And welcome to the third episode of deconstructing SBIR.
I am joined by Brittany Sickler
from the Small Business Administration.
Brittany is an Outreach and Partnership Strategist
in the office of innovation. So I just have to ask,
what does an Outreach and Partnerships Strategist do?
Sure, great question. And first of all Dusty,
thank you so much for having me with you today.
I'm very excited to be here.
So our office at the SBA you might know,
is the coordinating office and agency
for the SBIR program. We have the pleasure
of working with not only DHS,
but all the other agencies in the program.
We work together in a variety of functions
and in my role supports primarily
the infrastructure, the groups around
the country that are supporting entrepreneurs,
through this process as they're looking at applying for funding.
We do that through our partners,
and the training outreach that they provide,
and then I also coordinate our road tours,
in trying to get all the agencies out to
meet with and talk with entrepreneurs face to face.
Which is perfect for our topic today,
which is "Making the Most of Your One-On-Ones".
In terms of your background, you have
worked a lot in areas that are beneficial
to small businesses.
Do you want to tell us a little bit
about you're previous work experience that is relevant?
Sure, sure. No, I've had the last 12 years
time working with small businesses
in a variety of ways. So I've been involved
in micro-finance, small business lending,
to working out of the country in Guatemala
with Peace Corps doing economic development work.
So, quite a few kinds of businesses
and different ways but all looking
to either get started or grow.
And so it's a great now to apply that to this context.
Perfect! So you're gonna have lots of great advice
and information for us. So we're here to
talk about making the most of one-on-ones
but there are some folks that may not
know what that means. So can you tell us
sort of what a one-on-one is for this purpose?
Sure, sure. Yes, people often say, you know,
make jokes about math or what kind of
meeting is this? What am I signing up for?
So typically when we have an event
that's out in the public, whether it's a
conference or road tour or some kind of
SBIR focused event, we like to have
one-on-ones with the agencies who are
present to have slots and they range
typically between 10 and 20 minutes,
so on average a 15-minute slot to sit down
and talk through where a company is in
terms of their technology, what they're
looking at, and how that could possibly
fit in with an agency's priorities and mission,
OK. So and these will be with government
folks, and they could be SBIR program folks,
technical folks, program managers.
Sure, it's a variety, so yes, definitely good
to know who you might be meeting with beforehand.
So you can adjust your tone and your topic
to their background whether they're looking at
the entire agency or if they're coming
from a special technology area.
Right, and so as much as possible we try to
provide that information ahead of time.
Yes, yes. OK, great. So you know I'm
talking to the small businesses, why should
if this is something that they prep for,
why would they want to participate in
you know, in a one-on-one? What's the draw? I guess is the question.
Sure, no, and it's a great question
and hopefully it's easier for folks
to understand once we go through some
of our topics today. But, for a company,
let's say it's a new formed company or
it could be very established, but they have
some technology, they have new products,
or some kind of high-risk research
and development that they're working on
but they might not know exactly how they
would interact. We do know that the
agencies and SBIR are very different from
one another, and so how can we best
approach and make those interactions happen?
And so when they're at the one-on-one,
we have them, before they sign up,
we typically have them sign up in advance,
they are requested to fill out a quad chart,
for those who understand a business model
canvas or kind of that one page
business plan. It's really good to focus
on where the company is coming from,
where their technology is, and then
what their research will be focused on.
And so that's a great base to start from
and have that conversation and it allows
the company to hear from the Program Manager,
the Technical Expert from the agency side,
how that might align together.
Right, and so and they get the chance, I guess
to speak specifically, rather than at
a larger audience, they can say hey
where you have to ask a question and
and you know get an
answer but you get to the back and forth.
So specific to your particular want or desire.
Exactly, exactly because we'll have panels
and presentations and we'll ask for
questions from the audience but those
are typically answered in a general way
so that they're relevant to the whole audience.
Well the one-on-one is you're face to face,
a little bit of a speed dating.
Yeah, and so it gives the opportunity,
I guess also to find out exactly how that
particular agency executes their program,
I know different agencies do different things
like grants or contracts or those sorts
of things, so you get to find out what's
the amount, their schedule, periods of
performance that vary across the
different agencies, those sorts of things.
Sure, and you know quite a few of those
topics we do recommend that people look
into before they show up at their one-on-one.
Just so they can better take advantage
of that time. The great thing though is whatever
is coming up next in the immediate future,
hopefully that experience, that Program Manager
will be able to speak right to what
that small business is. You know kind of in front of.
So from the perspective of the government,
I know that in doing these one-on-ones
through the years and you've done many
of them as well, I feel like sometimes
The small companies don't necessarily understand
why we're there, you know, what they don't
necessarily see well what's in it for us?
