From Air Force to Millions: How Eronica Dew Conquered Government Contracting as a Black Woman Entrepreneur

Are you struggling to win lucrative government contracts or break into male-dominated industries? Meet Eronica Dew, a black woman entrepreneur who built a multi-million dollar contracting business from scratch. In this episode, Eronica shares her journey from Air Force veteran to successful business owner, offering invaluable insights on overcoming cash flow challenges, building a brand, and winning federal contracts. Learn her methodical approach to creating winning proposals, including developing value propositions and "ghosting" the competition. Eronica also discusses the importance of cultivating relationships in business and gives advice on pricing strategies for government work. Her inspiring story of perseverance and giving back to underserved communities will motivate aspiring entrepreneurs. Whether you're looking to enter the federal contracting space or grow your existing business, Eronica's practical tips and hard-earned wisdom are sure to help you succeed.

Recommended book: "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss

Rumi.ai
All-in-one meeting tool with real-time transcription & searchable Meeting Memory™
Look Great with AI enhanced headshots
Headshots you can actually use. 16 million headshots made for over 50,000 Fortune 500 executives

Get testimonials with ease
Embed a Wall of Love on your site. No coding required. Collect and display testimonials easily.

Email Signatures Full of Brand Promise
Create Branded Email Signatures for All Employees in Few Minutes.

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 22:17 [Ad] Rumi.ai
• 23:06 (Cont.) From Air Force to Millions: How Eronica Dew Conquered Government Contracting as a Black Woman Entrepreneur

Transcript

Jim James (00:01)
If you're interested in winning large government contracts or B2B contracts, then my guest today is someone that you're going to want to listen to. She started her business in 2018, just before lockdown, but managed to build a business winning millions of dollars worth of government contracts. And she's going to share with us today how, as a black woman in Maryland, she has managed to build a multi-million dollar contracting business

serving mainly government and defense contractors.

Eronica Dew (00:37)
Thank you, I appreciate you having me on.

Jim James (00:39)
Well, it's wonderful to have you on the show because you've managed to transition from corporate to winning contracts from home without an infrastructure, without a backing. You've managed to overcome the cashflow crunch because you managed to win a contract and yet then hire the people. So we're going to talk about how you navigated the early, early days of winning a business that frankly was bigger than your company, right? And then how also as

A woman entrepreneur you've managed to build as a black woman in what I imagine is a fairly male dominated industry, you've managed to succeed. You've got one minor mistake that you share with me that you've made. We're to talk about that, but we are going to talk much more about your successes. So, Eronica tell us first of all about BES and which clients do you serve and why did you start the business?

Eronica Dew (01:38)
Yes. So I started the business in, well, I created the business in 2018. I was still in corporate America working for Lockheed Martin and Lockheed Martin decided to sell our service line to Lidos. And I made up my mind that I didn't want to go to Lidos. I was going to go home and do something else, take care of my kids because I worked in the proposal world where I worked

12, 16 hours a day just to get a proposal to the finish line for the client. I went home, I was home for about a month and I got a call from another colleague who did not move to Lidos they moved to IBM. And they said, hey, Eronica we could use you over here. We need your help as a proposal manager. Would you like to join the team?

So I joined Lockheed Martin for an additional three years and worked in their business development department as a proposal manager, helping both Lockheed and IBM win over $3 billion in federal contracts. And the only reason why I left IBM at the time was I was passed over for promotion and I was thinking to myself, that wasn't fair. So,

I said, you know, I'm just going to do the same exact thing I'm doing for IBM for myself. And I became a consultant working for large firms, medium sized firms, as well as small firms as their proposal manager. Because most companies don't want to carry that overhead cost. So they hire consultants to come and do their proposals for them when they decide to pursue a deal.

So I was consulting and this was September of 2019. I was doing well. I had done three deals for this one particular company and then COVID hit and everybody was home. And I was in the consulting work had slowed down and I said, well, I'm going to pop open my computer and see if I can bid on a deal for myself. And I did that. I went to sam.gov opened it up.

Jim James (03:41)
Yeah.

