Is your company located in Virginia?

Who is my counselor?

As an existing client, you may view your assigned counselor’s name and email on the home page of the client login also known as the eCenter: https://virginiaapex.ecenterdirect.com/

If your status is inactive or you are not a client, please reach out to us if you have any questions.

Can I attend a standard webinar without downloading the software?

Yes, you may either dial in by phone using the phone number and attendee pin provided in your GoToWebinar email to listen in to the webinar OR you can start in the browser by entering https://www.goto.com/webinar/join and enter webinar ID and email address in your confirmation email (which comes from customercare@gotowebinar.com).

In an earlier version of GoToWebinar, you could add an addendum ?clientType=html5 to the join unique join link to participate via browser “instant join” instead of using the desktop application, but this is not available in the new GoTo Webinar.

For more information please see this forum response from the GoTo community forum: https://community.logmein.com/discussions/gotowebinar-discussion/joining-webinars-without-gotoopener-but-still-offer-dial-in/321266

My business has been established for less than 2 years. What help can my APEX Accelerator offer me?

To provide the most economic impact with the resources available, we are limited in what individualized services we can provide to startup companies without sufficient past performance or experience to demonstrate a potential for successful government contracting. We offer a broad array of training in the field of government contracting via our eCenter calendar, resources such as a handful of on-demand webinar recordings, local events, and our resources page to allow the startup company to take advantage of self-directed learning.

If you are interested in creating a business plan, establishing your business as a legal entity, or other topics that are not specific to government contracting, please find your local SBDC or SCORE office to see what services (including counseling) that they can provide. Veterans can also seek startup assistance from their local VBOC.

Referrals from SBA’s socioeconomic certifications programs must meet the same guidelines as other clients to be eligible to seek assistance with their SDVOSB, VOSB, WOSB, and other set-aside applications. If you are unsure of your eligibility to become a client, please contact apex@gmu.edu. We do encourage both eligible clients as well as startups or businesses not ready for government contracting to continue to utilize the webinars and training offered by the SBA. Those companies ineligible for counseling from their APEX Accelerator can contact their local SBDC, SCORE, WBC, or VBOC for assistance. Resources specific to your jurisdiction may also be available, so check out your local economic development initiatives for additional information and help such as Fairfax Core.

Why do I need a professional website and business email to receive one-on-one counseling from my APEX Accelerator?

To be taken seriously in government contracting, a professional website and email address are essential. Large primes and government customers rarely see a Yahoo, Gmail, or another personal email address and think the business reaching out is capable and qualified. An unprofessional email address will in fact harm most GovCon Business development efforts. Part of marketing your company to a government audience is demonstrating the requisite skills to meet the requirements of the contract, including good cybersecurity hygiene, even if your company is selling a consumer good or service that does not by itself require an online presence.

APEX Accelerators are funded to provide technical assistance and training to companies who have the products and services government is seeking to buy. We cannot help you formulate a business idea from scratch and we also do not have the resources to assist with other startup activities such as website development. All who are interested in our Government Contracting focused training are welcome to attend our events and take advantage our useful links page. Startup advice, basic marketing help, or assistance in establishing a business can be obtained from your local SBDC: https://www.virginiasbdc.org/start-your-business/

Link to our Homework articles: https://VirginiaAPEX.org/tag/homework/

Signup for our event notifications: https://VirginiaAPEX.org/services/training/event-notifications/

Keep tabs on our training calendar: https://VirginiaAPEX.org/resources/training-calendar-tips/

I want one-on-one counseling from Virginia APEX Accelerator. How do I determine if my company is considered based/headquartered in Virginia?

As determined in Hertz Corp. v. Friend, “…the phrase “principal place of business” refers to the place where the corporation’s high level officers direct, control, and coordinate the corporation’s activities.” Also known as the “nerve center” of the business, the headquarters is generally the address a company would list on their SAM.gov registration if doing business with the federal government. A corporation can be incorporated in a different state than where its headquarters are located but for the purposes of Virginia APEX Accelerator counseling eligibility, we use the headquarters address, and not the incorporation address, to determine if you are eligible for counseling or referred to another APEX Accelerator.

This is important because our team of counselors cannot service all companies that simply have a Virginia address or an employee who lives in our service area. Our federal funding is limited to those companies based (aka headquartered) in our local coverage area.

Given our proximity to the federal government, we receive many requests for counseling from companies headquartered in other parts of the country because they believe we have greater insights into doing business with federal agencies. This is a misunderstanding of our role as educators. All APEX Accelerators nationwide are positioned to provide one-on-one counseling on doing business with the Federal Government and work with agencies both locally and virtually to host events for their clients. A business may not use the counseling services of more than one APEX Accelerator unless it is coordinated through their local jurisdiction, should the local counselor need additional guidance/assistance from an APEX Procurement Counselor elsewhere in the country.

