I get pretty pissed when I hear stories of how my city or state government spent thousands of dollars on out-of-state consultants, when there are outstanding companies right here in Indiana.
For example, the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana spent $72,000 on a social media consultant from Chicago, when one of Indiana’s best social media consulting firms is less than 10 minutes from the city building. Talk about job creation: in Fort Wayne, that could have easily created 1 – 2 jobs for young social media marketing professionals. Instead, the money was sent four hours, one state, and one time zone away.
I was listening to an episode of Douglas Karr’s Marketing Tech Radio show on Blog Talk Radio, where he and his guests were discussing how local and state governments, and even large companies, ignore home-grown talent in favor of out-of-state consultants. Sending our tax dollars out of state hurts our local economy because those contracts could mean new job creation, which means more tax revenue, and so on.
So why aren’t governments and larger companies hiring local companies to do the work?
Is it the elitism that says hometown talent isn’t that talented? Is it the hometown curse? Is it that the government decision makers are looking to flex a little muscle and feel more powerful?
Or is it the local companies’ fault?
Not to disparage my fellow small business owners, but sometimes if we’re not being hired by our local companies and governments, that’s our own damn fault.
It’s our fault because they didn’t know we even existed. It’s our fault because we never talked to our local governments and big companies. It’s our fault because in all of our networking and back-slapping, we didn’t realize we were networking with other small businesses, and not the real decision makers in the government or the corporations.
That’s not to say the big organizations are absolved of all blame. I mean, a simple Google search that includes your city or state will show you whether there’s a local company that can do the work. If you want a web design company for your Evansville business, Google “web design Evansville” and you’ll find bushels of them.
(And shame on any company or government body that doesn’t actively seek out local companies to do the work for them. Don’t make up some lame excuse about how you wanted a web designer that has government web design experience, or needed a marketing agency that specializes in statewide tourism, not local tourism. The truth is, you couldn’t be bothered to look.)
But while we can point fingers at government and corporations, and blame them for being lazy and unmotivated, the local companies need to share in the blame.
If a particular government agency doesn’t know you exist, did you even tell them about you? Did you meet with the decision makers in a particular agency? Have you added them to your e-newsletter list? Do you invite them to your industry events? And, most importantly, did you respond to the agency’s RFP? If you never filled one out, then of course they’re not going to hire you. As mind-numbing and aggravating as these rules are, they do exist, and you can’t fight them.
I spent most of the day at the Minority and Women’s Business Enterprise Central Indiana Resource Fair. It’s a day-long series of workshops to encourage small minority-owned and women-owned businesses to apply for government contracts. Apparently there is something like $3 BILLION in government contracts in the state of Indiana alone. And in some cases, the contracts go unfulfilled because no one applies for them. So the state has taken the initiative to ask these MWBEs to please PLEASE PLEASE apply for these contracts.
Applying for an RFP is not rocket science. It’s not that hard. Truthfully, it’s mostly bureaucratic busy work. Having served on a couple RFP committees when I was at the State Health Department, I can tell you that they’re tedious and boring, and a 20 page proposal is usually 18 pages too long. But, the contracts get awarded to the companies that suck it up, deal with the tedium, and submit the proposal.
There are government websites and email newsletters that tell you when RFPs are available. All you have to do is register and fill them out. Don’t wait until the winning bid has been announced before you whine about the out-of-state company getting the contract. They filled out the RFP, and you didn’t.
There are real people who work at these large companies and government agencies. They have phones and email addressess. All you have to do is call them and meet with them to tell them what you do. Don’t wait for RFP opportunities to come up, do it beforehand.
Look, if state and local government want to stimulate the local economy, they would do well to leave the building once in a while, and point their web browsers to something other than their own websites, but they sometimes can’t. I worked in state government for a year-and-a-half, and while it was never said outright, we were discouraged from associating with people from the private sector. The same is true with a lot of corporations. If it wasn’t invented there, they think, it must suck.
