5 Critical Tactics when Selling to the Defense Department
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Wed, Sep 03, 2008 @ 03:57 PM
While today's post is specifically about selling software development tools to the DoD, anyone selling anything to the DoD can increase sales by utilizing these skills, whether you're an inside sales or a field sales rep. I was very successful selling tools to the DoD when many of my sales colleagues could not, because they couldn't navigate the system well enough, and didn't ask as many good questions as they could have. Much of what I'll discuss today is from the curriculum I teach in my devtools classes. Here are a few tips that can help you to increase sales when you are selling to the Department of Defense and their contractors.
1) Titles are king. Get the title of everyone in the decision structure, so you know how high up the ladder you are, and who will be responsible for making the final decision. There will probably be consultants on board. If so, ask what their roles will be in the decision process.
2) Always ask the name of the project. Much of the time it will be a "black project" and they're not allowed to tell you the name. That's OK, because they'll have an alternate ersatz name that they just use for vendors, and they'll give that to you. The DoD can get pretty confusing at times, and the ersatz project name is one way for you to keep everyone knowing what you're talking about.
3) Ask what other elements in the DoD and defense contractors are involved with the project. Others will be contributing code, developing subsystems, you name it. You'll then want to contact these others to ensure they're all going with your solution, and not talking to your competition. Get contact names and titles from your prime contact. You want everyone on the same page.
4) Graphically chart the decision process by using an org chart. The best I ever saw do this was Pete Tarbox at the Mathworks. To chart one defense contractor's 82 lines of business, he had 4 walls of charts. In fact, his whole job was pretty much to chart this particular contractor, and because of his great work, his company was aware of pretty much every contract for which they had a solution. You don't have to use all four walls like Pete, just keep a paper or electronic graph (like Visio) handy so that you always know where you are with your primary contact as well as every other entity that touches your project and will need your solutions. Reps have lost big sales because they failed to keep track. In technical sales to the DoD, you don't want your competitor doing a better job or charting than you do.
5) Subscribe to a defense journal appropriate to your solution, and make contact with people mentioned in the articles and the authors themselves. They're the experts, and know others making decisions on solutions like yours. They may or may not give you other names, but folks in the DoD come to them for advice, and word on good solutions travels fast in the Defense Department. The best journal I've seen is CrossTalk, a terrific publication if you're selling tools to DoD clients. The website is www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2008/09/index.html You can subscribe there free of charge, and one of the Best Practices articles on this month's page will have some interest for you if you're selling tools. It's at www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2008/09/0809Goertzel.html I've sold millions of dollars of DoD solutions via contacts I made through CrossTalk. If you sell something other than tools, ask your DoD contacts for the name of the publically accessible journal they read. If it's sponsored by the government, it's free, and as a citizen, you can subscribe.
Perhaps the most critical key to remember is that to whomever you're speaking, you're the boss. Your tax dollars pay for the defense industry and its defense journals. It's in your best interest as a citizen to ensure that our country adopt the most effective solution possible. If you don't believe you've got the best solution on the planet, you shouldn't be selling it. But you do, and you can articulate that to anyone from a General to a consultant. Using the five points above, you should now be able to navigate through the Defense world to sell your solution more effectively. Add these to your Best Practices playbook.