Public Sector Sales

Three Reasons why most Great Sales People struggle to Sell to the Government (and what to do about it)

Do you ever wonder why some very good sales people struggle to hack the government sales regardless of how hard they work? There are many causes but, these three account for over 70% of why you missed out on the last opportunity.  The reasons are lack of essential knowledge, lack of critical competencies and wrong mindset on selling to the government.

1.       Lack of Essential Knowledge

Many sales people are ignorant about how public organizations buy. They lack essential knowledge about who buys, what are the buying motivations, the context in which the buying decision are made and the buyer influences involved in the various buying situations. As a consequence majority of sales people seeking to sell to public institutions grope in the dark hoping to hold on something or someone who will help get some form of success. As they do so they miss some obvious opportunities while engaging in wild goose chase of opportunities they are more likely to lose than win.

Knowledge is power is a famous line and those who seek to sell to public institutions should be reciting it every day of their working life.  You should seek knowledge in and about every public institution you would like to sell to.

Once you have gathered this knowledge you should be able to break it into critical knowledge, the good to know and the useless knowledge.

Those who have critical knowledge of a particular sales situation will always beat those who do not.

2.       Lack of Public Sector Competencies

The essential sales competencies that are required in public sector sales are different from the ones required in selling to private firms and the NGOs.  However many sales people assume they are the same. Many of them have never been able to pick out the competencies that make some seemingly mediocre sales people excel in selling to public institutions while they are doing well in the private sector struggle. They imagine that the public sector is a more bureaucratic private institution. It is not!

3.       The Wrong Mindset

There are too many myths about selling to public institutions. As a consequence many sales people are either held hostage by these myths or plan and execute their sales strategy on these myths. One such myth is that the procurement officers and managers are the most important people in public procurement. That is why all sales people seem to spend all their selling time in the organization focusing on the procurement office. While they may experience some low level successes they will continuously miss out on big successes.

If your business sells to public sector then you need to address these causes otherwise, your business will continue to struggle. To learn how you can be more effective in Public Sector Sales plan to attend The Selling to the Government Seminar.

The Selling to Government training is designed to equip you with the essential knowledge, skills and mindset shift so as you can make become proficient in this critical competency  every corporate sales professional need to master.

The course is delivered by experts who fully understand the inner workings of how government institutions buy. They will help you appreciate the written and the unwritten rules of selling to public institutions.

Next course taking place on March 2nd - 3rd at The Nairobi Safari Club. Contact  Kendi@growthpartners.co.ke  for more details. Or call 020 8012627/ 0711671843