Top 10 Tips for Selling (more) to the Public Sector
Tenderlake's top 10 tips for selling more to the public sector.
Tenderlake's top 10 tips for selling more to the public sector.
Follow Tenderlake on LinkedIn for concise insights on public-sector tenders and emerging procurement signals.
Around 250,000 public sector organisations spend about £3 trillion of public procurement annually in the UK and EU. To level the playing field, most of this is procured via regulated and transparent processes.
Business leaders are rightly asking, “How can we grow our sales to the public sector?”
Here are our top 10 tips to grow your sales to the public sector in the UK/EU (plus Switzerland and Norway.
Your team needs to know about every relevant public tender opportunity.
Because bidding for contracts takes considerable time and work, you want to have as many relevant opportunities as possible to choose from. This allows you to focus on those that are just right for your business.
Traditionally, monitoring for relevant public tenders has been done using keywords and/or CPV codes, a classification of tenders commonly used in the UK/EU.
There are two problems when using this “basic” approach: it misses many relevant opportunities and produces many false positives. This often leads to wasting too much time sifting through mostly irrelevant notices to find those that are just right for your business.
Imagine your business provides training services. Naturally, you will search for keywords like “training services” and similar.
But when a buyer, who is looking for training services, publishes a procurement notice that says “We are looking for a supplier to help upskill our workforce”, this will not match the search terms for “training services” or similar.
OK, you think, we can just search for upskill and workforce, and we will catch that opportunity.
Of course, but the buyer might write “We are looking for a supplier to help with the upskilling of our staff”.
Again, the buyer means “training services”, but uses one of hundreds of ways of communicating this.
Trying to frame your searches to catch all relevant opportunities using keywords is a game you will always lose.
With Tenderlake’s AI search, this problem doesn’t exist. You can simply describe what you do in normal language: “We provide training services in areas such as digital productivity and cyber security awareness. Classes are delivered in-house or online.”
Tenderlake immediately understands the meaning of what is described and the space that the supplier operates in and will match it with relevant procurement notices that are looking for a service in the same space, even if there is not a single shared word or phrase in the description of your products/services and the procurement notice.
But not only that, because Tenderlake also understands the context, the above AI Search will not return notices that for example mention cyber security as an unrelated mention in the procurement notice.
Keywords, phrases and CPV codes have their place, but only when you want every single opportunity that matches.
For example, If you are offering solutions for contactless payments you may want to have a keyword search for the standard ISO/IEC 7816, as an appearance of this standard in a public procurement context is likely to make the procurement interesting for you.
However, your default approach to monitoring for relevant public procurement opportunities should be to describe your products and services in plain language, not to try and shoehorn them into a complex set of searches that won’t do the job anyhow.
If you want to grow your sales to the public sector, being on a framework is of great importance so monitor vigorously for new opportunities.
Many believe that being on a framework means that the framework owner will exclusively consider you and other listed suppliers when making purchases for items covered by the framework. But this is only one element of the much bigger set of important reasons.
Being on a public sector framework gives you a contracting vehicle that does away with much of the work involved with bidding for contracts. Often, when you are on a framework, you just submit a quote, as all the other formalities are taken care of in the process of joining the framework.
What is often overlooked is that being on a framework with one public sector buyer usually enables you to sell to most other public sector buyers using this framework. This is because public sector buyers can usually use frameworks run by other public sector buyers.
However, always remember that public sector buyers usually do not know which frameworks or contracting vehicles are available to them if they want to place an order with you. Informing them about this is of paramount importance.
When it comes to selecting which frameworks to join, it is usually best to join large, well-known frameworks that are specifically relevant to your products and services. But in the absence of that, smaller less well-known frameworks should be seriously considered, especially if you are not on any frameworks.
Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPSs) are very similar to frameworks, but where you can only join a framework before it starts, you can usually join a DPS anytime.
This means that a DPS that was opened several years ago might still be worth joining. When considering joining a DPS, it is important to review what has happened so far in the DPS, who has been awarded a place and how much of the initially announced value has already been spent.
Like frameworks, a DPS is usually also open for other public sector organisations to trade via, so if you are awarded a place on a DPS, it is important to let new potential customers know that this is a way to easily trade with you.
Note that when a utility company creates a DPS, it is often known as a Qualification System and not a DPS.
One of the most common and costly mistakes suppliers to the public sector make is failing to consistently be proactive in their sales efforts.
Time and again we observe that companies spend a lot of resources successfully finding and getting on the right framework(s), only to then sit back and wait for the buyer to contact them and request a quote or place an order. In practice, this rarely happens.
It’s important to stay in close contact with the relevant people inside the buying organisation; to service them with any news and information of potential relevance to them and to ensure you are “front of mind” when they need to purchase something you sell or have a problem you solve.
And don’t assume that that those who have a potential need for your products or services inside the organisation whose framework you are now on, even know who you are, what you do or that you are on a framework they can use. This is something you need to make sure they know.
It (almost) goes without saying that the procurement people who ran the framework process are usually not the people to service (read: sell to) afterwards. Sure, you need to be front of mind with them too, but those who have the need and budget are usually not the procurement people, but the business managers, department heads, or specialists inside the organisation.
In larger organisations supplying the public sector, the roles are usually split between the bid team, which makes sure your organisation gets on the framework, and account managers who do the subsequent selling and responding to the (occasional) outreach from the buying organisation.
