By: Eileen Kent

As a sales executive calling on the government, you might think your customer will resist hearing from you.

That may not be the case. You might just be the answer to they’re prayers!

Here’s an example from a revealing discussion which was posted at a government social website. (The names have been pulled out of this discussion for privacy sake. Read between the lines and you’ll see, your government customers are people too!)

Posting Discussion:

“So you are working at your job as a “govie” and you get a call from X and all of a sudden you are upset. There are certain jobs that dread fear from other Govies.

Here’s my top 5:

1) Auditor – Hi, I’m calling from GAO or Inspector General and I’m auditing your program. For most folks, this sounds like a nightmare. Please, please, can you go away?

2) EEO – Hi, I’m calling from Equal Employment Office and we’ve had a complaint about you (or someone in your division) Please, please, can you go away?

3) Lawyer – Yeah….on your project, I’m hear to tell you 10 reasons why you can’t do that. I think you may have forgotten about these 10 statutes that are in “lawyerese” that prevent you from doing that. Here – read these 10,000 pages….

4) IT Security – Hi, I’m calling from IT Security as I see some suspicious web traffic on your machine. You read a blog? How does that relate to work? Sir…it’s the White House blog. I think it’s ok.

5) Staff Member of an Elected Official: Hey, can you do X,Y and Z and oh yeah can you do them by tomorrow. Not to mention a lot of times these things are out of jurisdiction and or not applicable to your agency.

What do you think? What “Govies” do you dread hearing from?”

Here are the posted responses to this discussion. These are govenrnment employees offering their observations:

#1 Great list! Thanks for keeping HR off the list. Number 3 is the worst. All of these watchdogs have good intentions, but end up destroying innovation and creativity, which is so critical to excellence!

#2 Expanding a bit on number 5 - "regular" short fuse requests from "management" with no or minimal effort provided to explain the reason for the deadline of "yesterday"

#3. Number 3 is the worst I think. Cooking up a good idea to get shut down! Once I deem something awesome in my head it's hard to shake out of there whether it's legal or not.

#4 Short fuse requests from a high-ranking, visibility official, as in No. 5. I wouldn't use the word "hate" because it is such a strong verb. I would tend to use "you need to be more considerate and plan ahead before you drop your bombs..." as an alternate choice of words.

#5 White House Chief of Staff: Why did you make that comment to that reporter. Yes, he was a reporter. How soon can you be here? We'll send an escort.

As contractors we can learn from this discussion. The "govie" fears the internal “shut down” of new ideas and the “time wasters” of sudden requests from management and policy makers.

So, how is this different from commercial?

When you call on your government end user, be aware that they want to stay under the radar, but they crave new and exciting ideas. Here is a great statement revealed in the discussion: “Once I deem something awesome in my head it's hard to shake out of there.” It’s up to us as Trusted Advocates to help develop those ideas and solutions into something they can actually implement within the rules.

If you are part of the idea, you may end up being part of the solution-team, which results in plenty of opportunities which never see the light of public RFPs.