Bootcamp held for small business owners on how to win government contracts
LAUDERHILL - What if the people you owe money gave back chunks of it? That is the kind of change community leaders hope to score by coaching small businesses on how to win government contracts.
The City of Lauderhill hosted a small business procurement boot camp program with participation from Broward Schools, Broward County, Miami-Dade County, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Florida International University and the University of Miami among others Wednesday morning.
"If you want to grow, you have to do government (contracts)," Tandieka McDonald, founder of mikroMODE Consulting, Vice President of Brightstar Property Maintenance and co-owner of Brightstar Towing, Recovery and Roadside Assistance said.
McDonald joined an overflow crowd of small business owners inside the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center. All hoped to learn how to win bids that typically go to bigger corporations. For municipalities and institutions buying goods and services, it is a conundrum that works but leaves some wanting more.
"Small businesses quite frankly are the ones that usually spend in the local economy and we keep that dollar circulating," Melissa P. Dunn, City of Lauderhill Commissioner said. "They tend to hire local. They tend to spend the money in the community versus a larger company who may hire local as well but they're not as invested in the community."
The federal government uses half as many small business contractors as it did 14 years ago when the U.S. Small Business Administration began tracking such data, according to SBA's website.
In Broward County, public school leaders spent 10% of $4 billion worth of bids awarded between 2017 and 2022 with companies based in the county, Jasmine M. Jones, Director of Economic Development and Diversity Compliance told the crowd during a boot camp panel on purchasing power.
"You're going to learn how to do business with the government," Lauderhill Mayor Ken Thurston said.
The program aimed to level the playing field and teach people how to register with procurement offices, how to get copies of and learn from past successful bids and what type of projects certain municipalities play to put up for bid.
"Small business need to grow, you need to be able to sustain," McDonald said. "That's why its important to scale up because things happen. The government is always buying no matter what is happening around you. Let's think about (the COVID-19 pandemic) for example. It shut a lot of businesses down but the government still had to buy things from people who had supplies to offer. That was an eye opener that we definitely needed because I know of other businesses that really skyrocketed in revenue benefiting from that."
McDonald's company has 35 employees. They've scored government contracts, including winning a recent bid.
"For me the biggest satisfaction was being able to hire more people within the community (and) giving them opportunity that they need, especially minorities," she said.
With Lauderhill's median income less than $40,000 a year, commissioners require any bid less than $100,000 in targeted categories to go to a business based in and registered with the city. For any bid over $250,000, the contract must give 20% of the work to a business based in and registered with the city.
Dunn, who pushed for the rules and founded the boot camp, it is key for the bottom lines inside and around city hall.
"That is us creating opportunity," she said.
