{"id":1072,"date":"2016-02-28T16:19:16","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T21:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/?p=1072"},"modified":"2016-02-29T08:16:12","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T13:16:12","slug":"selling-to-the-government-and-municipalities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/2016\/02\/28\/selling-to-the-government-and-municipalities\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling to the Government and Municipalities"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>I recently had a great conversation with an old friend about this topic, specifically about making a presentation to a group of decision makers and influencers. Below is the summary of my advice to him.<\/h4>\n<h4>Rule 1: Don\u2019t waste precious time talking about how great your company is, how many locations or how much yearly revenue it achieves. Customers want to know SPECIFICALLY how you can solve their problems and how you can save them money.<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h4>Governments\/schools are two verticals highly resistant to change but they do<a href=\"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/presentation-scale.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-759 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/presentation-scale-269x300.png\" alt=\"presentation-scale\" width=\"269\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/presentation-scale-269x300.png 269w, https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/presentation-scale.png 531w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 269px) 100vw, 269px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nunderstand budgets and DOLLARS.<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h4>Tie problems\/issues together with their price tags EARLY and often in your presentation.<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h4>People can\u2019t cognitively get their head around the big numbers quickly. DO NOT try a big, dramatic reveal just before presenting the investment (not price). If you try and pull a \u201cROI rabbit\u201d out of your hat at the end of a presentation they will initially think it is a \u201csales trick.\u201d Build the ROI case slowly from the beginning, so they are doing the math as they go.<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h4>Now, when presenting the investment (not price) customers already have the simple math down and are thinking \u201cthis solution amortizes itself over x years or months.\u201d<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><strong>Final Point: The first thing government, schools and the like think when seeing they can save money on a potential solution is what they can buy with the savings. Remember the nature of budgets in governments, municipalities and schools is if you don\u2019t use it, you lose it. \u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h4><strong>What else is in their plans? <\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h4><strong>What projects could they fund with the savings from your project?<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h4><strong>How would it make the decision maker(s) look like heroes? <\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/coach-scale.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-767 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/coach-scale-178x300.png\" alt=\"coach-scale\" width=\"178\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/coach-scale-178x300.png 178w, https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/coach-scale.png 282w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 178px) 100vw, 178px\" \/><\/a>If you can answer these questions, if you can make the DMs heroes or make a dream project come true you are not a sales person but a savior and the sale closes itself!<\/h4>\n<h4>Remember the words of Seth Godin \u201cPeople rarely buy what they need, they buy what they want.\u201d<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently had a great conversation with an old friend about this topic, specifically about making a presentation to a group of decision makers and influencers. Below is the summary of my advice to him. Rule 1: Don\u2019t waste precious time talking about how great your company is, how many locations or how much yearly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17,25,29,56,55,57,46,42,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-players","category-best-practice","category-communication-skills","category-continual-development","category-customer","category-proposals-that-sell","category-prospects","category-sales-3-0","category-sales-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1084,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions\/1084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}