The Country Intelligence Report
An examination of the stories impacting the world of small business, management consulting, and federal contracting.
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The Country Intelligence Report is affiliated with the Country Intelligence Group, LTD. CountryIntel was established in 2012 by a small group of research and analysis professionals who had a unique blend of data analytics, workforce development, and Department of Defense expertise.
The Country Intelligence Report
From the Air Force to Federal Contracts: A Leader's Guide to Success
In this episode, we sit down with Jeff Sobel, a retired Air Force Colonel and seasoned program manager, to explore his remarkable journey from leading acquisition operations in the military to becoming a key player in the federal contracting space. Jeff opens up about his distinguished career in the Air Force, where he commanded at various levels, culminating as the Senior Materiel Leader at AFLCMC/EB, and how these experiences have shaped his approach to business development on the contractor side.
Our conversation delves into Jeff's current efforts with CountryIntel, where he shares key strategies for sourcing leads, identifying contracting opportunities, and the critical role of networking in building successful client relationships. Jeff also addresses the common challenges faced by small businesses in the contracting industry and offers practical advice on how to overcome them.
Looking ahead, Jeff discusses emerging trends in federal contracting, the technologies that will be essential for future business development, and how small businesses can adapt to stay competitive. For those transitioning from active duty, Jeff provides valuable insights on pursuing work that aligns with personal interests rather than rushing back into civilian or contractor roles.
Join us for an insightful discussion with Jeff Sobel as we explore the nuances of federal contracting, the importance of continuous learning, and the future of business development in this dynamic field.
- Hosted by: Terrell Cummings & Devon Florczak
- www.countryintel.com
Hello and welcome to the Country Intelligence Report. We are your hosts, Devin Florizak and Terrell Cummings.
Speaker 2:I am Terrell Cummings, your host and co-host, devin Florizak, here and today we have one of our colleagues that we work on a regular basis, former Army excuseel excuse me, no disrespect there Air Force colonel, entrepreneur, swamp business owner, magician lots of different hats that he wears in his days Mr Jeff Soule. Jeff, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:Oh, great, great Terrell, thanks for having me on today. I'm looking forward to spending this time and catching up with you and chatting.
Speaker 2:Most definitely, most definitely. Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming out and taking time to record with us today. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, I actually. It's kind of a weird and varied background. I kind of like that introduction a little bit of magic, a little bit of consulting, a whole lot of time in the Air Force, not the Army, although, I will say, back when I was entering college I had both an Air Force and an Army ROTC scholarship and where I was located at Syracuse, when I went to school, we were in the same gymnasium where the ROTC detachments were and when you walked up the stairs the Army colonel would stand over there and lean over the railing at me and say, hey, jeff, we're going rappelling today. What are you guys doing? And I'm like, well, we're going to study Air Force history in the classroom. He's like, well, we're going to go. So he's always tempting me with these really fun things while I was busy going upstairs and studying Air.
Speaker 3:Force history. But yeah, it was a good experience to get started. But now to your question. I spent 25 years in the Air Force, did kind of two different career paths for that time. The first half I did intelligence operations for about 11, 12 years and then finished up the other remaining time as a program manager for the next 12 to 13 years, wrapping up my career.
Speaker 2:Did you always, I guess, want to go to the Air Force or whatnot? I know you started at Syracuse. As far as doing that, Was that always the plan go to college and then go to Air Force?
Speaker 3:Well, it was always yeah, no, that's a great question. It was always to join the military. I actually have a letter that I wrote when I was 13 to the Marine Corps and I wrote to the Marines and said, hey, I want to be a Marine and I had a really good recruiting major. Write me back and say well, we need great young people like you, but you need to finish high school first. And I always joked no disrespect to the Marine Corps. But I told them I got a good education in high school and decided I was going to join the Air Force instead.
