By Debbie Gregory.

McLean, Virginia-based government technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton has won a $1 billion contract for up to six years to provide a suite of cybersecurity services to six federal agencies, the defense and cybersecurity contractor has announced.

Cybersecurity services will be provided to the General Services Administration, the Health and Human Services Department, NASA, the Social Security Administration, the Treasury Department and the U.S. Postal Service. With one base year and five one-year options, Booz Allen will help the federal agencies address cybersecurity gaps and help fortify the security of networks, systems and data.

The work will be part of the federal government’s largest cybersecurity initiative known as Dynamic and Evolving Federal Enterprise Network Defense and its Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program (CDM), which Booz Allen has supported for the past five years. Booz Allen also won a multi-million dollar contract in May for seven other agencies under the CDM project, which covers the Executive Office of the President and the Office of Personnel Management, as well as the departments of Energy, Veterans Affairs, Interior, Transportation, and Agriculture.

Booz Allen’s CDM program secures nearly 80 percent of the “.gov” enterprise, including 4.1 million network addressable devices, 1.75 million users, 19,700 sites and 89 individual federal organizations.

“Cyberdefense has become a race. And success means faster decisions and faster actions,” said Rob Allegar, Booz Allen vice president and lead for the CDM work. “We design Booz Allen’s CDM solutions to help agency leaders understand their attack surface, detect evolving threats, make informed risk-based decision, and act quickly.”

Founded in 1914 by a young college graduate in psychology named Edwin G. Booz, the company laid its foundation using new approaches to management that emphasized people, not products, were the key to unlocking an organization’s full potential.

Booz Allen shares (NYSE: BAH) climbed on news of the contract. Its stock has gained more than 50 percent in the past 12 months.

By Debbie Gregory.

The dog days of summer can often be a slower time for small businesses, unless you’re in a travel-related or back-to-school related business. Not every small business has an audience that can use its products and services year-round. But slow times are a great opportunity to catch up and revisit your long-term marketing goals or revive some unfinished marketing projects.

The slow season is also a good time to take a look at the big picture of your marketing and sales process, and make corrections and improvements. Evaluate what part of your business you think needs the most work and allocate a majority of your time to enhancing it.

Here are a few proven strategies that can be done during slow times that will serve you well year round:

• Review your website and purge outdated information and broken links.
• Make sure your website has plenty of calls-to-action (CTAs) for people to stay in touch with you by subscribing to an email list or a blog. If you haven’t hopped on the blogging bandwagon for your business’s marketing, don’t worry, it’s never too late to get started.
• Make sure your contact information is up-to-date.
• Make sure your marketing materials both print and digital, are not only up-to date, but also consistent.
• Keep an eye on your analytics to fine-tune your online marketing, landing pages, and calls to action.
• If you have good customer relationships in place, the slow season is also a good time to follow up with your existing customers to see how they’re doing and ask for referrals, remembering to reward them accordingly.
• Tell customer stories and get testimonials that are detailed and personal, and use the person’s full name if possible.
• Create compelling content that will speak to your target audience.
• Stay in touch via your website, email and social media.

By Debbie Gregory.

When considering small business marketing ideas, the first thing you should think about is your audience. Who are they? What do they do? How can you help them do it better? Having adequate knowledge of your target audience helps make your marketing more effective and cost-efficient.

Establishing a buyer/user “persona” is vital to understanding your current customers and identifying potential future customers. This information allows you to produce what you need to meet the specific needs of your audience, be it products, services or content. Clickbait and countless sales pitches aren’t the way to gain trust from your network. Instead, make it your goal to reach your audience on a more personal level. Show them you understand them and care about their wants and needs.

To develop a good idea of who your customers/users are, you need to conduct market research. The best place to start is with your existing customers/users, and can be garnered from surveys, questionnaires and interviews. If you’re sending these requests out by email, make sure your emails are coming from a recognizable sender name, make sure the subject line tells the reader what’s in the email, and make sure the content is visually appealing with a clear call to action.

You can also utilize social media and in-person interviews. Offering a coupon or discount for their participation is a good incentive.

Be sure to analyze the data you collect to understand your ideal customer/user so that you’re in a better position to target your advertising campaigns effectively.

Additionally, use your website analytics to see where your visitors come from, the keywords they are using to find you, and what they’re doing on the site. This will give you further insights into your buyer/user persona.