Eronica Dew (03:57)
the sam.gov looked at all the opportunities, and I narrowed my search down to Service Disabled Veteran Owned because BES is a Service Disabled Veteran Owned company. I'm a former Air Force veteran of 10 years. And so when I was, when I created the business in 2018, it took me about a year to get my business certified. And so when I jump shift,

shift and left in 2019, I leaned on that certification and I want to deal with the Department of Agriculture in the state of New York. And it was a contract with 13 full -time employees. It eventually grew to 16 employees around the state of New York supporting district conservationalists who would go out to the farms, test the soil

and also give farmers loans. So I had general clerks that I supported. I had never met them in person. I recruited my entire team virtually because it was in the height of COVID. And when I initially won the deal in 2020, I think it was September of 2020, I was like, my God, I won. But then I said, I don't have the money

Jim James (05:22)
Yeah.

Eronica Dew (05:26)
to make payroll, how am I going to do this? And then I said to myself, this should be easy. I have a $2 .9 million contract in my hand. I'm going to go to the bank, and surely they're going to give me a line of credit so that can make payroll. Well, I found out really quickly that was not the case. The banks were like, OK, your credit is good, but

Jim James (05:46)
Yeah.

Eronica Dew (05:52)
you want a line of credit of, you know, $80,000 to $100 ,000, I'm sorry, we cannot help you. We don't know who you are. You don't have a business credit score. You're a new business to the market. You have no past performance. So we don't want to take the risk. So what I had to do to make that payroll was to continue consulting for my clients. And I took that consulting money.

And I recycled that cash so that I can make payroll. And that is what I did for pretty much the last three years was building revenue or making profit and never spending the profit and just recycling the cash so that I never had a hiccup on the payroll because the government could at any day, you know, not pay an invoice. And then what would I do?

Jim James (06:25)
Well.

Eronica Dew (06:50)
Right? So I had to look for myself.

Jim James (06:50)
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, so it to some degree, well, it's amazing that you managed to pull it off, Eronica, because, as you say, almost got a fish that was too big to swallow, right? mean, and that classic challenge of over trading where you've got more business to serve than the size of your business is amazing. How did you go about then recruiting the staff? Because if we just go through the

background of that when I started my first business a long time ago now, but in Singapore, people didn't want to work for a company with someone who didn't have a track record, same as the banks. So why don't we just talk about from a recruitment point of view, how do you get people to trust Eronica Dew who's got this company best that's won a contract from home to serve the government?

Eronica Dew (07:46)
That is a very good question and I have a very good answer. So, sales. I'm a very good salesperson and then I hired my partner who was a recruiter in the Air Force for 16 years, right? And if you can recruit folks to go into the Air Force to, know, whether it's do supply, be a police officer, work with the bombs, I believe

you know, I really trusted he could hire general clerks to support USDA. So we used several tools. Our main tool was Indeed. We posted job descriptions and folks would respond to those job descriptions. But in the meantime, I was in the background building the infrastructure.

I was looking for healthcare plans. I was looking for 401k. I was looking for our payroll system. And I stood all of those systems up and it became very desirable for those who were looking to work for our company because one, although we were tiny and small, they were on a federal contract and in the federal government, they observe all holidays.

So at the time before we added Juneteenth to the list, there were 10 holidays. So it was 10 paid holidays because you were working for the federal government. That was one benefit. We pay 50% of your health care. The employee would pay the other 50%. We pay 100% of your life insurance. And then we have 401 participation and bonuses and incentives. So that is how

we got folks to say yes to our company.

Jim James (09:39)
Nice. So to some degree, you back to back the government benefits to your employees, right? So they were in effect working for a government, but maybe with some of the flexibility of working for BES. That's amazing. Obviously, you've built a company, you know, and you've gone on to win more contracts, Eronica, it's not just the one contract that you won in 2018.

Eronica Dew (09:53)
Yes.

That's correct.

Jim James (10:06)
Tell us then how have you been building the brand for BES? And that's BESsolutioninc.com is the web address, isn't it? So tell us about how you've gone about building the brand so that you can win more clients in the scale because now you've got a bigger team and a bigger organization. I'd love to hear how you've gone across the chasm to build the brand.

Eronica Dew (10:17)
Yes.