Speaker 3:But no, I was influenced from home because my mother and father were both enlisted in the Air Force in the 1960s, so they had met there in the Air Force. They didn't do a full career, they spent four or five years respectively. But service has always been part of my family. So I have a really great plaque on the wall that shows military members. I have men, women, officer enlisted, every service. In fact, we have a picture of one of my great great uncles who served in the Prussian army as well.
Speaker 3:So a really long history of being in the military my family. So it was something I always wanted to do and Syracuse just happened to be close by to my mom's side of the family, so I ended up heading up that direction. I liked the snow at the time, even though I live here in Florida now but it was a place to go. I had a great experience and I was only going to do the military for four years and I was going to get out and actually pursue magic and I found, honestly, that I loved what I was doing in the Air Force and loved serving my country for 25 years. So, yeah, it gave me a lot of great skills that I use now, you know, in my own private business.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you were a magician growing up then, or you. You first found the love for that when you were, when you were younger, like a high schooler or a kid, or how did that start?
Speaker 3:I did actually. Yeah, it's a. The short story is I was in Boy Scouts at the time and in Boys Life Magazine there was a article every month written by a gentleman named Bill. Severg was a magician. And so I used to learn all those little magic tricks and do them for my friends and family and started doing birthday shows.
Speaker 3:And in I don't remember what year it was mid eighties the national jamboree was going on and they invited boys life, invited anybody If they're coming to the jamboree, to come show off their skills. And I thought you'd go to the jamboree and you know, come show off their skills. And I thought you'd go to the Jamboree and you'd get some kind of boys' life magic trick. Well, instead, what they were looking for was a youth magician to actually perform the tricks from the Boys' Life magazine. And I was fortunate enough to be selected as the youth magician for the National Jamboree. And from there I met a professional magician who started me on the path of performing pretty much full-time.
Speaker 3:Back in those days schools had more money for assembly school shows. He did assembly schools, traveled around the country and that's what he did for 37 years. I was looking at doing that and he recommended that I go to college and get a degree, just in case the magic thing didn't work out. Very smart move, because assembly school money quickly dried up after that. It's very, very difficult to get assembly school shows, particularly in the smaller, more rural parts of the United States Now big cities. A few of them still have it, but it's tough to make a living that way now.
Speaker 4:So with your life after servicing the Air Force and you know we thank you for that service as well Did you sort of envision you know you said that you wanted to become, you know, potentially a magician, that sort of traveled. But did you envision you know going off into you know three or four different branches of business, including? You know the contractor sector as well and you know helping out country intel.
Speaker 3:No, actually at the time I didn't. I didn't have a real clear picture. I actually retired a couple of years earlier than planned. Unfortunately, my wife had, she had terminal breast cancer, and so I chose to retire early to be able to care for her and for my two daughters at the time. So one was in elementary school and one was in middle school, and so you know, that really kind of changed a lot for me, as you can imagine. So when she passed away, honestly it was in the spring I was busy with my kids, getting them carpools, you know. Summer rolled around, we went and visited family and grandparents and I thought, well, I'm going to be ready when they go back to school to kind of figure out what's next. And honestly, I was not prepared for that sudden life change when they went back to school, when I was there in an empty house, and so that's when it kind of dawned on me that all those plans we had for the future, all the different ideas we had talked about over the 20, 23 years of our marriage, were gone now, frankly, and I was going to have to figure out, to kind of recreate myself. So it was a couple of months process In fact, it's one of the things that I do coach people on, either when they come to a major crisis, like I did, or just kind of reinventing themselves.
Speaker 3:But I literally took some of my engineering background and wrote down all my favorite things. You know, magic included. Obviously, the experience in the military gave me lots of leadership experience as well that I really like to share and work with people. I do like to travel, I do like public speaking, and so all those things.
