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Federal Sales Training
- Federal Sales 101: Winning Government Business
Fedmarket's most popular course, eight-years in the running. Whether you are new to the marketplace or a seasoned veteran this class will jump start your sales endeavors. - Webinar: Selling to the Government from Your Own Backyard
Take 90-minutes and walk away with new approaches to selling to the federal marketplace locally. - Teach Your Onsite Contract Employees to Sell and Win!
A seminar for Primes who want to keep their customers. . - Writing and Managing Winning Proposals
Write less, win more. If you can't afford to waste another minute or dime writing another losing proposal this class is for you. - Advanced Proposal Development Workshop
Improve your ability to manage proposals, reduce rework, and create proposals the evaluators can use to choose you .
Proposals
- Advanced Proposal Development Workshop
Learn how to manage, structure, and write a winning proposal. - Writing & Managing Winning Proposals
Write fewer proposals; win more .
Sales Tools
- Email List of Federal, State and Local Buyers
Bring your product/service to the attention of over 75,000 buyers through an email marketing campaign. . - Federal Sales Book Series
Get on the "inside" track with the Federal Sales Book Series by Richard White.
Articles
- The downside of GSA Schedules
GSA schedule contracts are an ideal vehicle for selling products and services to federal vendors. This is particularly true for small- to medium-sized businesses that cannot afford to obtain more than one multiple award schedule contract... - Negotiating GSA Prices
The General Services Administration (GSA) appears to be placing more emphasis on obtaining the lowest possible price when negotiating GSA schedule contracts... - GSA the World's Biggest Customer
The most confusing aspect of a GSA proposal is the requirement to disclose your discounting practices. GSA uses the disclosures to negotiate a discount equal to or better than the best discount you have extended to your commercial customers... - Internet Posting of Legislation and Stimulus Projects is a Good Thing But...
The Obama administration is keeping its promise of more transparency in federal contract and grant spending. At the state and local level, grants may become contracts; we hope. The status of stimulus project funding legislation will be posted at recovery... - Selling Risk Aversion
Federal end users hate risk. Commercial end users are risk averse but not to the extent of federal end users. Federal end users are measured differently that end users in the commercial sector... - Obama and Federal Sales
Your crystal ball is as good as mine. Mine says the following will happen to federal contracting under the new Obama administration. War spending will go down, slightly impacting DOD contractors negatively... - Selling Services versus Products
The degree to which a business must develop a relationship with the end user is based on the complexity of a service and its uniqueness... - More on Selling Risk Aversion
The previous installment discussed federal end users aversion to risk when selecting a contractor. The fear is particularly acute for rebids of information technology service contracts... - Make it Easy for Federal Buyers
Once you've hired the full-time sales person, made the direct sales calls, established a relationship with the end user, and sold your product or service, you figure you're done, right? No... - When the Sale Takes Place
Almost all newcomers to the federal market make the mistake of thinking that a sales opportunity arises when a request for a proposal or bid is published. In reality by the time a bid is published, the sale has probably already been made... - Learn to Play the Federal Sales Game Like an Insider
How do you play a game where the rules are stacked in favor of insiders? Learn to stack the deck for yourself or don't play. Playing in the federal market is a game in the same sense that selling in the commercial market is a game... - Act Immediately to Add Federal Revenue to Your Company
We have repeatedly stressed in prior newsletters that the federal market is recession proof and an ideal source for additional revenue. Naysayers will although the market may be recession proof, it has a long sales lead time... - Comparison of Federal Multi-vendor Contracts
It is difficult to be a successful federal contractor without having a multi-vendor contract. The basic types of multi-vendor contracts are summarized below... - Become an Insider in the Federal Market
Consider becoming an insider and share in the fruits of the world's largest market. Remember, the insiders were outsiders at one point in time and the game is not that tough to play once you understand it... - Who Sells in the Federal Market?
The person who sells products and services in the federal market depends on the type of product or service being sold, the size of the company, and the dollar value of the procurement... - Federal Sales and Self Interest, the Federal End User
The next four installments discuss how self interest impacts people involved in the federal buying process. Buyers in the commercial and federal sectors behave in the same manner... - The Role of Best Value in Federal Purchasing
What does the term "Best Value" mean to a sales person selling in the federal market? In short, it means that federal buyers do not have to select the vendor with the lowest price... - Guidelines for Companies New to Government Contracting
Sales people take note. You are free to meet with and sell federal end users. Federal purchasing rules not only allow it but encourage it... - Are Federal Bids Wired?