Yes. So building the brand has been a bit of a challenge, but we're getting there. I was able to eventually get that line of credit that I needed to help make the payroll. So the capital that I had, the cash on hand, was able to bring in a marketing team as well as expand my corporate staff to free me up to

start attending networking events. So I started with the county in which I lived in Prince George's County, Maryland, although my office is in Oxon Hill, which is inside of Prince George's County. I started attending networking events and making connections, getting my name out there, handing cards out. Every single card I received, I made sure I sent a message back. until this day, I follow up with those very same people that I receive cards from.

but I, I sell that I am a proposal manager. I know what winning looks like. And that has helped my marketing and the branding because now people are like, she knows how to parse a federal RFP. She knows how to build the artifacts to win a deal. She knows how to price it because I did it for Lockheed I did it for IBM. So,

in my marketing strategy and branding as a thought leader, I talk about how to procure government contracts. And it grabs the interest of not only the federal clients who I'm targeting, but it also grabs the attention of small, medium, and large companies that are considering partnering with me.

Jim James (12:19)
That's fantastic. And, Eronica it would be remiss of me not to ask you to give us some insight into what is that process that these big companies like Lockheed have that you've learned? What are some of the ingredients that maybe, you know, an entrepreneur running their own business, selling in B2B could use in their own business? I'd love for you to break that down for us.

Eronica Dew (12:45)
Yes. So what we use in the large companies, and of course I've adopted the same processes for my small company, is building a win plan. You need to think about what is your value proposition? Usually there's typically three to five value propositions that you develop before you start writing and developing your proposals. And those are things that you are going to offer

to the client to make you different from other competition. So you start with your value proposition, and then you do a SWOT analysis where you start looking at your competition's strengths and their weaknesses. You kind of know who's going to go after the work, especially when you're as large as Lockheed Martin and IBM. You have your same defense contractors that kind of go after the same work.

So you find intelligence, right? What their weaknesses are. And then when you find out what their weaknesses are, specifically if they are the incumbent on work that you're gonna compete on, you do what we call ghosting the competition. So if they're weakened something and they've heard through the grapevine that the client's not happy with A, B or C that the contractor is doing, you kind of write to that in your proposal about

how you can do it better and what you would do differently and improve and reduce the risk or save money, right? So that is also a concept that you use when you are thinking about or you're beginning to pursue a deal. Also, I believe in what they call storyboards. A lot of folks will look at an RFP and will automatically just start writing, right?

And what we have found, which is a proven process, is if you start with a storyboard, meaning you have defined the issues and concerns, the hot buttons the client has, and you have thought through your value proposition, you've thought about the risk to your company, the risk to the government, and you've developed the mitigation plan.

And then you go through college class, you know, English 101, where you develop your outline, you have your major header, and you have your bullet points of the things that you're gonna talk about. And you always go through each one of those paragraphs and you say, we're gonna talk about the who, the what, the how, the frequency, and where I've done it before. And then once you have all of those things in order,

then you will allow your writers to go in and write and fill in the blanks, right? And to tell a story and to develop a process or a methodology of how you're gonna solve the client's issue. And so that is how, you know, companies are successful in winning deeds.

Jim James (16:00)
Yeah, that sounds very methodical but also creative within and does WIN stand for something, is it an acronym?

Eronica Dew (16:09)
Win is just win. Win. Win plan.

Jim James (16:11)
it's just wind. Okay, it doesn't stand for we, we impact numbers or something like that. It doesn't have some kind of okay, perfect. Then when you talk about the the value proposition, BES, what would be your value proposition? How do you differentiate? And we talked before we started recording about, you know, being a black woman in what presumably is fairly male dominated

space.

Eronica Dew (16:41)
Yes.

Jim James (16:43)
I think we discussed it's okay for you and I to just go into that a little bit because you've overcome challenges as an entrepreneur, but also as a woman and also a black woman. So how have you done that, Eronica? Any examples of where you've managed to turn that around that would be informative and insightful for us?

Eronica Dew (16:51)
Mm

Well, value propositions are not just standard for every deal that you do. Your value propositions change with the deal that you're responding to because every client's issues are different, right? And so you have to go to the whiteboard, bringing your team and whether, you know, we're competing on IT work, construction, facilities management, program management, or

logistics, every proposition will be different because your offerings will be different. So it takes a team effort to kind of think about what is it that will make us different in this particular opportunity.

Jim James (17:53)
Okay. I will ask you about the issue of price because my experience when I ran my own agency, pitching for large clients like Nortel, example, and AT &T was we went through procurement, but then it still came down to the numbers. So how do you address that? Because certainly in Asia, it was kind of a race to the bottom often. So

Eronica Dew (18:09)
Yes.

