More than 15 women-owned businesses were represented in the WBDC’s GovCon-Airports cohort, showing up for three hours a week for eight weeks to learn how to work with airports.

GovCon-Airports is a multi-week cohort-based program that is designed to assist established, Chicagoland businesses that are interested in doing business with airports. The participants in the recent cohort had a range of interests and types of businesses from plumbing and cleaning services to architecture to design to food and beverage products. GovCon-Airports educates business owners on the opportunities, entry points, and standard procedures when working with airports. The program covers everything from understanding the buying process to obtaining certification to researching and applying for RFPs (request for proposals).

The 2021 Cohort met every Thursday for three hours via Zoom from February 25 – April 15 to connect with a variety of guest experts as well as share challenges, struggles, wins, and insights over the eight weeks of class.

Take a moment to check out the incredible businesses of some of those who participated in the program in this virtual cohort:

Julie Fisher of fcSTUDIO, Inc.

Alex Miranda of KNOCK Inc.

Laura Hammer of Chicago Consortium LLC

Lisa Marsh of MsPsGFree Inc

Pennie Crocket of Pennie’s Tea

Toni Greathouse of Custom Community Creations LLC

Chelsie Tamms of Lettering Works, LLC

This 8-week virtual training program serves small businesses and concessionaires who currently have contracts at Chicago’s airports, and businesses seeking to do business with the airports.

COHORT PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

• Identifying opportunities using the Chicago Buying Plan and other research resources

• Leveraging City, ACDBE, and DBE certifications for contract opportunities

• Preparing and submitting CDA and other government agency proposals

• Preparing business capability statements

• Developing strategies to mitigate the effects of reduced travel or outside activities on small businesses

• Identifying resources to access capital and promote business resiliency

Business Growth Spotlight: Chelsie Tamms, Lettering Works, LLC

Progress for Lettering Works through GovCon

Within the first 30 days of the program, Lettering Works focused on identifying potential connections and entry points to doing business with airports. We made a point to connect directly with other cohort participants to learn more about their businesses and goals in doing business with airports. Through 1:1 calls we learned about many of the incredible businesses and unique aspirations of other participants.

In attending all cohort sessions, we were exposed to new information about doing business with airports and introduced to a variety of insightful and encouraging guest experts. The cohort’s instructor, LaTasha Binder, also offered one-on-one advising outside of the class time, which helped us focus on clear action steps and improvements in preparing to do business with O’Hare.

A highlight of the program was being introduced to a VP at Hudson, who expressed interest in bringing Lettering Works products into their airport gift shops. We are excited about this opportunity and will be continuing to pursue our goal of bringing our well-loved art products directly to travelers and tourists so we can continue to build Chicago pride and appreciation within the Chicago community and beyond. While our heart is set on doing business with Chicago airports first, we have identified opportunities to scale across the nation with the right partners in place.

As a result of participating in GovCon-Airports, we are committed to continuing to dedicate substantial time to investigating new opportunities within the travel industry and fostering relationships with new connections.

Two key takeaways from the program were that the cost of doing business with airports is very high and that it can take years to go from an initial contact to having your products on the shelves within a concessionaire location at O’Hare or Midway. Lettering Works plans to pursue ACDBE certification to open new opportunities for strategic partnerships.

In order to graduate from the GovCon-Airports program, participating business owners were tasked with creating a 90-Day Strategic Action Plan as well as pitching their business during the final cohort meeting on April 15th, 2021. Below is Lettering Works’ final presentation/pitch for GovCon-Airports. It is the second iteration of our first video pitch that we presented at ScaleUp last fall.

“Understanding how to work with airports can be extremely intimidating. The cost of doing business is high and there is a lot to learn overall. GovCon-Airports makes much of this necessary learning accessible and points you in the right direction to pursue these exciting opportunities. The WBDC consistently delivers educational resources and opportunities for minority-owned businesses to level up and grow. This program was well worth the time and energy investment. I left feeling inspired to keep pursuing my big goals of getting my artwork into Chicago airports and beyond.” - Chelsie Tamms

A special thank you to LaTasha, Frieda, Alleia and all the other presenters and advisors who made the GovCon-Airports program such a success.

If you are interested in more information about GovCon-Airports, reach out to govconairport@lbinderinc.com. The next cohort is scheduled to begin in late summer 2021.