Washington DC Businesses Need Sales Training to Compete

Delivering business sales training in Washington DC for the past three decades has been a rewarding and challenging, endeavor.

Many of our clients here sell to the government, so I hear many of stories about deals taking months or years to close, the many layers of red tape that have to be navigated, and even a little bit of gossip from The Hill. I enjoy seeing how things have changed since my days as a submarine captain and later, as a government software contractor.

Despite the changes, many things have stayed the same when it comes to selling here. Any business trying to penetrate this market needs business sales training Washington-style, becauseselling here has a few elements which need to be mastered to be successful.

Learn the lingo

Business sales training in Washington DC has to give at least some thought to handling the vast amount of government lingo, particularly when it comes to selling to the Department of Defense and related industries. Just about everything related to the DoD is an acronym or specialized term.

A cheat sheet of common terms is a good start, or links to online glossaries which explain many of the terms. Here is one basic government contracting glossary, and here is a more comprehensive DoD glossary for you to become familiar with the language.

Build relationships

To build buyer relationships in Washington DC is not quite as simple as you might think. As you can imagine, it’s very political – I mean literally political! You must navigate this world carefully, because affiliating with the “wrong” political party or elected official can shut some doors.

Business sales training in Washington should teach some best practices on making appointments with difficult to reach decision makers, and how to avoid getting blacklisted because of your political beliefs.

Prepare complex bids

The amount of red tape you must cut through in submitting RFPs to the government can be overwhelming to the uninitiated. There is a lot to it, not least of which is understanding and using the specialized lingo as covered in the first subheading above. And if you fail to cross a ‘t’ or dot an ‘I’, you can blow your chances immediately.

Asher Strategies has over ten years of experience training businesses in how to sell to the government and its contractors. We can help you prepare bids properly and competitively, increasing your chances for landing lucrative government business. Remember, just one contract is enough to keep many companies in the black for years – so it pays to invest in business sales training in Washington which improves your odds of submitting winning bids.

Whether you need basic sales training, or are searching for solutions for complex government sales situations, Asher Strategies can help. I invite you to contact one of our sales specialists and explore your options. There is no cost or obligation for the first consultation.