Selling to Government Author:Michael Asner Written from the perspective of a would-be government supplier, Selling to Government focuses on the key issues involved in public sector purchasing. Author Michael Asner provides a road map for aspiring suppliers and provides a sound introduction for all those new to government procurement processes and practices. Selling to Government wi... more »ll also help large organizations develop much needed public information kits on their own purchasing policies and practices. This book is designed for people with little experience in selling to government, or more generally, the public sector. It is designed to help people who already know how to market and sell, but who only have experience in the private sector. It is designed to help these people sell and market to the public sector. By the end of this book, having completed several hours of reading, you will, hopefully, have gained some new understandings. More specifically, you will know: Why selling to the public sector is good business.How the purchasing function in the public sector differs from that in the private sector. The different types of acquisition processes used.
Where to find out more about any of the issues raised in this book.
How to develop a plan for getting government business.
What it takes to win using a proposal as the sales tool.
This book is intended to promote understanding - to provide you with sufficient information about selling to government that you can deal effectively with public sector buyers, their organizations, and their laws, regulations, policies and bureaucracies. You will understand the terms and jargon that they use. You will be able to have a conversation with a public sector buyer. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to nod knowledgeably when buyers use terms such as "sealed competitive bidding" and "best and final offer". You will understand the procurement processes used by these organizations. You will be able to discuss marketing to the public sector with your boss and sound credible. You will be able to discuss bidders lists, the RFP process, and sole sourcing. Having told you all the positive outcomes you can expect from this short book, let me also identify its limitations. In reading this material, you will acquire much information about procurement practices in the public sector. You will not however sharpen many of your current marketing and selling skills. This book will not give you any additional insight as to when to "no bid". It will not help you identify strategic marketing opportunities; nor will it help you differentiate your company from the competition. Finally, this book will not contribute to your ability to define proposal strategy, set pricing or to write effectively. All of these topics and issues are left to other, more advanced texts and courses. This book is divided into 5 broad topics. Topic 1 is The Road Map. It deals with basic concepts and fundamental questions: How do we sell to government?
Is the public sector that different from the private sector?
Why bother? Why direct your marketing and selling efforts to the public sector?
Why is public sector procurement so onerous?
Topic 2 describes The Vehicles. It explains basic procurement processes:
How are goods and services acquired? What is a bid?
What is a proposal? What is a winning proposal?
What is the RFP process?
The third topic, continuing our journey', gets us to Points of Interest - topics which will help you sell to government. These include:
How to create a winning proposal
Understanding the steps in the evaluation process
A few words about some contract issues.
In Topic 4, I will discuss Detours and Shortcuts - other ways of acquiring goods and services. This topic deals with:
Small dollar acquisitions.
Sole sourcing
Unsolicited proposals
Emergency procurements
Requests For Information
The final topic deals with sources of more information. As part of this material, we have provided only a small sample and some pointers to additional reference material including:BR> A selected bibliography on proposal writing