So can we chat about that for a little bit?
because I do think it's important for them
to know there is benefit for the government.
Sure, so they don't think these folks are
desperate to get out of their offices.
No there is a, there's a huge benefit on
the government side to have that interaction.
Whether the it's able to provide a space.
the agency can hear, okay, there's these
kinds of technologies are being developed
or adapted in this way. They can hear
kind of what the capability is or the
adaptability is across, whether its
components or agencies.
and there's times where there could be
topic authors or people back in the
headquarters areas. If that one-on-one
Program Manager can go back and share,
it's a really good feedback loop to say
you know, all right, if this topic is of interest
on the agency side, we know that there
are companies from California, to Nebraska,
to Illinois, down to North Carolina
that are interested and working on this right now.
And it gives the opportunity, because you know,
there's market research involved in
trying to determine, hey can we get,
can we go out to small businesses for this?
And will be getting a breath of
innovation and ideas? And sometimes you can
take a small piece out of a larger project
that is providing a challenge, and now
you know there's companies within that field
that are interested in working on it
and and that sort of thing.
So it kind of helps with both sending out
small business, still getting innovation
and doing market research all in one fell swoop.
Yes, that is the idea.
Yeah, great. So, I love them personally
so it's neat to hear what all the small
business are doing. But let's also talk
about what not to expect in the one-on-one.
So we want to make sure that as these
companies are signing up and are prepared
to meet with us, they know - hey these are things
that that I won't be able to discuss
or talk or are inappropriate for the one-on-one.
So, what types of...
I really do like to lay expectations
because just so everyone knows,
none of the program managers are
showing up with a checkbook.
You know, they're not ready to hand out
any kind of funding.
And then they're also not able to answer
every kind of question. And so, especially on
the contracting agency side, but also on
the granting side, if there's a topic or
solicitation, an RFP coming up,
there can be definite restrictions.
So talking about those specifics, if you
know, hey, I would love to know...
When we get there.
Is there an opportunity for me?
Will this fit in? Can you, can you just give me
any kind of guidance on that?
You know, they'll unfortunately have to
say no maybe in a variety of ways if you keep asking.
We can kind of tell these are
the broad type, like would this be a topic
that may be out in the solicitation, that sort of area,
but we can't say either way whether
there would or wouldn't be that.
Sure, and there are agencies that
tend to, you know, they'll follow, they'll have
a very broad topics, and those come back often.
And so, that is something that they can share
with, you know, confidence of, you know,
looked back the last few years at
our agency you've seen...
Seems likely there may be some areas.
And then, I know we talked about this,
we've both gotten the or heard about the
ask for the debrief on previously
submitted proposals.
Yes, so that is one too where I think some
companies are not necessarily confused
but don't always know the right place
that they should be getting the information.
And so a debrief can be very important,
especially if someone was unsuccessful,
And we often find that when apply and
are successful they've, they might have
applied before and haven't quite made it.
Right, and so the debrief can provide
the opportunity for them to learn
what the reviewers thought,
and where they saw the weaknesses and
then if they are able to resubmit, hopefully again,
they'll address that in their resubmittal.
Now the debrief though, each agency will
approach it slightly differently as well,
but that across the board, won't happen
during these one-on-ones.
and that's for a few different reasons,
most of the time, the people that are doing
the one-on-ones, they're not familiar with that proposal.
They didn't come with every debrief in front of the agency's.
When they are looking at large numbers
of awards it's not possible to have
that information transmitted in that way.
And so we've set it up from the beginning
that one-on-ones are not for debriefs.
So if someone's waiting to hear back from
their proposal, it's the same kind of thing
thing of, they won't, really, they won't
get any information, in that 15 minutes
regarding their submittal.
And I think it's also kind of important
to understand that this is not, and we will
and we'll go into kind of the prep and how
to prepare next, but to be prepared,
this is not going to serve in place of
the small businesses market research entirety.
Oh I'm sure of it, oh that would be magic,
Show up and in fifteen minutes,
And we would love to do it all.
If we could we would.
Definitely, definitely. So, no this is not
to figure out secrets from, you know,
this is the expert on, you know,
developments in X technology area
and I want to get the secret here.
No we, and this is something that
I look at with some of the partners
on the SBA side, we work with all of
these organizations around the country.
There are Small Business Development Centers,
There are Procurement Technical Assistance Centers.
SBA even has some funding for federal
state technology and fast partners.
And so those are folks that are sitting down
they're able to look hand-in-hand,
especially if they have insight into SBIR,
they can say exactly, you know, this is what
you should be looking at, this is what
you need to address as you're looking
at commercialization, not just the
the technology development.
