We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dr. Karwanna D Irving a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Dr. Karwanna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.
A little over a decade ago I was stuck trying to figure out how to make my business work so that I wouldn’t have to go back to working for someone else. I had bad credit, little to no money in the back and was barely making ends meet. I was working more than 70hrs a week chasing customers but my business was only generating $20-$30k in revenues. And I was in the middle of a divorce with no help financially with my 2 children. It wasn’t until I took a serious look at government contracting for small businesses that everything changed for me. I knew that the government had trillions of dollars streamlined to be spent with disadvantaged small businesses, but I never really understood what that meant for me. But when I positioned myself to start participating in that guaranteed pool of money my business went from $20-$30k years to generating 6 figures in a single month. In business school, we’re told that it takes 2-5 years to build a business and you have to get a business loan for startup capital to grow your business. But what I’ve come to learn is when you’re doing business with the right customer you can be highly profitable in your first 3-6 months in business. It’s called the B2G business model. Business to Government. The government literally buys everything. I coin this discovery the “Trillion Dollar Secret”. It’s the real game-changer that allowed me to thrive in business. Of course, I had to learn to get out of my own way for it to work for me. I had to become organized, and structured properly and I had to get resourceful at times to invest in knowledge, tools, and systems along the way. But when I look back over just a short decade ago I can truly say what was holding me back and what I see holding others back now was a lack of knowledge and lack of vision to see success happen. One of the most pivotal lessons I’ve learned from this is investing in myself and doing the work to see it come to pass.
Dr. Karwanna, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m Dr. Karwanna D,, Government Contracting Expert and I help professional service-based entrepreneurs position themselves to make millions with government contracts. After finding success and fail proofing my business with government contracts, I found that the small business community was lacking information about this life-changing business strategy and model. Most major companies that exist would never tell you that they have government contracts and that’s what’s driving their multi-billion-dollar portfolio. I wanted to become the voice to help more women in business as well as the minority business community so that they could empower themselves with the opportunity to land the #1 biggest purchaser of business products and services in the world who awards large and lucrative contracts as their client. I’m most proud of becoming the #1 sought-after authority in this space of government contracting. I have helped more than 500+ small business entrepreneurs become 1st-time millionaires by teaching them the step-by-step blueprint and strategy to successfully navigate government contracts for their business. Not only do I help small business entrepreneurs get pre-qualified to sell to the government in my 5 Day Challenge (GovConChallenge.com), but I also empower them with the tools, support, and education in my accelerator program where they learn how to make millions pitching and winning government contractions.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I started my entrepreneurial journey over 20 years ago with my small photography business, I ultimately struggled in the first few years. I was spending more time chasing customers than I did running my business and actually getting paid. Barely making 20-30k a year, I use to call myself “Broke, Busted, and Disgusted”. Traditional methods of starting and growing a business as a minority, woman-owned photography business from the urban community just weren’t working. There were limited resources, and a lack of success stories to follow, and even with higher education, people who look like me just didn’t get very far without the proper investments and guidance in business. All of this while I was also going through a divorce.
But I knew I was missing something under the sun. When I learned about Government Contracting it changed my life and my business forever. I learned that the government is actually obligated to spend on small businesses and that women and minority-owned businesses have a golden ticket to winning lucrative contracts. When I leveraged my business, turning my disadvantage to my advantage, I went from barely making 20-30k a year to winning my first-ever contract for $70k working 2 hours per day for only 28 days of work as a subcontractor in a multi-billion dollar project.
Now, I founded She’s Got Goals LLC. to empower other entrepreneurs, shape the right mindset, motivate them to see their boundless potential, and bring those qualities to the forefront to stand boldly on their purpose. I also created The Trillion Dollar Secret To Government Contracts where I’m dedicated to helping other women and minority small business owners to strategically grow their businesses with government contracts so they can have successful and sustainable businesses with consistent income.
Over the past couple of years, I was able to help over 200+ business owners generate upwards of 3 million dollars in contracts set aside for small women-owned and minority-owned businesses.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
“Make Today Count” by John C. Maxwell
This book helped me realize that I was trying to do too many things simultaneously and that I had to learn to delegate, eliminate, and focus more on money-producing activities.
And honestly, sometimes I still find myself slipping back into that mode of a busy bee and neglecting myself.
Still, I now know what the indicators are, and I know how to fix them quickly. Unfortunately, that habit may have followed me from the employee mindset I used to have when I had to work hard and overtime to get ahead.
As an entrepreneur, you have to work with leverage, and you would be surprised how much success you can have by putting in a little time and being consistent with that.
Contact Info:
- Website: GovConChallenge.com
- Instagram: @karwannadspeaks
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karwannadspeaks
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karwannadspeaks/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShesGotGoals247
- Youtube: youtube.com/karwannad
Image Credits
Rhayna C. Photography (RC)