Speaker 3:I wrote each one of those down and then individually created just a diagram of like everything I could do if I was a leadership coach, for example. I could coach people, I could work in schools, I could go to academia and teach in classes. Coach people I could work in schools, I could go to academia and teach in classes. And I did those all discreetly and then, kind of like a Venn diagram, started overlaying them on top of each other until I could find something that allowed me to do all the stuff that I love, which is just this working with small businesses, taking the experience I have in leadership from the military, doing some magic on the side to make it fun so not everything is know, not everything is a dredge and then also allowing me to travel and work with great companies like country Intel.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely. Do you have any sort of lessons or insights from your time in the service and your time developing yourself as a leadership coach that you sort of apply to do business development with country Intel and maintaining those relationships with the air force, or you know anything that that you do in your current role with country Intel?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question and and it's one both that helped me get through those difficult times and also one that propelled me to be successful in the company and really what it comes down to and it's not going to surprise anybody when you really hear it but it comes back down to relationships. You know, as I was I don't want to say I was I wasn't majorly depressed. You know, we had been dealing with cancer for years. I knew it was coming, but I was depressed, right, I was going through mild depression. It's easy to kind of close in on yourself when you're in a difficult spot like that, and so I made it a goal of mine to go out and get coffee with somebody every week, you know. So I went first with friends and then I went through all the friends that I knew and then I started going through associates that I knew and I ran out of those and I found local people when I was walking through the grocery store and said, hey, you want to get a cup of coffee. That wasn't quite that bad, but I did.
Speaker 3:It really came down to the skills. When you asked what I took away was from the military side, it was one never give up. Two, your relationships and your contacts are incredibly important. That's what helped pull me through that darker time and it also helped me build the business and do the business development that I do with Country Intel and some of the other clients that I work with Right. So those connections that were originally just coffee connections to get myself out of the house, have opened me up to tons of different local leaders in my community, business leaders, people involved in coaching and school. Same way, I reached out across my connections through the military as well as the magic community, frankly, and as a result it created a wide network that I can then leverage and help, you know, connect people together. So it's really being a connector is what's helped me a lot.
Speaker 4:Yeah, how do you find yourself maintaining those connections? You know, post service to the Air Force, you know. Do you reach out to people on LinkedIn? You know, I personally I feel like my generation just texts a lot. You know, that's sort of how we do things, but how do you find yourself maintaining those lot? You know, that's sort of how we do things, but you know how do you find yourself maintaining those connections.
Speaker 3:You know, in a more digital world here, yeah, actually, it's all of them.
Speaker 3:One thing that I had learned in that process is not to be shy, just to reach out to people.
Speaker 3:So, you know, I do I use LinkedIn just to send messages from time to time, I do, you know, obviously I text the people that I have their numbers for and, frankly, I still write letters. Nothing beats finding a letter in your mailbox no different than Christmas time and just from a random friend, and say, hey, I've been thinking about you and it's not so much to develop, you know, just to develop business. That's not why I do it. I do it because the same reason I mentioned earlier those connections were really important to me during that time and a lot of people would reach back to me as well, and so I want to pay that back to them and reach out and see how they're doing. So it really gives me a chance to connect with them at a human level. And then, obviously, if I know that they have a talent or a business or a skill that I really think I could connect somebody with, then it's a great way to really help them grow and somebody else, like a business, grow as well.
Speaker 2:Obviously you got those connections. At what point did you decide you know you would definitely just kind of start your own company and go that route? Something else I know you previously worked as a program manager, but around the same time it looks like you had already started your business. I don't know if you kind of had 1099 to them and did it through Soulful Enterprises and then, if so, how did you decide you're going to try to build your business up? What was that process?
Speaker 3:like yeah, that's a great question. There's two parts to that. One of the things that I did when I was on active duty as I consulted with people separating, finishing up their time or retiring. The advice that I give a lot of people is particularly with the military. A lot of military people retire and then they immediately go into civil service or they go into a defense contractor role. Or they go into a defense contractor role and, while it's easy because they're familiar with that, I really challenge them to try and enjoy the freedoms that they spent 20 or 25 years defending right. Go out. If you ever wanted to be in a small band or you wanted to start your own business or, in my case, you wanted to be a magician, that is a great opportunity to go try that business out for a couple of years and then, if it doesn't work, you can always go back into defense contracting or civil service because your contacts aren't going to dry up in two or three years. But if you start a job immediately out of retiring, it'll be so comfortable and so easy that you'll basically kind of just do that until you are done retiring. Your bigger working years are over. I don't want people to miss that opportunity.
