Selling Products Directly Using GSA Schedules
From GOVSALESWIKI
Installment [ 26 ] Selling Products Directly Using GSA Schedules By Richard White
Expensive and complex (for example, technology-based) products are ideal items to sell directly to the federal government. In fact, use your own sales force to make such sales. Although dealers and distributors work well for certain types of products, a company retains the most control when it utilizes a direct sales approach (since no other can represent you better than yourself). With the aforementioned factors in mind, a GSA schedule is an ideal vehicle for direct sales of complex products to federal end users.
A GSA schedule is, among other things, the following:
- Available to all federal end users and official buyers as a purchasing vehicle
- Quick and efficient since orders are placed by the buying agency directly with the vendor
- A closing mechanism for your direct sales person
- Most experienced and successful federal sales persons would be lost without their company's GSA schedule. Two of the very most important aspects of GSA schedules, from a sales viewpoint, are:
1. It is presumed by the federal government that full and open competition took place when your company negotiated its product price(s) with GSA. As a result, the federal buyer may order directly from your business by reviewing your prices at GSA Advantage!, the electronic mall for all GSA schedule holders.
2. Under applicable federal rules and regulations, the federal buyer is encouraged to use "best value analysis" (weighing price and other non-quantitative value factors like warranties, service, etc.) in selecting the vendor.
Best value analysis is, in many respects, a direct sales person's dream because no one knows your product's value better than your own direct sales people. When one thinks about it, how can a reseller fully understand hundreds or thousands of technically complex products? Let's presume that your sales person calls on a federal end user early in the sales cycle. Keep in mind that a sales person needs to approach the end user early in the process in order to sell value for complex products because these products are either the solution the end user is looking for or part of the solution to his problem. While building the sales relationship with the federal end user, the sales person is selling your value proposition. At the point when the end user is convinced that your product is the best value, your company has an invaluable closing mechanism if you have a GSA schedule. Under the GSA schedule program, your end user can then buy your product easily and quickly at GSA Advantage!
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