Are you ready for change? Here is how it starts for us. The dollars awarded to American small businesses in U.S. federal contracting are disproportionate to the contributions we make to the U.S. Economy.

Based on information published by the Office of Advocacy at the U.S. Small Business Administration (March 2023), small businesses account for:

• nearly all companies in the U.S. (99.9%)

• 99.7% of all firms with paid employees

• Nearly half of all private sector employees (46.4%), and

• 43.5% of our Nation’s Gross Domestic Product – the monetary value of goods and services produced, and ultimately purchased.

Given all of these very significant contributions to the U.S. and world economy, why does our small business community willingly accept a pittance of the dollars in play in federal contracting? Think about it. In 2022, the US GDP was reported at $25.46 trillion dollars. Recent reports indicate American small businesses account for $11.17 trillion of national production. Compare that to $164 billion in contracts awarded to small business in FY 2022 of $700 billion in total dollars awarded. Then understand how much smaller $164 billion gets when you discount the tens of billions won by small business not set-aside or sole sourced to small business, and the nearly ten billion more not even the result of prime contracts (see Department of Energy M&O dollars in the SBA Scorecard report). I’ll talk about the double and triple counting of small business dollars another time.

While White House administrations and Congress distract us with shiny objects like “Increasing access to billions of dollars in federal contracts for small businesses” I and my team are committed to helping companies and their people develop a more informed reality in support of their goals, and agency missions. This is not about set-asides or contract ceiling amounts, but real dollars invoiced by, and paid to our small businesses.

American small business makes a substantive impact on the world’s biggest economy, but is limited from doing the same with the world’s largest customer because of mental and policy-based handcuffs.

Let’s dispense with the unhealthy soundtracks in our heads, and rewrite our scripts to achieve outcomes that win for us, win for the Government, and win for our communities across this great nation.

Let’s do this.

Peace, Health, and No More 23% Distraction,

Go-To-Guy Timberlake

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