Ladies, bid it and win it! Q10 can help.  On July 22, 2014 Governor McAuliffe signed Executive Order 20: Advancing Equity for Small, Women, and Minority Owned Businesses (SWaM), which expands contracting opportunities for small businesses in the Commonwealth. The executive order sets the highest contracting goal in Virginia history of state expenditures to SWaM-certified businesses at 42%. It also creates a new “micro business” designation for small businesses with no more than 25 employees and no more than $3 million in revenue. Currently, over 80% of SWaM certified companies fall under this micro business category but often have to compete with companies over ten times their size for contracting opportunities.