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TargetGov April 2012 Volume II Newsletter

TargetGov Announces New Webinar Topic: Using Press Releases and Public Relations to Build Government Business

Low Cost and Highly Effective Tactic Added to 2012 National Webinar Series

TargetGov announced today the addition of “Using Press Releases and Public Relations to Build Government Business” to the exclusive TargetGov Government Contracting Webinar series.  The topic was created to enhance brand building and sales efforts within the government contracting market.  The Webinar will focus on utilizing public relations strategies and tactics to spread appropriate targeted corporate messages within the federal government market.  The new webinar is scheduled for April 23, 2012 and is available nationwide.

TargetGov’s April 23, 2012 webinar Using Press Releases and Public Relations to Build Government Business covers the development and use of very low cost public relations strategies to gain more business in the $500 billion federal contracting market.  Using Press Releases and Public Relations to Build Government Business will provide all attendees with exclusive comprehensive knowledge regarding creating a press release, press release distribution, cultivating media opportunities, and using social media outlets specifically related to government contracting.  

The April 23, 2012 national webinar will start at simultaneously at 10am PT, 11am MT, noon CT and 1pm ET and is hosted by Gloria Larkin, president of TargetGov and a nationally recognized business and marketing expert.  Larkin said “The federal government is the world’s fortune one customer-spending more than any other single entity in the world.  The information contained in Using Press Releases and Public Relations to Build Government Business will give actionable processes to use a little-understood method to effectively reach out to decision-makers. ”

For more information and to register please visit: http://www.targetgov.com.

Gloria Larkin, National Marketing and Business Expert, is President of Marketing Outsource Associates, Inc. (MOA) and its division, TargetGov.  The TargetGov division focuses on government procurement and related business development and marketing services including strategic business development plans for civilian and executive agencies and the Department of Defense, tactical execution of the plans, federal marketing and sales training, contract development, proposal management, contract administration and expert federal contracting services.  Larkin has been interviewed on MSNBC, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Inc.com and TheStreet.com and is the author of two books: “The Basic Guide To the U.S. Federal Government” (book & Kindle) and “The Veterans Business Guide: How to Build a Successful Government Contracting Business” now in the fourth printing (book & Kindle).

Gloria Larkin to be Honored With 2012 Top 100 Minority Business Enterprise Award

Columbia, MD April 12, 2012 –  TargetGov announces today that Gloria Larkin, President of TargetGov at Marketing Outsource Associates, Inc. has been honored by The Center for Business Inclusion and Diversity (CBID) as one of the Top 100 Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) award winners.  The award ceremony will be held on May 4, 2012 at 5:00pm in Adelphi, Maryland at the University of Maryland University College campus.

The prestigious Top 100 MBE awards recognize enterprising women and minority entrepreneurs who make significant contributions to local and national economies.  Winners are selected based on their contributions to clients, professions, industries, and communities.

Mrs. Larkin was selected from hundreds of nominees due to her outstanding work as President of TargetGov, and tireless involvement on behalf of women as a board member of Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP).  “It’s an honor to be considered let alone be selected” states Mrs. Larkin, now a three time recipient of this prominent award.  Barbara Kassoff, President and CEO of WIPP states “There is no doubt in my mind that Gloria will continue to be a leader and catalyst for change to the economic landscape in America.”

Gloria Larkin, National Marketing and Business Development Expert, is President of Marketing Outsource Associates, Inc. (MOA) and its division, TargetGov. The TargetGov division focuses on government procurement and related business development and marketing services including minority certification services, contract development, proposal management, contract administration and expert federal contracting services. Larkin has been interviewed on MSNBC, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Inc.com and TheStreet.com and is the author of two books: “The Basic Guide To the U.S. Federal Government” (book & Kindle) and “The Veterans Business Guide: How to Build a Successful Government Contracting Business” now in the fourth printing (book & Kindle).  For more information go to www.targetgov.com, or call 410-772-3914.

Should the Small Business Administration Be Abolished?

 

We hear a lot about the vital role of small business in the U.S. Especially in election years.
But that raises the question: How vital is the role of the federal government in promoting the role of small business in America? And specifically, how vital is the Small Business Administration in that promotion?

