Myths of Selling to Government Rick Wimberly

Pricing can be a complicated subject when trying to win government contracts.  Government pricing rules can be different, dependent on whether you're dealing with federal, state or local government. Then, organizations within federal, state or local government can have different rules for procurement, including pricing.

In this episode of Myths of Selling to Government, host Rick Wimberly of Government Selling Solutions presents seven rules that always apply when working to win government contracts, regardless of federal, state or local government procurement rules. Some of these rules may surprise you. For example, the government is not always looking for the lowest price. If not, then what are they looking for, you may ask. (It's not a limited time offer.) Find out in this episode of Myths of Selling to Government with Rick Wimberly.

Few government contracts are won without some type of presentation. You've either got someone interested in what you offer, and they want their colleagues and bosses to know about it, or you've been asked to present as part of a government procurement.

In this episode, we answer three key questions about presenting to the government.
When should you present? Sometimes, you won't have a choice, but other times you might. And, there's a good time to present and a bad time. Often, government contracting wannabes spend a lot of time brainstorming, even arguing, over WHAT to present to impress their prospects and miss the most important piece.What should be your sequence of your presentation? How many times have we sat through meetings where this topic is debated among marketing, technology, sales leadership, channel partners? The presenter is sometimes left dumbfounded. There's often a fundamental truth about presentation sequence that's ignored.What if you're one among others who will present? Do you want to present first, in the middle or last?Our guest Tony Lannom of Axiom Sales Kinetics has been studying these questions for years, and has trained some real pros. He has excellent answers to these questions in this episode of Myths of Selling to Government hosted by Rick Wimberly of Government Selling Solutions.

To win government contracts, you need to hunt like a hawk to find problems in government that you can solve with your product or service. Host Rick Wimberly of Government Selling Solutions says that's only the beginning. Even with a problem identified, you may find that your local, state or federal prospect, despite their acknowledgement of the problem, isn't really interested in solving the problem...at the moment. 

Be patient and keep the relationship alive, Rick says, as he tells a story of how a client thought an opportunity was dead, only to see it come back alive on a holiday eve. 

In a departure from the norm, podcast host Rick Wimberly discloses the type of listener he envisions as he prepares Myths of Selling to Government podcast episodes. He says he doesn't consider his audience to be people who believe the get-rich-quick-selling-to-the-government ads. 

Instead, Myths of Selling to Government targets those who are committed to the craft of winning government contracts. They realize the timeframe is long, and the work is tough...before it becomes rewarding.

There's a reason it takes so long to close a government contract. You've got to sell it twice! In this episode of Myths of Selling to Government, host Rick Wimberly talks with a government contracting expert about why this is true. 

Kevin Jans of Skyway Acquisition calls the two sales you must make to win a government contract: the "technical" sale and the "business" sale. The technical sale is to the people who are trying to solve a problem. The business sale is to the people who are in charge of the organization's contracting. Kevin says their interests and considerations are totally different, they don't work in the same chain of command, and they may not even know each other. 

Kevin and Rick offer tips on how to build pipeline and succeed winning government contracts within this tough reality.

With greater access to communications channels, we often communicate is reactive mode - that is, in response to someone else's urgency. This isn't always bad, but when it becomes the practice, rather than the exception, it interferes with your ability to plan your work and work your plan.

You would think this would make us more cautious and conservative with the volume of information we produce and consume. However, just the opposite is happening. We just can't help it.

In this episode of Myths of Selling to Government, host Rick Wimberly talks about the three elements that must be present for us to communicate effectively with our prospects and, well, everyone - relevance, timeliness and reliability.