A common perception about federal public bids is that they are "wired," implying that the bid is set up or rigged to favor a particular company... - Pre-selling and Competition
In buying services and solutions federal buyers need to meet with vendors to determine the intangible aspects of what they are buying including feature, benefit, and risks... - People Buy Not Agencies
Contrary to popular belief, people buy in the federal market, not agencies. The only way to make a federal sale is to contact a buyer through a direct sales call... - Should We or Shouldn't We
Should you join the parade to grab some of endless flow of federal contracting opportunities? The federal government has always been an extremely lucrative market; world events are just making it more visible... - Let the Light Shine In
A huge problem that newcomers face when trying to enter the federal market place is that it is enormously difficult to find end users (the person with money who needs what a company is selling)... - Real versus Bureaucratic Requirements
When selling solutions to federal buyers, you must recognize the difference between bureaucratic and real requirements. Keep in mind that the bureaucracy may not see the solution as you do... - Developing a Federal Sales Plan
How early should you identify a sales opportunity in the federal market? The answer is that an opportunity must be identified before anyone, including the customer, knows that an opportunity exists... - Small Businesses and Federal Sales
The following question often surfaces at our seminars, "What procedures should be followed by small businesses eager to participate in the federal market?" The answer to this question is that a small business should implement an aggressive federal s... - Selling Services to Federal Agencies
Our newsletters repeatedly emphasize the need to establish a relationship with end users when selling in the federal market... - Improve Your Proposals: First, Deconstruct the RFP
The proposal writing process starts with the Bid/No Bid decision. Ideally, a yes decision will be based on what you know about the customer from sales efforts carried out well before the Request for Proposal (RFP) is published... - Solving the Proposal Writing Dilemma
Our last installment discussed the haphazard and disjointed federal proposal writing efforts that take place in most companies and why they occur. This installment presents concrete steps that can be taken to minimize the problem. 1... - Integration of Sales and Proposal Writing
Our last installment discussed the concrete steps that should be taken to minimize haphazard and disjointed efforts to write federal proposals... - Write the Executive Summary Early
In a recent installment "Solving the Proposal Dilemma", we recommended that you write the Executive Summary before the proposal kickoff meeting... - Best Practices and Best Avoided
Our seminar staff recently completed one of our monthly seminars on proposal writing. As we do in every class, we discussed how proposals should be written to be the "last proposal standing" or, said in Fedmarket-speak, a defensive proposal... - What is Wrong with the Proposal Review Process?
Many companies have proposal reviews of different colors. The reviews we'll focus on in this installment are the two most common, Pink and Red Team reviews... - The Proposal Theme
A Rhetorical Infrastructure for Selling You want to make your message unforgettable to your potential clients, and you want to show why you are superior to all competitors... - Hot Buttons Tell Your Customers You Get It
From last week's post, you probably took away that the proposal theme (see The Proposal Theme: A Rhetorical Infrastructure for Selling) is not just some fluff language... - Storyboards Save Time and Effort
Storyboards are conceptual planning tools used to help writers plan each section before drafting text. In the broadest sense, storyboards use words and graphics to outline a concept... - Why Proposals Win
Winning a bid opportunity does not occur due to blind luck. Wins are almost always the result of intense and aggressive upfront sales efforts to end users. Deciding on whether to bid on an opportunity can be a stressful and challenging task... - If You Write Nothing Else, Write an Executive Summary
The Executive Summary should drive the proposal writing effort. It should be written before the proposal kick-off meeting so that the selling points made in the draft summary can be stressed throughout the proposal... - In Proposal Writing Second is the Same as Last
In many ways, writing a federal proposal is like writing a college term paper. However, the similarities end with the results. In college, you may have been reasonably happy to accept a B... - Addressing Questions to the Government
Part of the responsibility of the proposal manager is to elicit questions from team members to be addressed to the government... - Don't Get Stuck as a Subcontractor
Small businesses need to get their first federal contract to become part of the club of insiders - those companies with contracts - that the federal government favors when it buys products and services... - A Renewed Emphasis on Proposals
There is a widespread perception that the preparation of an extensive and exhaustive proposal is a necessary evil inherent to doing work with the federal government... - Figure Captions, the Unexplored Selling Frontier
Given the following table: Number of Personnel Position Responsibility 1 Project Manager Management of the project 1 System Architect Software architecture 1 Data architect Database architecture 3 Business Analyst Identificat... - You Can't Learn Proposal Writing from a Book
Crafting a well written and compelling proposal is a complex and difficult task... - GSA and Most Favored Customer Pricing
A recent newsletter discussed that the General Service Administration (GSA) has encountered procurement problems and has initiated a "Get It Right" campaign to improve acquisition regulation compliance... - GSA Visits Contractor Sites
GSA will visit you to make sure you're tracking your GSA sales properly. GSA's auditors will also pay close attention to whether you have offered better pricing to the "basis of award group" defined under your GSA Schedule contract... - GSA Schedules and Small Businesses
As reported in earlier installments, the federal government's use of multi-vendor contracts to buy products and services is steadily increasing... - GSA Schedule Competition in Real Life
For political reasons the federal government takes the position that competition for federal contracts is 'full and open"... - You Can't Do Government Business Without One
Government agencies cannot operate without a way to buy quickly and efficiently in the same way as commercial companies. But competition is still required under public procurement laws. GSA schedule prices are pre-negotiated with the vendor... - What Drives Companies to Pursue GSA Schedules?