Speaker 3:I decided to follow my own advice when I separated, for obviously the first nine months or so I really just focused on my family, since my wife had just passed away. After that I did start working with a defense company. I did want to work only part-time because I needed to be there to care for my daughters. So I started in this part-time model, working defense contracting directly. At the same time I was doing my coaching business on the side. I was doing magic on the side. So I created, at least in the performing industry, multiple streams of income. So when you added those three things up the magic the consulting and working part-time for a defense company it met my ends to live and live off of. What I did find is just like I said, the defense contractor I was working for was very comfortable, great people. I loved working for them. I connected back with the mission.
Speaker 3:But ultimately they were a small company and they got bought out by a large international firm. Ultimately they were a small company and they got bought out by a large international firm. And my experience is when a small company gets bought by a large one, the large company buys them because they want that unique capability. But over time, all large organizations hate anomalies and so, even though they bought them because they want something special, they eventually try to beat them into looking just like the rest of the big company over time. And having experienced that, that's kind of the catalyst for me.
Speaker 3:When I'm like, you know, I'm doing well on the consulting coaching side, I'm doing well on the magic side, why don't I jump and start a full-time business development company under Sobel Enterprises to just start working with clients on my own and do the same thing in a small business format? And so that's kind of what really pushed me to jump was I really enjoy working with small companies. You know Country Intel is. You know I know I've talked with your president, ceo Jeff Foreman. It's one of my favorite companies to work with because the people there are so dynamic, it's fun, it's really the model of the future of working remote and yet still being able to be flexible and deliver a product to clients. So that's what I'm looking for when I coach or work with a business and pick them out as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and something that I think is unique to your business is that that network that you've cultivated over the years is sort of a value add to what you bring to the table as Sobel Enterprises and when you help all these different small businesses, I think that's very good and something that was very valuable. But as far as yourself being a small business and obviously Country Intel is a small business as well what are some more than two issues that you see that us facing and other small businesses facing within the federal contracting industry and how do we sort of combat those issues?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I, as you've probably experienced, I think the hardest part is breaking into the federal market itself. Right, you know, getting your name known, being able to, you know, get in there and elbow with the big, the big defense contractors and find a spot, you know, on the team, is really a difficult place for a lot of small businesses. Uh, but there are ways to do that. There's a couple of of ways. Um, certainly teaming with another company that's a little bit bigger. You know, a midsize company is kind of a foot in the door to show the quality and value that a small business can bring. Also, a lot of times, as you know, in the federal government there are small business quotas that they're looking for to help bring small companies along. So there are other avenues. You know, women and small businesses, 8a companies, you know, if you have a connection that way, that's a helpful way to get started companies. You know, if you have a connection that way, that's a helpful way to get started. But, same token, one of the ways that large companies like Raytheon or Boeing also get credit for their small businesses they hire a lot of small businesses. So, going to some of the bigger defense contractors or going to the bigger federal contractors in the market and going to their fairs to show how you can bring something is another way to get your foot in the door. So those are the three biggest ways. Competing on your own is, honestly, really, really tough.
Speaker 3:Having done it myself on a government contract now, having been in the government doing contracts and now being a small business and getting a government contract, which I'm on it was really difficult. It was as much as they always say. It was four months worth of paperwork. It was four months worth of negotiating back and forth. Even knowing the system like I do, it was really discouraging as a small business. But that same thing of being persistent, working through all those things is really important. And I would say one other thing to consider as a small business is the federal contracts written up in the FAR.