 

 The Wall Street Journal

 

The SBA's supporters argue that it plays a crucial role, guaranteeing billions of dollars in loans for small businesses each year and providing an army of counselors and information resources for those who need help. It particularly focuses on those who, some say, have been failed by conventional lenders.
But the SBA's critics say that the agency's loans do more harm than good. The loans go to only a tiny fraction of the small businesses in the country, for example, and help the recipients compete with small businesses that aren't similarly subsidized. Thus, instead of playing a crucial role in the U.S. economy, the critics say, the agency really is directing resources where the market has determined they aren't needed.

Yes: It Is a Waste of Money

By Veronique de Rugy
Congress created the Small Business Administration in 1953 to fix a specific problem: Lenders allegedly were turning away large numbers of small businesses that, if given a loan, would generate untapped economic growth.
It is questionable whether this problem ever existed. However, there is plenty of evidence that today the SBA hurts more small businesses than it helps, wastes taxpayer money and distorts economic activity.

Stephen Gosling

Veronique de Rugy: The SBA 'wastes taxpayer money and distorts economic activity.'

The SBA's main activity is to provide government-backed loans to qualifying small businesses. In fiscal 2011, the agency requested $1.5 billion in discretionary outlays. However, total outlays, which include projected payouts for defaults, were $6.2 billion. In the past, requested outlays were closer to $1 billion. Also, the gap between that request and actual outlays used to be much smaller, but the agency has suffered increased losses in recent years on its guarantees. How this trend will evolve depends on the economy and whether default rates on SBA loans continue to increase. Currently, outstanding loans guaranteed by the SBA—and federal taxpayers—total about $92.9 billion.
Negligible Benefits
For all that real and potential cost, the SBA's effect on economic growth is negligible at best. The problem is that SBA loan guarantees go primarily to businesses that have been rejected by conventional lenders, businesses judged by private investors as unlikely to create jobs, marketable innovations or new economic productivity. The SBA wrongly assumes that every high-risk borrower has the potential to succeed.

Journal Community

One might argue that such risks are justified, because the SBA is an important source of small-business lending. However, the loans it guarantees benefit a relatively tiny number of firms. According to the Government Accountability Office, the SBA flagship loan program accounts for only a little more than 1% of total small-business loans outstanding. So, for the most part, SBA loans help a fraction of small businesses compete with unsubsidized small firms.
The agency does indeed run other programs, typically with results as unimpressive as its loan activities. There have been instances of poor oversight, for example, of its preference programs intended to carve out a percentage of federal contracts for small and disadvantaged businesses. The SBA also offers some training, technical assistance and "know-how" courses, but this should not be the role of the federal government, and it isn't needed. The private sector is already providing such services through private associations like the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
The SBA loan program is best understood as a subsidy to banks. Borrowers apply to an SBA-certified bank. The SBA guarantees 75% to 85% of the value of loans made in the flagship program. The banks then boost their earnings by selling the risk-free portion of the loans on a secondary market. Ironically, it's also the biggest banks that do the most business through the SBA.
The SBA and its proponents constantly talk about how the types of firms they serve are vital to job creation. But the latest research argues it's younger businesses, not small ones, that drive employment growth. The data show that real job creation doesn't kick in until the new/small businesses survive and grow into larger operations.
SBA proponents dismiss the research, saying young and small businesses are one and the same. It is true that most new, or young, firms start out small. But the ones that end up creating huge numbers of jobs don't remain small for long.
Take your corner pizza restaurant. In 20 years, it may still employ only a dozen people. It won't be young anymore, but it will still be small and it will never be a source of job creation like the SBA touts as part of its mission.
Seen and Unseen
More than 150 years ago, French economist Frederic Bastiat noted that many economic fallacies persist because the beneficiaries of government actions are easily visible, while the victims are harder to identify. The SBA is a classic example. Small-business owners who get subsidized loans feel good (so do the banks that profit from the loans), but we can't identify how that capital would have been used absent government intervention. We can count the jobs created at the subsidized businesses, but we don't know how many more jobs might have been created if market forces determined the allocation of capital.
That's the economic analysis. The political analysis is that politicians have successfully sold the SBA as a program to help small business—a widely held belief that's almost as sacrosanct as baseball, motherhood and apple pie. In reality, the SBA is a form of corporate welfare, and America's biggest banks are the only clear winners, leaving taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars.
Ms. de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

No: Its Role Is a Crucial One

By Barbara Kasoff
Small businesses created two of out three net new jobs in the U.S. from 1993 to 2009. About half of the people who work in this country are employed by a small business.