That's a good point. And in America, we have contracts that are what we call lowest price technically acceptable, which is a race to the bottom. try, although that was one of my first contract evaluation criteria that I won was a lowest price technically acceptable. But the issue with those particular contracts is

the contractor is not making a lot of money. It's almost like you're performing work at zero costs, right? No profit. So I try to avoid those contracts now that I've learned that, you know, it's not a moneymaker and we are in the business, profit, for profit business. So we try to stay away from those. I'm not saying that I won't.

Jim James (18:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eronica Dew (19:12)
compete on those because some companies will compete if it's a strategic win, right? You want to get into an organization. So it's like, well, at least I'm in there. I can create the relationships. So I would say to entrepreneurs that are coming into the space and want to just get past performance, I believe the lowest price technically acceptable proposals are a way to go to get you in because they

They do, sometimes they won't even read the technical piece, they look at the price first. And if you're the lowest price, you're the automatic winner. And so that's advice I would give to someone who is trying to be strategic and get into the federal space.

Jim James (19:57)
Yeah, okay, so they go for it, but you've got to have the cash to cover. If there's going to be a shortfall, if it's on the margin, you've really also got to look out for the cash flow because you funded it out of a salary, didn't you, at the beginning. And if the contract is taking so much time, you can't do anything else. You can end up over trading and just end up in debt, right, which is not a great way to go.

Eronica Dew (20:13)
I did.

Yeah, so to avoid that, you definitely need to price at a minimum your direct labor, right? So when you are thinking about your pricing, I use applications like salary.com and other tools to figure out what is the labor rate for

exposition in the state of Missouri, for example, right? And you can either go with your lowest rate, your mid -rate, or your the highest rate. And so it's a statistical game that you play when you, one, you want to be good on your price, but you still want to make a profit, right? So you have to decide, you know, what am I going to pay the individual? And you definitely have to

write in your price proposal those type of costs because you don't want to work at a deficit where you don't have enough money to pay. So the government, even in a lowest price technically acceptable type of evaluation, you still would get the invoice to break even. So I would never tell anybody to take a deal where you are at a loss.

Jim James (21:37)
Yeah, so then.

Yeah, then you really are a cashflow issue. I think we used to find big companies would take those because they had spare capacity, right? So they already had the members of staff. so an extra job was better than the person hanging around doing nothing. Eronica, now you've got the business up and running, already successful. What are some of the sort of contributions that you're making in the community that helped to move?

Eronica Dew (21:44)
Yes.

Yes.

Jim James (22:10)
best from startup into, if you like, an established member of the business community.

Eronica Dew (22:18)
That's a good question. So I have joined the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. I have joined the Prince George's County Chamber of Commerce and I support the police department in Prince George's County. So BES participates in the annual back to school supply giveaway

which we absolutely love. We, right before school starts, about two weeks before school starts, the police are giving away the backpacks. BES, Best Solutions, is bringing in pencils, papers, folders, and it's such a lovely event because you get a huge turnout. I live in one of the underserved communities, so the turnout is enormous

from the Latino population or Hispanic population, excuse me, and the Black population. And it's just a joy to see the families come out and get the supplies that they need for their children for the school year. I also volunteer and do additional events. I'm a member, or excuse me, a board member of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Prince George's.

Not that I have Hispanic heritage, which I don't. However, I'm really good friends with the president of the organization. And one day we were talking business and she said, Eronica, I think you are a value add. Will you become a member of our chamber to help Latino small businesses get up and running in the country? So those are the things that I do when I'm not working.

Jim James (24:06)
Yeah. Which is amazing. I see also on your website that you do have some media relations work as well. Do you want to just tell us about your media relations outreach strategy? Because that's plainly been successful for you as well.

Eronica Dew (24:06)
to give back to my community.

Yes, so I have been featured in four articles now. This is the podcast with you, is my third podcast and I am trying to break barriers. That is my one mission, my only goal because I didn't grow up in

Jim James (24:34)
Thank you.

Eronica Dew (24:47)
corporate America with a mentor, right? I worked in a male dominated industry and there were not a lot of women that looked like me that wanted to help me progress to the next level in my career. So I've kind of scraped my knees and had to learn the hard way. It was almost going through like going through bootcamp, right? And some of the corporations that I've supported. And so,

I want to be that individual in my community to share the knowledge. And that's why I'm here today. I want to give information where others will not share to help you grow.