Government and corporations need to get over themselves and actually learn about their business communities and see what resources are available within a 20 minute drive of their office, rather than sending our tax dollars to high-dollar consultants.
But if local businesses want to get those government and corporate contracts, we would do well to skip the same old networking events and actually call up people from our government and big companies, and invite them to lunch. Attend their events, or better yet, invite them to our events. Let them get to know the local landscape, and be the one to help them navigate it. (Trust me, they’ll remember you if you help them out.)
In the end, both parties bear equal responsibility for this problem, and need to contribute equally to its solution. But someone needs to go first. Will it be you? Or will you just wait to see if your phone starts magically ringing?
Photo credit: Fotofisken
Years ago I was a government sales rep for one of the largest computer resellers in the country. I learned quickly to avoid spending much time on local government because you would pursue a deal for six months only to find it go to the Mayor’s out of town buddy or to find out that the contract will not be let because the budget was spent three days before the RFP due date. I concentrated on the State of Indiana because IDOA had a defined bidding process, and clear rules, and generally the best bid (not necessarily the lowest) would win. From what Scott and Kevin are saying, it sounds like things have not changed much.
Erik & Kevin, (and a few other thousand that are reading this)….
At the time all of this came down, I worked for a group of radio stations and the first public mention of the Mayor hiring an out in a newspaper column on a Saturday afternoon, which is traditionally one of the slowest and least read times to release news. Original Story =
Even so, this caught the attention of the Fort Wayne social media community which I’m sure the Mayors office was unaware of since they needed to pay a consultant to teach them how to tweet.
In the article I referred to, there was outrage among the city council for the Mayors office actions, but since our Mayor played within the revised financial guidelines, we were stuck with his actions.
The outrage spread from online to the other local paper carrying the story in the article Erik linked to and also television coverage.
Clearly this was not a good move politically to ignore the local resource pool.
To demonstrate how ignorant the administration must have been, either purposefully or out of negligence:
1. The Mayor is a member of political party “X”.
2. One block from the Mayor’s office is the HQ of political party “Y”. Been there for years, clearly marked with signage.
3. Across the street corner from the political party “Y” HQ is a software and website development firm that is clearly marked with signage, stating that is what they do.
BTW, when all of this happened in November 2010, I was working for a group of radio stations and now work for an internet marketing firm.
According to our friendly sources, they were also left out of the loop until the story broke in the news.
Now that I work for an internet marketing firm and understand the capabilities and pricing, I know for sure that my Mayor’s office not only overlooked local resources, but they also overspent for what they got in return.
Kevin,
You’re right that cronyism will always trump due diligence, and I’m certainly not saying you guys or Asher missed the boat on this. I think the blame in this case fully lies with FWG. I used it as an example of where a local government wasted taxpayer dollars by sending them out of the state and hurting job creation.
I also don’t buy the whole “needed an agency with government social media experience” crap. Community building is community building. The principles are the same, the practices are the same, the tools are even the same. If I’m building a community around a trade association, I’ll use the same general principles as if I’m building a community for a city. Shame on them for floating that out as an excuse.
Great points Erik but, in the Fort Wayne case:
a) There was no RFP, bid, or alert to potential opportunity.
b) The Deputy Mayor came from Chicago, the PR firm hired was from Chicago, and they were friends on Facebook.
c) 72k is magically or mysteriously, just 3k below the requirement for authorization from the city council. This is down from the previous 100k limit because the Mayor’s office routinely hired consultants without council approval.
d) Various attempts to reach out had been made and willful denial of existence of firm’s competent to provide this service would have to be made.
e) The local agencies that the Fort Wayne Government normally runs to were not contacted.
f) No attempt at anything that might even remotely be considered due diligence to shop local was done.
g) Follow up contact with the Mayor himself have been made on two separate instances, not that I think it will matter.
To infer the Fort Wayne case was anything other than typical cronyism and political tomfoolery is wrought with inaccuracies and is unsubstantiated. I cannot speak to other instances.