Women Impacting Public Policy

Barbara Kasoff: 'Now is not the time to eliminate' such a vital resource for small companies.

With unemployment still over 8%, now is not the time to eliminate one of the most important resources available to America's job creators.
The power of the SBA isn't just measured by the number of loans it makes. The Small Business Administration helps keep capital, contracts and know-how flowing to small businesses. In fiscal 2011, the agency guaranteed $30.5 billion in loans to about 61,000 companies, helped small businesses win nearly $100 billion in government contracts and mentored one million entrepreneurs through its network of business counselors, such as the 13,000 volunteers of Score, a nonprofit association of business counselors.
Through its Small Business Development Centers, Women Business Development Centers, and similar facilities that help minorities, women, veterans and other business owners, companies of fewer than 500 employees can learn about marketing and forecasting, and how to navigate the federal contract system. Some 14,000 counselors and trainers, including Score volunteers, help entrepreneurs get started and help established owners take their companies to the next level. The training resources are mostly free and are delivered in person or through a variety of media.
Aiming for Success
Such training gives these businesses the greatest possible opportunity to succeed. The SBA further collaborates with many private nongovernmental organizations to offer additional training, resources and technical assistance.
Even if the number of loans made by the SBA is relatively small, the aid goes to some of the most important, and most in need, sectors of our economy. In a 2009 study, the Urban Institute found women and minorities were three to five times as likely to get a loan through the SBA as they were through conventional lending.
I spoke recently with a woman in Tennessee who, after failing to get bank loans to launch a small manufacturing company, obtained an SBA loan within 45 days. Now, a year and a half later, she is preparing to meet with SBA counselors to expand her business and begin exporting her goods. She has two employees and several contractors, and is looking to hire.
Women and minority business owners play a substantial role in our economy already, but could contribute so much more. Get rid of the SBA, and they will contribute so much less.
The argument that SBA loans are given to applicants with poor plans and prospects, as judged by the market, misses a key point: The market too often is misjudging the viability of many of these businesses. Research shows women start their businesses with less capital than men, and there's a widespread perception that it is harder for women- and minority-owned businesses to get loans from financial institutions than it is for similarly qualified white men to get loans.
This isn't because women-owned businesses are less likely to succeed; it's because the market mistakenly perceives they are less likely to succeed.
Critical Advocate
The SBA is an advocate for small businesses with lenders at all times, but its role is especially important during economic downturns, when the squeeze on commercial credit can disproportionately affect small businesses. The SBA played a key role in arguing for policies to force the nation's biggest banks to resume lending to small businesses after the financial crisis hit in 2008.
The agency also worked closely with community banks to encourage more lending during the recession, and recently worked with 13 of the largest banks in the U.S. to increase their commitments by $20 billion over the next three years.
President Barack Obama recently elevated the SBA to a cabinet-level agency. Making SBA Administrator Karen Mills a cabinet member gives small business a seat at the government decision-making table like never before.
Those who wish to abolish the SBA cite research that makes the puzzling assertion that it is young businesses, not small, that drive job creation today. I doubt that any small business will understand this argument. Small and young businesses are one and the same. Small businesses employ about one-half of U.S. workers. Of 120.6 million nonfarm private-sector workers in 2007, small firms employed 59.9 million and large companies 60.7 million. About half of small-business employment is in second-stage companies (10 to 99 employees), and half is in firms 15 years old or older.
For our economy to grow and to become competitive again, we must increase our investment in our people and our resources.
Ms. Kasoff is president and chief executive of Women Impacting Public Policy, a public-policy organization based in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

TargetGov Announces the Addition of Paul Murphy, Bloomberg Government Senior Data Analyst to January Teleconference Lineup

Bloomberg Government, Senior Analyst, Analyzes Historic Changes Facing the Federal Contracting Market in 2012

TargetGov announced today the addition of a new speaker to the national teleconference scheduled for January 23, 2012 (The NEW Normal: What to Expect in 2012). Mr. Paul Murphy is a Senior Data Analyst at Bloomberg Government.  Mr. Murphy has been analyzing federal contracting for over 30 years, and is the founder of Eagle Eye Publisher. Due to Mr. Murphy’s early efforts Bloomberg Government now has the most extensive federal contract spending data base. Paul Murphy will be joining Gloria Larkin, Michael Hackmer, Mark “Hawk” Thomas, and Art Jacoby in addressing critical changes in the federal contracting environment and how these changes affect businesses located throughout the United States.

