The Greater Women’s Business Council LACE (Ladies Achieving Continuous Excellence) Awards is a black-tie event that celebrates, recognizes and awards both corporate partners and women business enterprises (WBEs) that made major contributions to the mission of GWBC.
LACE Awards are given to companies or individuals for their outstanding contributions in supporting women-owned businesses through mentoring, coaching, world-class supplier diversity initiatives and providing procurement opportunities. The 2024 LACE Awards took place on Friday, November 1, at the Georgia Aquarium.
Nazeera Dawood is Founder and CEO of Vendorship. After a rewarding career as a medical doctor her passion for prevention prompted her to obtain a master’s degree in Public Health.
During her 8 years in public service as Research Project Manger, Director of the Fulton County Health Department as well as Fulton County Chief of Staff and she developed an extensive knowledge of the (governmental) proposal process.
Nazeera has a passion for solutions- and results-driven strategies, with a focus on quality, cost-effectiveness, use of practice guidelines, evaluation, supportive collaborations and public private partnerships for the benefit of all. She currently serves on the Review Board of the inaugural Fulton County District Attorney Conviction Integrity Unit.
A serial entrepreneur she has a wide professional network in the public sector, in business and in no-profit work. Nazeera founded Vendorship Inc. to ease the entry into government contracting.
As Vendorship’s CHH (Chief of Client Happiness) she strives to deliver the custom program to government contracting opportunities our clients need to provide government agencies with high quality products and services that improve the work of the public sector and all of our citizens’ lives.
Veni brings over two decades of diverse expertise in HR, ERP Functional Consulting, in the IT industry. She has a proven track record working with Fortune 500 companies across India, USA, and Canada.
Her experience spans People Management, Client Relations, and Automation. At Vendorship, her focus will be on developing HR strategies that align with business objectives.
Veni enjoys traveling.
Follow Vendorship on LinkedIn.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for GWBC Radio’s Open for Business. Now, here’s your host.
Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from the Georgia Aquarium at the GWBC 2024 LACE Awards. I’m so excited to be talking to some of the nominees, some of the awards tonight. We have with us right now Nazeera Dawood and Veni N. with Vendorship.
Veni N.: Thank you.
Nazeera Dawood: Thank you for having us.
Lee Kantor: Welcome. So, please educate us on Vendorship. How are you serving folks?
Nazeera Dawood: Sure. So, Vendorship was initiated in January of 2018, we are in our seventh year. We make government contracting easy. We assist businesses from all industry sectors to navigate the government contracting system in federal, state, county, city, and universities and become their extended partner and handhold them in identifying opportunities, writing proposal response, and anything that can help them to become successful in government.
Lee Kantor: So, what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work?
Nazeera Dawood: Sure. So, I used to actually practice medicine in India, but I found my dream job after coming here in the local county, which is Fulton County. I was an administrator at the health department, and then I went to become the chief of staff for the former chairman of the Board of Commissioners. And at that time, I realized that many companies do not have the resources to even write a one-page response to the government. They just didn’t know how to tell their story, though they had very good skillsets and services that government needed. However, they just didn’t have the capacity or the knowledge. That’s when we realized there’s a gap and we formed Vendorship to assist firms to make them more comfortable and make it more easy for them.
Lee Kantor: Now, I would imagine there’s a lot of government dollars that don’t get taken advantage of, and a lot of the reason behind that is it’s so complex, or the people, the businesses feel like it’s too overwhelming. They may have tried once or twice and then failed and said forget it, it’s too much trouble than it’s worth. How do you help that person kind of even find out if this is even viable? Do I have a service that there is a path to government money or not? And how do I navigate that complex world with the paperwork and all of the forms that you have to fill out to kind of get the opportunity?
Veni N.: That is where we come in as Vendorship. We take up 80 percent of the work off them, like make it easy. We research the RFPs, write the proposal for them, help in bidding, so the end to end work for them, we take it up. So, that makes it easy for them and that’s where we serve them with our service.
Lee Kantor: So, do you just take a fee for that service or do you take a percentage of the dollars that are generated?