Right, which does go into the next subject
with its prep. So, I think we've all had
the one-on-ones, and sometimes companies
sign up last-minute, you know,
because there's an opening for them
to oh we have, you know, DHS is sitting there
and I will If I'm there and I have
nobody in this particular time slot frame show up.
I'll take somebody. And, and you kind of
at that point, then do understand,
well they may not have a chance to prep.
But for the most part when the companies
are going out there, it's to their benefit to prep.
Oh yes, and that's one of the biggest
misunderstandings. As a company would
say I'm working on something to do with
solar so I'm only looking at the say I'm working on something to do with
solar so I'm only looking at the
Department of Energy. And it's like well
no actually, that could be also of interest
to Army right now, and that is also within NSF,
the National Science Foundation's purview.
And so understanding that, you know, one
technology is not necessarily going to
be cornered. So on the prep side of things,
we really do recommend there's a few
different ways, because depending on,
you know, where someone's coming from,
if they just showed up to the event that day,
they would have an opportunity
at all these events, we have these
five minute pitches. We have overviews,
sometimes a little bit longer.
But each agency, is in a concise way,
putting their topics, putting what their
agency is funding, the mission, and how
the program is going to work out.
So sitting through those is
very helpful to get that overview.
And I think there's, certainly, make sure
it ties back to the mission. But I think
there's also benefit in in doing some,
you know, whenever possible, some research.
You know, do research on what is, what is
going on at that time current in the news
and understand what their challenges are.
So just because they do solar,
well you do something with solar,
but is that where their hang-up is?
Is that now where their challenge is?
What do you bring to the table
that's different than what they've
already gotten? And how do you bring something
that is gonna meet their needs?
Sure, sure. You know what is ground breaking
and novel about what you are working on?
There's a few different ways that companies
can find that out before and it's not too
heavy of a lift. I mean, we all know
entrepreneurs, researchers, time is tight
and people's focus is split in many areas.
So on SBIR.gov we're able to have tutorials
on all of the agencies. And it kind of gives
a shorter overview and it leads
to the agency's website. So people, if you can
get hooked in you can go to DHS,
And you can see specifics.
You also can look at the topics there,
the past topics that have been listed
and past awards and see, alright, so under
solar, what was awarded?
Well if all of these companies are
working on, or worked on something that's
identical to mine, it's not ground breaking,
and I'm not doing anything new to solve some of
problems that the government is putting forward.
Which is another good point.
So and I think in addition to prep,
and part of prep is knowing what you expect
coming out of the meeting. So if you go in
there and you're going to talk about your
company, that's great information.
But, going in and saying this is what I expect.
So that the person on the other side
of the table knows where you're trying to go.
Is it that you need more information
on where within, you know, you've done research
took it as far down as you can go, but now
you need more direction or...
So, you know, what are the different ways
and types of goals that you can talk about
in terms of what you've seen be beneficial
with it, a one-on-one.
Sure. So in this area, you know, when people
are looking at what they expect on the outside,
you know, it does relate to what they expect
or where their situation is in the beginning.
So is this looking at follow-on funding?
Are they an awardee? Or is this the first time?
And so on the the follow-on side,
I mean, even coming in with your award
information, everything that you
worked on, where that ended, you know,
being able to talk with the agency about,
okay where can this go from here?
What are other areas within, let's say DoD,
that this could be applicable?
Now for the first time awardee, it's more
the understanding of the variety of topics
and then you know, plugging that in.
And I do like to say that,
sometimes people will sit down and they'll say,
I've got it more than once,
so what does DHS want?
We want to protect the homeland.
We want our home to be secure.
So coming in, sometimes I think,
people think the broader they make the question,
the more room they give us to answer,
but really it makes it more difficult.
Sure, you get broad answers.
Exactly, so broad questions, broad answers
as we try to talk about.
So the more specific they can make the
questions to their needs, I think the better.
Exactly, exactly and that's, that kind
of goes down to our constraints
to you of time wise. If there were a couple
hours where you can really sit down
and discuss and, and distill things.
but we do recognize the time crunch.
And so as much as we can do to have the
right expectations beforehand.
We have better prepared small companies applying.
Right, and it makes it even more enjoyable
from the government side,
to have those conversations.
So the one-on-one, this 15 minutes is
likely not going to end with me
saying to a company, all right,
so if you just give me your information,
Like you say - I don't have a checkbook
and we're not likely to be able to
go back and say, this person is going to
to contact you and to give you an award
even if it was capable of doing.