Speaker 3:The Federal Acquisition Regulations have a whole long laundry list of all kinds of items that you have to comply with, and that's probably the longest thing to go through is reading every single one of those, understanding every one of those. But I also found, as a small business, a lot of those didn't apply to me as a small business, and so it took extra time to negotiate the current government contract I'm on. But I actually went back through and said, hey, I am a small business Again, I'm a sole proprietor, so I don't need corporate car insurance to cover my employees driving. I have my own insurance, I don't need that. So I actually sent a long list of things that I said, hey, these don't apply back to the contracting officers. It took them a while to approve them but it was worth it because those were expenses that I did not have to pay as a small business. Again, that's another hurdle is that high cost to get involved. But push back on those things and it's definitely something you should do.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a great tip. And, yeah, as far as Booz Allen and some of the larger companies, I think something that they do a decent job at advertising is, like you mentioned, becoming a supplier. They do a decent job at advertising, like you mentioned, becoming a supplier Most of these larger contracting groups and businesses. They have a bunch of links on their site for small businesses and how to become a supplier, so I think that's good as well. And something that I found common as well was what you mentioned regarding companies teaming up with each other.
Speaker 4:I feel like that's the number one way that folks are trying to get involved with the industry right now, and I think that's what the Apex accelerators for know. If you have a certain capability and you want to branch into doing business with the federal government, you know, I think the number one thing is helping you know businesses trying to find a partner so you could be, you know, be a sub on some sort of contract. So I think that's definitely you know some good advice there as far as you know. So you have some experience, obviously, in acquisition. So for you, if you were sort of analyzing a new company that had some capabilities but didn't have any experience working with the federal government. Would you prefer some sort of unique capability that they do want to bring to working with the federal government?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. The answer is kind of twofold. First off, I would tell you that as a small company it's like hiring a teacher, right Like you know. Again, hiring somebody like myself or a business coach. Part of the reason you do that isn't because you can't figure it out yourself. You know these companies have smart people in there. But what really a consultant like myself does is help speed that process up. Just like going to a teacher at school. You know you can learn everything independent study, but a teacher just helps guide you to those things a little bit quicker. So it's certainly easier sometimes to team up with another company that has some experience. So that's a good thing. On the other hand, there's a lot of lessons to be learned when you just go it yourself. So there isn't any one path fits all. But if you have a company that you trust and is a good working partner with or you believe you could be a good working partner with, teaming up will certainly help speed that process up a little bit.
Speaker 3:That said, in the first part of my career I had a very unique opportunity when I was an intelligence officer that some companies will just write to the government and say, hey, I have this product or I have this idea that I think would be useful for the government, and it's kind of a little bit of cloak and dagger. It's kind of a fun story. I really can't give much details on it, but I was on a team that would go out and meet with these small companies and evaluate what they had to offer. And probably one of the most interesting stories it sounds like a movie, but we got a request from a company. I flew to a mid-sized city that was on a riverside. I can only tell you that I literally had a dock door. It was like door number three Go knock on the door.
Speaker 3:At a certain time Went over and knocked on the door. They checked my identification, I checked theirs. We went in a small room. It was, like I said, like a movie. You were on a dirty dock and then you stepped into this perfect clean room where they had some just amazing technology and my job was to give an evaluation back to, you know, senior leadership on.
Speaker 3:You know, did this company have something to offer? And so, in that case they did, and so that was a direct. You know, hey, just from a letter you know sent to the, a federal agency, to somebody checking them out, to, you know, working a contract. So there are ways like that. Those don't happen very often, to be honest, but again they do happen. And so I would tell you, you know, country intel or any small business out there, if they have an idea that they really think is a game changer, don't be afraid to ask the question. You know, try the direct route, try a teaming route. You know, be persistent and just do whatever you can, because at least in the defense sector obviously I can't speak to a lot of the other federal agencies, but you know it's an important mission, you know, protecting the United States and if you have something, a unique technology or methodology that you think would be useful.
