On this month’s episode of The Business of Defense Rich Brady speaks with Leigh Ann Hope, CEO and Founder of FTSFederal, Inc. about her early days of federal contracting.

Pay tuition? What does that have to do with thriving as a government contractor and, more specifically, how to succeed as a small GovCon on Defense Department programs?

Everything, said FTS Federal’s Leigh Ann Hope. The founder and CEO of FTS Federal views earning institutional knowledge and stockpiling best practices and lessons learned as paying tuition.

“I call it tuition that I’ve learned from scraped elbows and knees, of mistakes made, of lessons learned,” she said of her experiences having now launched two GovCon businesses in the Defense sector.

“I earned a Ph.D. in tuition and running a small business,” Hope said.

What’s the takeaway from that “tuition” that Hope paid over the years? She shared a few during an interview for the American Society of Military Comptrollers’ The Business of Defense podcast on Federal News Network.

Pay tuition Tip 1: Embrace the business aspects of your GovCon work

Continue reading for more early lessons learned from Hope about the business of federal contracting.