Sales numbers for a particular Schedule may be interesting to look at, but the numbers are all large and not particularly useful to individual companies... - Selling to the Feds
Federal end-users, such as human resource program managers, engineers, or facility managers, make most purchasing decisions. As the term implies, the end-user is the person who will actually use the service... - Report from the GSA Expo, San Antonio, TX 2006
GSA Schedule holders, GSA employees, government buyers and end users descended upon San Antonio, TX the week of May 14, 2006 for the GSA Expo... - When Selling to the Government, Know Your Audience!
I have to write about this subject because I was in a sales pitch presentation today and I walked away from the presentation angry and frustrated... - Never Turn Down a Chance to Take the Tour
Washington, DC - Winter, 2003 "Meet me at the Capitol South metro stop. That's the only way I'm going to be able to let you in. I'll be wearing a black coat... - Call Your Area Military Base and Get a Tour
When I was sixteen years old, I remember driving to Selfridge Air Force Base outside of Detroit to go pick up some groceries for the family... - When Selling To The Government, You Have to "Dig" For Gold
"One of the largest mistakes I've seen in the business is that companies just scratch the surface of many agencies and never find a dime's worth of business, " said Richard White, Owner of Wood River Technologies and Fedmarket... - The Only Way To Uncover Government Business is to Focus, Focus, Focus!
How did you feel when you first considered selling to the government? I always thought I was looking into the face of the "Great and Powerful Oz." It seemed overwhelming and a little frightening... - Her First Day "On the Sales Firing Line" - Eileen Kent Goes to Washington
On my very first day alone selling to the government in Washington, DC, I took a Metro Train to the L’Enfant Plaza stop... - Department of Homeland Security - Relationships with GSA Schedules Win Business
When I took my first Fedmarket.com class in mid-2002 called "Selling to the Department of Homeland Security," there were over 70 people in the room drooling for business... - How to Make them See You - Creating Urgency
Message left at 10:00 a.m."Hello, this is Eileen Kent and I’m in town today. My understanding is that you’re responsible for continuity of operations... - Running into Old Friends in City Procurement While Teaching in Michigan
A funny thing happened to me in Warren, Michigan, during the break of my Winning Government Business class for Detroit at the end of September of 2004... - Do You Want To Win Government Business?
Midnight Friday, Midway Airport - I arrived home to Chicago exhausted after teaching a class and took the trek downstairs to the baggage claim... - Do You Want To Win Government Business? Do Not Respond to "Public Request for Proposals"
When I started selling to the government, I thought it made sense to see where all of the opportunities were being posted. I found a great spot online: Fedbizopps.gov. I could simply search by word, agency, procurement type, dollar amount, location... - Thanksgiving - A Great Opportunity
A perfect time to reflect on all of the people and things we appreciate... - Turn a Losing "Blind Bid" into a Winning Opportunity
An agency of the US Government may send you a random Request for Proposal, which looks like it is a perfect fit for your organization... - GATEKEEPERS - The Sales Rep's Best Friend
The owners of our companies expect the sales people to be making cold calls that sound professional and direct... - Getting Embedded in Government Sales Circle
One of the keys to success in the government is to develop a strong relationship at an agency. My contention is to take it another step: you need to become not just an insider, but embedded... - Now's the Time To Sell To the Government, Now's The Time to "Get Real"
Some people sell with enthusiasm, others are more laid back. The best sales technique is to be yourself - a human being looking to help government employees by making their job easier and following the rules... - Agency Uncovered
When I taught "Winning Government Business" and "Selling to the Government" this week, I found there was an interesting trend in the attendees... - Finding a Great Government Sales Executive
We were asked by a recent attendee of our "Winning Government Business" class in Atlanta how to find a great person to sell his products and services... - Is Selling to the Feds Worth the Hassle?
