Public Sector

Sales Enablement

Stop just reacting and start driving your Public Sector sales growth

Because of the bureaucratic challenges of selling to cities, counties and schools, sales teams would rather focus on commercial sales and just react to public sector opportunities. After all, we all want our sales reps selling and not filling out government paperwork, so why go looking for it, right? Well, commercial markets are now fiercely competitive (and volatile), so many businesses are seeking to be more proactive in driving growth in the large, reliable and underserved public sector market.

FIRST, businesses need to understand the challenges that their public sector customers face.
According to a recent survey, the top sited challenges of public sector buyers are:

1. Researching products and vendors,
2. Meeting contracting guidelines,
3. Staffing limitations,
4. Too few competing vendors,
5. Recruiting quality vendors and seeking competitive pricing, and
6. Working with vendors.

SECOND, businesses should adapt their sales processes in order to help buyers navigate this challenging buying environment. Based on Vendor Registry’s experience with hundreds of government agencies using its platform to manage hundreds of millions of spend with 60,000 vendors, we recommend the following best practices.

Get ahead of the process

With over 18,000 school districts in the US (for example), it’s unreasonable to expect your salespeople to call on all of them consistently. With available data, however, you can identify which schools already in the buying process. Getting in early enables you to build relationships (when the buyer is interested) and sell direct, as opposed to going through an RFP.

Diligently stay compliant

In an environment of increased transparency and bad purchasing deals making headlines, government agencies are evaluating vendors with greater scrutiny. By willingly following the rules, you’ll stand above the crowd of vendors trying to take short cuts. Get registered, get noticed and get in the know.

Be accessible

In larger companies with matrixed sales and marketing organizations and overlapping product offerings and brands, buyers don’t know who to contact. Give them an obvious front door and answer when they knock. In an age of Account Based Marketing (ABM), it is shocking how hard it is to reach a salesperson. Make it easy, and you’ll get the call.

Build relationships and be helpful

That front door should open to a consistent buying experience delivered by a specific person who can begin to build trust. Remember, buyers are looking to learn about market trends and product offerings. So, first and foremost, be a market resource and, like a friend, help without expectation. If you invest for the long haul, you’ll be rewarded. Because of their painful buying experience, buyers look for longer-term partners.

Participate in the process

Be a willing participant in THEIR process. It establishes your interest level, seriousness in following the rules, and, thus, your credibility and trustworthiness. So, get registered as a vendor, attend pre-bid meetings, ask questions, be present! Even if you don’t win this one, you’re making a first impression for future opportunities.

Offer the path-of-least-resistance to purchase

It’s critical to understand a government agency’s purchasing options, because not everything needs to be bid through an RFP process. Educate them on your direct purchase opportunities, such as through a cooperative contract. You’re more likely to make the buyer’s day if they can get the product they want at a competitively bid price without going through a time-consuming, costly and unpredictable RFP process.

WHEN YOU’RE READY to be proactive about growing your public sector sales, Vendor Registry can source pre-qualified and pre-RFP leads and make the government paperwork go away so your team can focus on selling the right deals for your company.