I think there's always going to be a need
for follow-up, and what can that follow-up
look like that is appropriate
and helps get further along in the path?
Sure, back to specific questions during
your one-on-one, you can ask if you can speak
to someone about something specific to
to your technology. And if so who that is
and when you would do that?
So you can leave with a point of contact
that is right down, you don't have to go
through you know four or five people to
get to that person. You now have that.
And that's great, and but unfortunately,
so many times that's just not possible.
And part of it is making sure we get,
we're trying to, we always try to make sure
we're getting information to the right
folks and we may not have those folks
on the top of their head. A lot of times it is,
hey we'll submit, submit this information.
Or that's, yes, exactly, so yes, expectations too
you're not always able to talk to a person
right away. But sometimes it's just
submitting a page or two pages,
depending on the agency and the way
that they focus, kind of a description,
and then internally they'll distribute,
and there's a process for that to take place.
And so it seems like perhaps,
there's a benefit to, for the follow-up,
knowing, getting, and understanding
what that feedback is from the
person you're talking to.
So tailoring the information you submit,
So we, you know, your quad chart is great
and it's got all the information. And many
people use quad charts, and I like the concept
but there may be a different quad chart to use.
Oh definitely, definitely, the pie charts.
Well you have this information in here,
but this other piece is what you should
highlight for DHS, this is important to,
the ya know, the Navy, but this is where DHS's
interest is lying right now, more so I think
making sure you can tailor that information
to capture the attention of the person you're trying to...
Sure, I'll let you know the quad chart,
you know, because it is generic,
across all the agencies for these meetings.
And a huge piece of why that was started,
was for so many one-on-ones, you would get
an entrepreneur who is so eager to talk
about what they're working on, and sit down
and talk to full 15 minutes on this crazy
breakthrough and how amazing it was
going to be and the time was up,
they didn't get anything, they didn't get any any insight
And it's fun to listen to, so it's hard to know
Exactly, exactly. And so that kind of
grounds people, and especially for those,
and I think we've all heard them,
that their idea of an elevator pitch,
is the elevator ride up to the top of the
Empire State, it's a long ride. Well no, we're
trying to get, you know, smaller so that
bit by bit we can build a really good intro
between the company and the
agency during that time.
Right, and as you said before
making sure you're not talking
the whole time so you're with...
Yes asking questions, you talked about
the general questions and insight,
it's really good for someone to come in
with questions already prepared so they're
not on the spot nervous, and what do I say?
So then I default to something that's
not relevant.
And you can bring note cards,
bring note cards, note cards are fine.
So I think that highlighting
what we've, we've kind of talked over thus far;
you know, first thing, find opportunities
for one-on-ones. So you've mentioned that
the road tours, your organizing road tours.
So I think we have some information
about the upcoming road tours.
But you have a really simple website
address that you mentioned earlier.
Yes, sbirroadtour.com
OK, alright. sbirroadtour, one word, .com
and it will have the dates for the upcoming,
there's three, planning, there's three tours
in 2018. There was one tour previously in April.
This is the fourth year that they
they've gone on, and we're hitting a
whole slew of new states. And in fact the next
road tour is coming up in a week and a half.
Yes. Are you going? I'm going. Oh Good!
Yeah, so let's hope everyone else is going too.
There are still slots available, so on that website,
you'll see the five states for that tour in June,
that's in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
West Virginia and North Carolina.
Anyone's welcome, even beyond those states.
So make sure that they do their research,
they prep for it, they know their approach.
Yes.
They have their goal identified.
and I know and it's hard, we sometimes,
we understand that we're throwing a lot
of things out there in terms of suggestions.
But, we do try to list it out easily,
and one more thing back to the
road tours, is if someone does decide
to sign up for one of those events,
they'll get through their registration,
they'll get the opportunity to go to
a scheduler system. And that system is
something that we've been improving
based on feedback from companies and agencies.
Oh good.
And so we have a list of all the
agencies available, we recommend that
people sign up as soon as possible,
after they prioritized who they want
to meet with. We even have links in there
to overviews and websites for all the agencies.
So if you're going through and you say
well I'm not even quite sure what this
agency looks at, maybe I know what
the agency does, but what are
they doing in SBIR? And so we try to
make that as easy as possible.
and like you said don't, don't sign up
for all of them. You know, leave yourself open
to see you some of the pitches
and do some research and you know,
use the most valuable...
Definitely, because it's not going
to be worthwhile if you sit down
and in the first 10 seconds,
you already know that there's not a fit.
So we don't want a company to waste
their time, we want them to focus on
the places where they're going to
hopefully be more successful.