This point is closely related to the one above (always be selling), but it is such an important point: If you are just responding to tenders and RFPs/RFQs, you will be selling far less than you should.
It’s fair to ask, “How do I know which public sector organisations have the problem we solve or a need for our products and services?”.
Prospecting can be done in many ways and we cover more of them in the other points in this article.
However, just like Tenderlake will automatically monitor tenders for opportunities to supply an organisation and/or join their frameworks, Tenderlake also monitors for great business development opportunities.
We call these opportunities for Advanced Demand Signals.
Advanced Demand Signals are situations where a public sector organisation puts out a procurement notice that is NOT for what you are selling, but the content of the notice reveals that the buyer is likely to have a current or future need for your products or services.
Imagine a public sector organisation is looking for a consultant to do a post-mortem that learns lessons from several failed IT procurements. (This is a real procurement). If you are an organisation selling subscription-based research about best practice IT procurement, you wouldn’t be interested in bidding for the mentioned consulting work.
But the procurement still indicates that the organisation has a problem that your services address, and can help solve. So this buyer should be put on your outreach list.
Tenderlake not only identifies these opportunities it also explains, in clear language, the rationale behind why your products and services are relevant for the buyer. The latter is a great help for less experienced business development staff and SDRs.
VEAT stands for Voluntary Ex-Ante Transparency notice. It’s a notice issued by a public sector buyer when they have awarded a contract directly to the supplier without following the normal rules of going to tender, or when they want to make any other type of similar transparency disclosure.
Normally, a procurement must go to public tender, but there are more than twenty situations where a buyer sometimes does not have to do this and can just award the contract directly. In each case, the buyer must explain why they did not follow the normal procedure.
A reason often used to award a contract directly to a supplier without going to tender is, that the supplier is the only possible supplier.
Sometimes this is the case. A good example is if the buyer needs to purchase something that is under copyright or if purchasing maintenance from the original manufacturer of a medical device is the only way to maintain insurance.
However, sometimes a supplier will convince a buyer that the combination of services or features they offer is unique.
If the buyer, usually after a bit of market research, remains convinced that there is only one possible supplier, they can award the contract directly. Putting it to tender would be a waste of time and resources.
Buyers will then issue a direct contract award and disclose so in a VEAT or a special contract award notice.
But (here is the kicker), buyers increasingly caveat these direct awards with some wording that allows alternative suppliers to come forward within a short timeframe, typically 10-14 days.
Alternative suppliers do not need to submit a bid in that timeframe. They simply need to make a reasonable case that the buyer cannot dismiss them as a potential alternative supplier.
It is therefore incredibly important to monitor VEATs and contract awards to your competitors so you may object when they receive a direct award on the grounds that they are the only possible supplier.
At Tenderlake, we see several clients being extremely successful with this tactic.
Often you cannot get on the framework you want. It might be closed to new suppliers or there just weren’t enough places to accommodate all bidders.
A strategy we have seen to be successful is establishing relationships with companies that are on relevant frameworks but are not direct competitors.
Maybe a company is on a national framework but cannot (or will not) serve a geographical area that you can?
Maybe a company is on a broad framework and doesn’t have the speciality knowledge in a particular area that you have?
In such cases, a partnership, formal or informal, can be a win/win for both the company on the framework and your organisation.
Monitoring which relevant contracts, awarded years ago, that are coming to an end in the coming 24 months, is a must-do for anyone working in public sector business development.
It enables you to build a rapport with the buyer well ahead of the new tender coming out and to influence the thinking behind the purchase, by updating the buyer about new technologies and best practices that have emerged since the current framework was created, as well as your experiences from similar contracts.
In the UK/EU there are millions of suppliers winning public contracts. When they do, they often need to purchase services and supplies to fulfil those contracts.
When someone wins a contract to build a hospital, they need dozens if not hundreds of suppliers to supply them with everything from environmental impact assessments, hand tools, electrical installation services, and MRI Scanners to hospital beds and much more.
Monitoring who wins contracts where your products and services are needed to fulfil the contract can yield great results, especially in certain industries.
The public sector market for your products and services is likely large, but this doesn’t mean it is possible or viable for you to bid for contracts in every country.
Local partners may be a more efficient go-to-market strategy in areas that are beyond your immediate reach or priority.
Use Tenderlake to monitor who are winning contracts in your industry in the markets you want to reach and consider striking up a relationship with those.
Increasingly, we are also able to show you who submitted a bid for a contract but did not win.
Maybe these companies are minded to go to market with the better solution you can offer?
The public sector presents a significant opportunity for businesses aiming to expand their sales in the UK, EU, Switzerland, and Norway. With around £3 trillion spent annually on public procurement by 250,000 organisations, navigating this landscape effectively can lead to substantial growth. Employing a strategic approach is crucial.
By leveraging holistic monitoring tools like Tenderlake, businesses can identify relevant opportunities beyond traditional keyword searches. Additionally, joining frameworks and Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) can streamline the procurement process and open doors to multiple public sector buyers.
It's equally important to maintain proactive sales efforts and business development initiatives, ensuring that potential public sector clients are aware of your offerings. Monitoring VEATs, contract awards, and partnerships can further enhance your market position.
Finally, considering collaborations with local partners or resellers can extend your reach into new territories, maximising your potential in the public sector market. By implementing these strategies, businesses can effectively increase their public sector sales and achieve sustained growth.
Follow Tenderlake on LinkedIn for concise insights on public-sector tenders and emerging procurement signals.