Nazeera Dawood: Since our service is knowledge as a service, so there is a fee for our time, efforts, and expertise that we put in. And, also, towards the end, once they win a contract, there is a slight award share. But it’s a partnership because we are coming with the supplemental information about getting into government contracting and they’re coming with their niche service area. All they need to have is a company that offers a service that government needs. So, they do not need to have any certifications. All they need to do is have a service that government needs, and we can help them navigate the system by either getting certifications first, or respond to opportunities through teaming partnerships or subcontracting opportunities.
Lee Kantor: So, do you help the firm that doesn’t even know if they have a service the government does? Like for example, we do business podcasts for associations, is that something that there would be government money? Is that something that we should pursue? I don’t know.
Veni N.: You should because government is always looking for marketing campaigns. They’re looking to get the word out during some of the public campaigns. Such as when COVID happened, they were trying to get the word out. So, they would love to partner with you, but then you have to be in the playing field. Right now, they don’t know Business RadioX is having the service. So, when you work with us, we help you become a vendor first, help you do the business development, shake hands, bring more visibility, but also respond to opportunities. When a prime vendor is responding in marketing, you would bring your sector of podcast to that proposal response submissions.
Lee Kantor: So, we would work with you, you would kind of give us a roadmap or we would pay you to give us a roadmap, and then when opportunities arose, you could execute those for us on our behalf and then help us get those contracts.
Veni N.: Yes, we would write the response for you actually, so you can just focus on doing the podcast and not worry about all the other work.
Lee Kantor: Once I partner with you, then it’s kind of you now are kind of watching my back and helping me be successful on our behalf.
Veni N.: We are the extended team for them and then we help them guide everything.
Lee Kantor: So then, are you always on the lookout for more things? Like, would you be kind of scouring databases to go here’s something that might be good for you, and you’re just doing that because that’s what we’re paying you every month, a retainer or something to do the service?
Nazeera Dawood: Exactly.
Veni N.: Yes. And, also, we help B2B, so there might be another corporate partner that might want your service as well, so we’re making those partnerships as well. Because you might be only 50 percent eligible to submit a response, but we bring in a teaming partner who has the remaining 50 percent of eligibility, so combining you increase your score to a win.
Lee Kantor: So, do you have kind of a highlight of your most favorite thing that you’ve done so far, the most successful partnership you’ve worked on?
Nazeera Dawood: Yes. So, we had a client who was one of the seven vendors who won $47 million from Malta, and they were a staffing agency, technology staffing agency. And so, we helped them navigate the system and they were able to win those contracts. We have a client who started with zero revenue, a new company, helped them build the logo and all the things to bring them more visibility. And within one year, they bagged two projects from the government sector.
Lee Kantor: So, who’s the ideal partner for you? Who’s your ideal client? Do you have a profile of what that person looks like or that firm?
Veni N.: It’ll be all IT solutions and staffing companies. And we’re also extending to commercial these days, so everybody.
Lee Kantor: The more staffing agencies you know, you have a better chance?
Nazeera Dawood: All kinds of industries.
Veni N.: Predominantly at this point we are serving technology. Predominantly technology companies are our partners. But then, we do serve companies who have janitorial services. We do have a company whom we are serving who does mental health services. So, we are in all sectors and industries, predominantly technology, but since our strategies are almost similar, we become their capacity.
Lee Kantor: Now, what compelled you to become part of the GWBC community? Why was that important for you and your firm?
Nazeera Dawood: Because we are 100 percent women-owned and we knew that we wanted to assist other women-owned small businesses as well. We are a small business, but we were two, three, five years ago, a very small, struggling, growing business, so we know the struggles that come with growing a business. And we know there’s monies in the government, and by becoming woman-certified through GWBC, we realized not just the networking opportunities, but also able to assist fellow colleagues, GWBC partners to get into government contracting.
Lee Kantor: So, if somebody wanted to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?
Veni N.: vendorship.net, you have to go to and you get all the details on there.
Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.
Nazeera Dawood: Thank you for your time and thank you for having us.
Veni N.: Thank you for having us.
Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor, back in a few at the GWBC 2024 LACE Awards.