Jim James (25:29)
And I can see that, well, having been in the military for a decade, you're used to boot camp and plainly perseverance as well. So if there would be then some sort of a piece of advice that you would give to, let's say, a black woman who wants to start a business in any industry, what would that be? What would be one of the maybe sort of the learnings?

Eronica Dew (25:36)
Yes.

Jim James (25:57)
Eronica Dew you could share that you would you would share.

Eronica Dew (26:01)
My number one, which I wish I would have curated relationships before I left corporate America. I was former military and in the military, I left as a non -commissioned officer, which is an E6. I was an E6. I had airmen that worked for me and our leadership style is very direct. Get it done.

Right, ask questions later or don't ask questions at all, right? Because if you're asking questions, someone could die in the military. So when I went into the corporate America, that same mentality, of course, did not resonate well because I needed to work on my soft skills. And so, yeah, so it took me a while to work on my soft skills. However,

Jim James (26:47)
Yes, I can imagine.

Eronica Dew (26:57)
when I was given an assignment in my career in corporate America, you gave me my assignment. I worked my assignment throughout the day. There was no smoke breaks. There were no visiting other people's desk and there was no after hour cocktails because I'm a mother of five and I married. And so I didn't have time to socialize at work. I needed to get my job done and then go home and take care of family.

So I would say to women like me to stop, take a break at work, socialize with your colleagues, find something in common because what I've learned is if folks don't like, know, and trust you, they are hesitant to do business with you, right? They won't pick up the phone because they don't know you. And so I found when I left corporate America, although I was putting numbers on the board,

We were winning contracts. People didn't really know me as a person. so sometimes I beat myself up about it, but I'm trying to make a comeback with all of the networking that I'm doing now that my kids are young adults and they've gone off to the military themselves or to college. So I'm working my way around and creating and cultivating real, genuine relationships. So that would be my number one

advice to other businesses. Cultivate the relationships. People need to like, know, and trust you.

Jim James (28:33)
That is wonderful advice. And thank you, by the way, for allowing me to be one of the first people to have you on a podcast. I'm really flattered by that. So, Eronica, I will ask you, I mean, obviously, you're an amazingly accomplished woman. You've had a career in the military, you built a business and five children. Wow. I mean, I'm just about managing with two. So you're plainly a very efficient person as well. If there's a book or a podcast,

Eronica Dew (28:55)
you

Jim James (29:02)
that you found inspiring, what would that be?

Eronica Dew (29:07)
I'll start with a book. The book was, it's called Four Hour Workweek. And Four Hour Workweek changed my entire life and how I thought about efficiency and how I did things. I am a type A personality. I believe in the zodiacs and I am a true Capricorn. If you look it up, you might see my picture. So I'm a workaholic.

And four hour work week allowed me to loosen up a bit and learn to delegate. And that's what I wasn't doing. I was working from sun up to sun down, have dinner, come right back to my desk and continue working. So I have learned to outsource task, you know, especially if I can afford to pay someone, you know, whether it's minimum wage or $25 an hour.

I offload those administrative tasks that bog me down and keep me from one, having an interview with you or attending a networking conference. I just, for our work week, I would recommend folks to kind of read it and execute.

Jim James (30:22)
Yeah, that's great. That's the Tim Ferriss one, isn't it? Sort of a path -breaking one. okay, that, Eronica, that sounds fantastic. And if people want to get hold of you, Eronica where would they go to do that?

Eronica Dew (30:27)
Yes it is.

I have a huge presence on LinkedIn, which is my name. So if you put in LinkedIn, and, EronicaDew no spaces, you'll find me on LinkedIn. Or you can go to my website at besolutionsinc.com  And you can contact me that way. Or you can email me. And my email address is also on the website.

Jim James (31:04)
Thank you so much for coming. What a great story and very brave story as well to tackle that and to start a business. So I love your ambition and your dedication. I love the success you're having. Thank you for coming on the Entrepreneur Show with me today.

Eronica Dew (31:19)
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Jim James (31:21)
We appreciate you. so, Eronica's story is just the kind that I love to find and to share because it really has all the hallmarks of someone that has had the courage to set up on their own and the perseverance to keep going through the tough times. And then within a very short period of time is already giving back to her community and to communities that have invited her

into them because of the value that she can offer. a wonderful, wonderful story. So do encourage you, of course, as always, to share this episode with someone that you think will find it useful. I'll put Eronica's details in the show notes. And until we meet again, I just do encourage you to keep on communicating.