If your company is based outside of Virginia but you are seeking to do business with State/Local government in Virginia, simply request assistance from your local APEX Accelerator and your assigned counselor will reach out to our Statewide Director if they have any questions on doing business with State/Local entities specific to Virginia.

Additional reading on “principal place of business” can be found here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/principal_place_of_business

Does Virginia APEX Accelerator help clients with how to do business with George Mason University? I have a product that I think GMU will want to purchase.

Although we are hosted by George Mason University, we don’t have special access to procurement professionals who buy for the university. GMU is a member of VASCUPP and does post open solicitations on eVA as do other State of Virginia universities. We recommend you register in eVA and keep an eye on the GMU opportunities website here: https://fiscal.gmu.edu/purchasing/do-business-with-mason/view-current-solicitation-opportunities/ If you have further questions about a procurement, the contact information for the procurement officers who can answer those questions are generally listed in the RFP. If your company has an existing contract with a Virginia school or a major cooperative organization (E&I/NASPO/OMNIA, etc) it may be helpful to get added to contract vendor lists. Please visit https://fiscal.gmu.edu/purchasing/do-business-with-mason/ for additional information or talk to your PTAC counselor.

Why can’t the Virginia APEX Accelerator hire more counselors? I would like to speak to my counselor more often!

Virginia APEX Accelerator has around 2000 client companies participating in counseling annually with even our most efficient counselors, working full time, counseling between 200-300 clients per year. Assistance includes the follow-up meetings necessary to resolve more complex challenges, and many of our counselors are part time, which limits the frequency of appointments available to individual clients. The typical company averages between 1.5 to 3.3 hours of counseling assistance annually with some seeking to resolve very specific challenges, and others are looking for overall strategic advice or direction. The most successful client companies are motivated to pair our training with advice from counselors for overall direction, then run with the resulting homework toward success. Strategic direction counseling appointments should be compared to an annual physical with a primary care doctor: sometimes the appointment requires a follow-up, but the onus is on the user to take care of the day to day implementation.

It would be ideal to hire more counselors, but the limits on federal funding as a statewide program are set into law, and staffing cannot grow beyond those constraints*. Training and webinar content is used to reduce the burden on counselors repeatedly teaching introductory information to an audience of one during a counseling session. Unfortunately half as many clients participate in training as our counseling. When clients come into a meeting unprepared, it only slows the forward momentum for that company’s trajectory toward winning government contracting work. We want to emphasize that the training and webinars are the basis of understanding a topic, and the counseling sessions allow someone to dig into the specifics of the company situation/industry: https://virginiaapex.org/useful-link/laying-the-foundation/

*See 10 USC 4955(a)

Why do you have so much training? I would rather get more counseling instead.

When staff counselors do teach, we record those sessions and post the recordings to our useful links page on the client login portal to reduce duplication.  Our Statewide Director and counselors also have speaking engagements at events hosted by other organizations. These training opportunities allow our leadership to stay current on an always changing GovCon environment and keep our team informed. In-person training hosted throughout the state allows us to reach audiences we might not otherwise have access to, through partnerships with local economic development and professional organizations. It also gives our attendees the opportunity to network with each other and foster connections that might lead to teaming and subcontracting relationships.

For the greatest impact, we recommend that clients pair training classes with our no-cost counseling services. One place to start getting acclimated to leveraging our training calendar is the training calendar tips page: https://virginiaapex.org/resources/training-calendar-tips/ and before reaching out to a counselor for an appointment, familiarize yourself with the counseling & appointment policies: https://virginiaapex.org/services/counseling/counseling-policies/

How do I obtain a copy of the presentation for the class or webinar I attended?

Generally when instructors make slides available in PDF for the attendees, they will be posted on the Virginia APEX Accelerator eCenter underneath the class description on the page you where you initially registered to attend the class (you must be logged in to view). If you have been advised that slides will be made available, please allow a few business days for the attachment to be posted. If you cannot see the attachment, please contact apex@gmu.edu to verify that you have permission to access the document. Documents will be removed after 1 year. See screenshot below for an example:

Documents are at the bottom of the event description under the instructions

NOTE: A series class session will not display as a separate listing from the overall event in the “My Events” menu of the eCenter. If you do not have a recent reminder email with a direct link to the event page saved, please locate the class description by navigating to the start of the series to locate handouts for all session dates. If you do not remember the start date, please use the search function on the calendar to backdate a few weeks or months and search for the class page by title keywords such as “series” or “pipeline” depending on the individual class:

Choose “Year” to see the class list by full title.

Help – I get an error when attempting to login to the eCenter from outside the USA!

We apologize for the inconvenience, our service provider does not support access to eCenter Direct from outside of the Americas. If you are local and still receiving an error message, please contact us at apex@gmu.edu to report any access issues.