Knowing your customer/user persona enables you to communicate with them more effectively, which should help you to grow your customer/user base, which in turn will grow your business.

By Debbie Gregory.

Retired U.S. Navy captain David Haas is the latest former or current Navy official to be caught up in the “Fat Leonard” scandal, a corruption scandal and ongoing investigation within the United States Navy involving ship support contractor Glenn Defense Marine Asia, run by Leonard Glenn Francis.

Francis, known as “Fat Leonard” due to his six foot three inch, 350 pound frame, has admitted to bribing Navy officials with more than $500,000 in cash, prostitutes and more.  He used bribery to get classified information that helped his Singapore-based company retain lucrative contracts to resupply Navy vessels in the Pacific. Francis confessed to swindling the Navy out of $35 million and bribing scores of officers.

Haas has been indicted on federal charges of receiving at least $145,000 in bribes to steer ships to ports controlled by Francis’ company and otherwise advance Francis’ interests

Also charged this month were Master Chief Petty Officer Ricarte Icmat David  and Chief Petty Officer Brooks Alonzo Parks, both retired. David is awaiting possible extradition from the Philippines and Parks is awaiting possible extradition from Italy.

Haas is currently a Federal Emergency Management Agency coordinating officer in Hawaii, but FEMA representatives have declined to make any comment.

Dozens of former Navy officers and others have been charged in the scandal that the Justice Department called a betrayal of “epic proportions.”

So far, 32 defendants have been charged and 20 have pleaded guilty in the U.S. Navy bribery and fraud scandal.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark W. Pletcher and Patrick Hovakimian of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California.

In February 2018, through Admiral Bill Moran, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, the Navy announced the implementation of increased oversight and other measures and policies to deter a repeat of  widespread corruption such as in the Fat Leonard case.

By Debbie Gregory.

Dr. Bruce Jette, the Assistant Army Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, is trying to get the word out to small tech firms to come to use the Army’s labs.

The Army is joining forces with industry to achieve land power dominance through science and technology.

Dr. Jette stated “Innovation is an important part of the Army’s strategy to provide the right capability to the Soldier at the right time. The Army makes use of innovations from industry and other partners whenever possible, and we encourage industry to bring innovative technologies and solutions forward to explore the full ideation space and the art of the possible.”

He went on to say “With approximately 23 million companies in the United States, the Army only does business with about 5,000 of them. Having recently come from industry and knowing the challenges associated with entering ‘the process’ of defense acquisition, I submit that the Army must engage proactively and aggressively with all innovators to see what new ideas, concepts, systems and subsystem components they can demonstrate”.

Jette said cooperative research and development agreements that were brought up about two years ago can provide companies access to government equipment.

“Private sector innovation, especially from nontraditional sources, is critical to the Army’s future. I have embarked on a new strategy for soliciting innovative, paradigm-breaking technologies from the startup and nontraditional community to support the Army’s modernization priorities. The first engagement within the new innovation strategy began in June 2018 with the launch of the Expeditionary Technology Search (xTechSearch). It serves as a catalyst for the Army to engage with the nontraditional business sector, driving American innovation to meet Army challenges and spurring economic growth”.

The Army’s lab system has extraordinary equipment, as well as mentors to help small tech firms.   They also have test facilities that are available.

Jette emphasized that the Army is looking for ways to make it easier for technology startups to travel to its labs.

To get these messages to small firms, Jette said the Army is looking beyond the Federal Business Opportunities contracting website.

“FedBizOpps is OK. We have to put everything on FedBizOpps, but I’m also looking for: What do you read? Where do you get your info? Where can I get in front of you my ideas, my needs, my desires for your help [with] things,” he said. “We’re looking at an overall public affairs strategy with respect to how we communicate with the larger innovation audience.”

But Jette warned that face-to-face meetings do not guarantee you a deal.

“A conversation is not a contract. Do not assume that somehow you got a sale because you had a conversation with someone and they thought your stuff was cool,” he said. “As long as we keep that kind of open dialog, we’ll be fine.”

Should you get an opportunity to pitch your product to the Army, Jette said, the best way to distinguish yourself is to show why your innovation is different from other technologies out there.

VAMBOA, the Veterans and Military Business Owners Association with over 7,200 members nationwide encourages those members that have small technical firms to take advantage of this incredible opportunity.