become somewhat disillusioned with the government-contracting process, though he will continue to seek opportunities with the stimulus package and plans to attend a contracting seminar. "All the doors you have to knock on and all the government agencies is a bit mind-boggling," he says.