Is it worth doing business with the government? This is a question all of us ask ourselves daily... - Throw Out Your Brochures and Your Power Point Presentations
For the past two years, I have been on the road coaching sales executives on how to sell to the government. During this time, I've seen a trend among experienced, high-powered executives during classroom role plays... - Formula for Government Sales Success Depends On Many Factors, But The Number of "Impressions" Each Week is The Manager's Key
Business owners are constantly challenged with the issue of what to expect from their government sales executives in terms of time management, goals and actual results... - Top Ten Mistakes, Relationship Killers and Wastes of Time
Should your company try one of the approaches outlined below while trying to do business with the government, you will end up at a dead end and will have a seriously demoralized federal sales team. My Top Ten List of Mistakes is as follows: 1... - How Can You Kick Out the Incumbent?
Companies with Key Relationships on the Inside Are Winning Government Business. How Can You Kick Out the Incumbent? Understand Your Customers and Solve Their Problems... - Patience, Persistence, Perseverance Are the Keys to Winning Government Business
When I took a class from Richard White on "Doing Business with Homeland Security," in early 2002, I was absolutely shocked to hear, "It will take well over 12 months to get business from the government... - November 2005 Thank Your Federal Clients During Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving - a perfect time to reflect on all of the people and things we appreciate... - Goal for 2006 - Focus, Focus, Focus
How did you feel when you first considered selling to the government? I always thought I was looking into the face of the "Great and Powerful Oz." The process seemed overwhelming and a little frightening... - There is A Fine Line Between Assertive Sales and Aggressive Sales -- What Is It?
In my "Federal Sales 101 - Winning Government Business" class, many sales people ask me, "When am I being too pushy?" My take is that the government employee hardly ever comes out and tells you so... - Disaster Response and Recovery: Is There an Opportunity for You to Help?
While the politicians and department directors argue over what went wrong during the Katrina disaster, savvy contractors are becoming more and more embedded in the agencies... - Training is the Answer
Are You One or More of the Following: New to selling to the federal government Frustrated by the roadblocks you have encountered in selling to the federal government? Experienced with selling to the government but you need a little boost? Tra... - More Hot News Puts Private Sector "On the Sales Firing Line"
It seems that I see more and more headlines that virtually beg you to make the cold call. The government is literally pounding the table asking for your help... - Interviewing Your Potential Federal Client is Much Easier Than Selling to Your Client
Sales executives tend to rush into the offices of federal end users and contracting officers and start performing the dog and pony show... - In Business, Business is Business. In Government, Business is Personal.
When you are selling to a commercial business and there's a problem, late delivery or glitch of any sort, the client understands you are not doing this to them personally... - Selling IT: Introduction to the Government IT Sector
Governments at all levels are becoming citizen-centric in delivering services, e.g., developing Internet portals that provide single points of entry for citizens and businesses... - Selling IT: Sales and Marketing Basics
Company managers new to government sales often view governments as bureaucratic bodies from another world, imbued with strange and mysterious procurement rules, rules designed to confuse and even intimidate... - Selling IT: Business Development
In our newsletters, we talk a lot about the importance of advanced knowledge -- knowing about an agency, its people, its nuances and, most importantly, its program goals... - Selling IT: Agency Focus
In the prior installment on selling IT to governments, we talked about business development, distinguishing "inside" from "outside... - Finding and Selling to End-Users in the Government
In past installments, we talked about finding the "right" agencies, namely the ones that are interested in buying your company's products or services... - Selling IT: Marketing IT to the Government
In this article, we define marketing as activities to make the public, official buyers and end-users aware of your company and your products or services... - Selling Open Market Items
In past installments we talked about how a contracting officer who wants to buy off the GSA Schedule will sometimes choose to issue requests for quotes (even though the FAR doesn't require it) when: She's not quite convinced yours is the best soluti...
