What Really Makes Salespeople Tick When Selling to Government?

05/02/22 • 8 min

We often wonder what underlies the success of people trying to win government contracts. We posed the question (and others) to the best sales manager we've known. Dave Hanna figures he has managed over 300 salespeople in his years. Your host, Rick Wimberly, was one of them when Dave was General Manager of the Government Business Unit of a communications company and Rick was his Sales Manager.
Rick and Dave have spent hours pondering the question of What Really Makes Salespeople Tick. So, we invited him to the studio to talk more about it. Dave is our honored guest on the Myths of Selling to Government.
A common theme for Dave is reflected in this statement, "In my mind, the best salespeople I've been associated with are more interested in their customers than themselves." Surprisingly enough, Dave says it's not really about beating the competition. He says, "That's easy."
Listen to the episode to learn more whether you're an individual contributor, sales leader or founder trying to figure out why you're not selling more to the government.

Previous Episode

Sometimes You Need to Say No in Government Sales

No doubt, you want to impress your government sales prospects and customers with your company's abilities. In fact, you want to dazzle them, right? That may be fine, but sometimes you're better off telling them "No". In this episode of Myths of Selling to Government with host Rick Wimberly, we give examples of what can happen to a company and its employees, including business development folks, when the answer is "yes" when it should be "no".

Next Episode

One of the Biggest Mistakes in Winning Government Contracts

There are many things that can go wrong when trying to close a sale to local, state or federal government. You can think you're well-positioned to close a particular deal you've been cultivating for months, only to find out right at the end of the sales cycle (or at least what you think is the end) that you're not as far along as you thought. You may have been seeing many buying signs, but still...
We talk about these last-minute surprises, One of the Biggest Mistakes in Winning Government Contracts, in this episode of Myths of Selling to Government hosted by Rick Wimberly. We also offer a solution.
Hint: know more about the government client's purchasing process than your client coach does.