TargetGov’s January 23, 2012 teleconference The NEW Normal: What to Expect in 2012 will deal with the upcoming government implemented changes that are set to occur in 2012, and how they will affect your business. This will help all attendees become proactive when dealing with the government implemented changes. The Teleconference will start at 1pm EST and be hosted by Gloria Larkin president of TargetGov and a nationally recognized business and marketing expert.

TargetGov’s January 23, 2012 teleconference The NEW Normal: What to Expect in 2012 will deal with key legal, budgetary and teaming issues affecting large and small businesses involved in the $500 billion federal contracting market. This exclusive information will help all attendees to plan internal changes, reduce transition time and see beneficial results. The Teleconference will start at 10am PT, 11am MT, noon CT and 1pm ET and be hosted by Gloria Larkin, president of TargetGov and a nationally recognized business and marketing expert. Larkin said “The federal government is the world’s fortune one customer-spending more than any other single entity in the world. These expert speakers will give us actionable information on which to build effective business strategies. And The NEW Normal: What to Expect in 2012 is an exciting topic with which to kick off TargetGov’s 2012 monthly teleconference series.”

Gloria Larkin, National Marketing and Business Expert, is President of Marketing Outsource Associates, Inc. (MOA) and its division, TargetGov. The TargetGov division focuses on government procurement and related business development and marketing services including minority certification services, contract development, proposal management, contract administration and expert federal contracting services Larkin has been interviewed on MSNBC, quoted in the Wall Street Journal and TheStreet.com and is the author of two books: “The Basic Guide To the U.S. Federal Government” (book & Kindle) and “The Veterans Business Guide: How to Build a Successful Government Contracting Business” now in the fourth printing (book & Kindle)

TargetGov Announces Two New Speakers For the

January 23, 2012 Teleconference: The NEW Normal: What to Expect in 2012

Dramatic Changes Affect Federal Contracting Market in-2012

TargetGov announced today the addition of two new speakers to the national teleconference scheduled on January 23, 2012 (The NEW Normal: What to Expect in 2012). Mr. Michael Hackmer, Senior Community Manager, GovWin and Mr. Mark R. “Hawk” Thomas, Managing Counsel, Reid Law PC, Government Contracts Expert are confirmed as speakers and each will address critical changes in the federal contracting environment affecting businesses located throughout the United States.

TargetGov’s January 23, 2012 teleconference The NEW Normal: What to Expect in 2012 will deal with key legal, budgetary and teaming issues affecting large and small businesses involved in the $500 billion federal contracting market. This exclusive information will help all attendees to plan internal changes, reduce transition time and see beneficial results. The Teleconference will start at 10am PT, 11am MT, noon CT and 1pm ET and be hosted by Gloria Larkin, president of TargetGov and a nationally recognized business and marketing expert. Larkin said “The federal government is the world’s fortune one customer-spending more than any other single entity in the world. These expert speakers will give us actionable information on which to build effective business strategies. And The NEW Normal: What to Expect in 2012 is an exciting topic with which to kick off TargetGov’s 2012 monthly teleconference series.”

The TargetGov teleconference format allows both the speakers and contractors to attend directly from their own phone - at their desk, in their office or while they are on the road. Each teleconference is an information-packed hour with in-person interviews and solid advice on effective business development, business and legal issues, and contracting tactics and strategies. Along with the information disseminated at the teleconference itself, exclusive TargetGov Toolkit e-books with extensive handouts give the attendees the information they will need to put the information into action. For more information go to www.targetgov.com, or call toll-free 866-579-1346.

Gloria Larkin, National Marketing and Business Expert, is President of Marketing Outsource Associates, Inc. (MOA) and its division, TargetGov. The TargetGov division focuses on government procurement and related business development and marketing services including minority certification services, contract development, proposal management, contract administration and expert federal contracting services Larkin has been interviewed on MSNBC, quoted in the Wall Street Journal and TheStreet.com and is the author of two books: “The Basic Guide To the U.S. Federal Government” (book & Kindle) and “The Veterans Business Guide: How to Build a Successful Government Contracting Business” now in the fourth printing (book & Kindle)