And so one of the things, and talking about
follow-up and then going to,
make sure you follow up. But then in resources
for this whole thing, one of the,
one of the things that I've been striving
to do here, and we finally were able to do it,
and I'm very happy about that was,
make a sort of a complimentary to this
session, which is a recorded do's and don'ts
of one-on-ones. And so it is myself and a
couple of my colleagues who are doing
the acting, so you know, make sure you
pay attention to the message and
I know why actors get paid so much now.
But, so what it is, is we've gone through
some scenarios from you know,
both of us having decades of experience
in doing one-on-ones, and kind of
role played those to show, because sometimes
it's hard to say these things and then
really understand what that looks like.
So trying to give an actual, here's some
some things we saw where people came and
it wasn't as effective and then ones we saw
where this was more effective.
Definitely. Lessons learned. That's incredible>
So thank you for putting yourself on the line.
And doing that for us, Dusty
Because no, it's true, the one-on-ones are
in closed areas and so it's really,
if you haven't ever done it before,
you've probably not seen that happen
and maybe you've taken part of matchmaking,
or other similar events, and so you know
what it is to sit down with someone
one-on-one, face-to-face. But in this context,
you know, we want to demystify this as much as...
Right, absolutely, make it and make it fun,
enjoyable and valuable for everybody.
So I think we have a graphic that shows our
website. And so there will be a red box there,
if you go to the website which is
on the bottom of the screen,
and you click right on that,
where that red box is, they will take you
to the video for the one-on-one,
and within the one-on-one there is a part
where I reference the industry guide
that DHS has prepared and this is the guide
that is for, to help industry understand
how to work with DHS. Which we understand
is a difficult thing to understand
from the outside. At the end of the video
there is a link to, this is available electronically.
So we're trying to make that,
demystify that as well. So that is the large
part of what I had wanted to talk about.
Are there any other resources at SBA
that you'd like to make sure we touch on
for the small businesses?
Yes, I've mentioned most, but to kind of
sum it up here quickly, going to SBIR.gov
is going to be your best bet in terms of
seeing that broader picture.
So the tutorials, getting the websites
for all of the agencies involved,
looking at the past awards and topics,
and also on the main page,
there's a drop-down on the bottom
that says local resources.
And especially if you say, alright well I
like the digital resources but,
if I want to meet with someone one-on-one,
what would that look like? In terms of,
you know, not, sorry, not the one-on-ones
but meet with someone beforehand,
and maybe I want that market research,
maybe I want, you know, more assistance
with my proposal, who is around me if
I'm you know, in Idaho, who can I meet with?
And so you can click by state.
you'll see the fast groups I mentioned,
but you'll see others as well.
You'll see small business development
centers and beyond and so hopefully
that information can help. We'll also have
information on upcoming webinars and events.
Is there, is there fast solicitation open now?
Correct. So we're going to have a new group
of about 24 organizations starting
this fall to do training and
help with small businesses.
Okay, that's great, good to know that
you guys are always pursuing stuff like that, okay.
So I think that we have a couple questions
from the audience that has stuck around,
and we do thank you. So the question is:
sometimes, these one-on-ones are
the only way we have to talk to
a government representative about my product,
can I discuss possible opportunities outside SBIR?
So I think, you know, we did kind of touch
on that, I think that there are ways to
have those discussions with the folks
from, on the SBIR road tours,
and at the conferences. I think we all recognize,
that because we can't tell them,
hey these are our topics that are
going to be coming up, and you know, those topics
are largely driven from the community,
the scientific community and the end users.
This is still part of market research
and going back and being able to forward
information from these small businesses
about you know, this was something that I saw
and it may be of interest and you know,
do we want to do something in the future
with this type of technology exploration?
Sure, but I do, yeah, I do like to set some of
the expectations though, because if you're
going to meet with the plant biology
specialist at USDA, they are very focused
in that area so they might, I mean USDA is
very large they're not going to be able
to speak to all other opportunities.
So your odds can be pretty low at some
of the agencies, in terms of,
who are you meeting with, again?
And where is that going to lead?
So, you know, my recommendations are
always to try to find out some of that
information before and realize
that this is, you know, for the SBIR program.
Great. Alright, so I want to thank you very much
for joining us and bringing your vast
and deep expertise in this, in this area.
And look forward to joining you on the
road tour and in a couple weeks.
Yes, hopefully looking forward to
seeing all you and feel free to reach out
to us at SBIR.gov or to your email as well.
We are putting up the STSBIR.program@dhq.dhs.gov
so that's how you can reach out to us here
at a DHS about our SBIR program.
So thank you everybody for joining us
and we'll see you on the next deconstructing SBIR.