Speaker 2:it's definitely worth bringing to somebody's attention, yeah for sure. And I guess one of my questions I have is you know there are probably a lot of small businesses that are out there trying to get federal contracts. How would you suggest is going to be the best way to get to a POC, you know, at a federal agency for particular projects or to find out what products are coming down the line, so you don't have to just look on SAMgov and see like okay, it's coming, it's RFI came out certain amount of time. Yes, we're interested in that. We submitted to that RFP comes. Yeah, we can have to submit your. You know your proposal and then you're just part of the group that's submitting. Like, how can you get more behind the scenes so you can kind of understand or get that relationship before, before the RP is going to drop, you know what's the best way to put yourself in good position for that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's a great, great question and it's one that I would definitely tell you. The biggest thing that comes kind of full circle to where we started is your network and the way you build your network. If you don't have a network, I would tell you there's two great ways to do that. One is to really watch for government industry days where they open up and they invite different businesses to come, they talk about what the current requirements are in their sector and the government and listen to those things and that gives you an idea of what they're looking for. But, more importantly, going to that event introduces you to who is the contracting officer, who is the program manager, who's explaining what they need or who's the commander of a particular organization and talking about their needs as an organization. That's one of the best ways to start building your network. The other thing is the National Defense Industrial Association.
Speaker 3:Ndia does have conferences. I know I've participated with Country Intel here at the annual weapons air armament symposium and the value. There is obviously always value to listening to the presentations and the briefings, but the biggest value is in those break sessions when everybody runs out to grab their cookie and coffee and start and get to know those people, because those are the folks that are going to give you not necessarily any inside track, because they can't do that legally, but they can give you a heads up that, hey, we've got a new project that's coming out. We really want you to bid so you're not just watching, like you described SAMgov, and then scrambling to try and figure out what they're really talking about. So those conferences, those government industry days, sometimes seem like a waste of money because you're just going there and you stand around and you drink coffee and you come away with a bunch of PowerPoint slides and some swag, but they really are incredibly important for the networking opportunity that they provide.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and as far as you know, the individual communication aspect with potential POCs, how would you recommend, you know, getting in contact with those folks you know? I mean, maybe even a good idea would just be to writing a letter to their office, you know, as you might have, you know, suggested from before, you know that might be a good way to stick out.
Speaker 3:But you know? What do you think? Yeah, it's all those things, and that's where that persistence comes through. From some of the business development courses that I've been in and coached with and if you look at any business that's out there, they'll tell you that it usually takes seven to 10 points of contact before they'll actually follow up. So, being persistent writing a letter, writing an email, writing an email again and asking if they reached out to you, obviously even sending a note if you can go in person, even better.
Speaker 3:But all those avenues of trying to connect with someone are truly critical. And again it gets back to that being persistent. Go back, write those letters and one quick callback to the magic side. We have a person who literally wrote 12 different letters, one a week, with different flashy things to catch someone's attention, and eventually, after the ninth letter, I don't know if the person was just frustrated or they finally piqued their interest, but they're like, okay, let me talk to this guy and they found out it was a great fit, and so that would be my recommendation Use all those avenues, write email, drop in and then be persistent at it. And it's going to take, like I said, seven to ten times, but a persistent company with a great idea is going to get there, yeah and to quote the great Woody Allen, I think he said 80% of success is just showing up.
Speaker 4:So that's some good advice there, Absolutely, yeah. Well, we appreciate you jumping on and joining us here today on the podcast. Thanks everyone for listening and thank you, Jeff. We're your hosts, Devin Florizek and Joe Cummings, and appreciate y'all for listening out here.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Appreciate being here, thanks.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Country Intelligence Report. Please like and subscribe to stay up with the latest developments to the show. For more information about the Country Intelligence Group, please visit our website at wwwcountryintelcom. We can also be found on multiple social media platforms with the username at Country Intel.
