This Sales Game Changers Podcast episode features a return to the show by Institute for Effective Professional selling 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award winner Paul Smith.
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On today’s show, Paul discusses what IT selling professionals must do to help their Federal customers. Great advice for how to end the Federal fiscal year with aplumb.
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PAUL’S TIP: “Find reasons to be face-to-face with your customers—consistently and with purpose. That’s how trust is built and value is delivered.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: I’m very excited. Today we have, with a return appearance, our 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Paul Smith. Paul, you were leading Red Hat at the time, and you’ve gone on to some other interesting things. You’re still doing some consulting, spending a lot of time down at the shore, which is good for you. We do a lot of work with our Lifetime Achievement recipients. We’ve been very blessed to have some of the, it’s like a Hall of Fame, like a Mount Rushmore of sales leaders.
It’s an interesting time. Sales is always a challenge, hence why we have the Institute for Effective Professional Selling. But there’s been a lot of things happening, specifically in the public sector markets, specifically federal, over the last couple of months that have made it even more challenging to be successful. We’re doing today’s interview, we’re entering the end of the federal fiscal year. There’s been a lot of challenges with DOGE and with RIFs and cutbacks and people choosing to leave the government, and it’s been trickier than it has been in the past.
I just want to get your advice. A lot of our listeners for the Sales Game Changers Podcast are in the B2B segment. They’re also B2G, a lot of business owners, but a lot B2G. We’re going to be talking about some of your advice and you’re always good at that. I remember the first time I interviewed you, so many ideas, and you’ve mentored so many people along the way, and you’ve been such a help to the Institute for Effective Professional Selling over the years. I’m really interested in some of your ideas.
First off, for people who don’t know you, give them a brief intro and then let’s just start talking about what they should be doing.
Paul Smith: Just for a little backgrounder, I spent the majority of the latter part of my career, 17 years as the GM from Red Hat’s Public Sector Business Unit. I’ve served on a couple of boards, including Amida Technology that’s run for the last 11 years by Peter Levin, the CEO and founder, who prior to that was the CTO at the VA. A very August Group of folks in that company and on their board. I do some consulting right now.
Most recently, I spent some time as the CEO for Rancher Government Solutions, for about 18 months. I was an interim CEO over there as they were going through some change management with a bunch of friends of mine from the parent company, SUSE, running their American subsidiary. I had a lot of fun over there but returned to the “retired life” where I’m actively involved with some companies right now and enjoying grandkids, golf, and the boat. But I’m keeping my toe in the pond, so to speak. While I don’t have an operational role right now, I still talk to a lot of friends around the beltway.
For sure, everything that’s going on in DOGE right now is real. There’s not a single person I’ve talked to on the government side or on the business side, software companies, that hasn’t felt some type of impact. Look, for companies like I worked for for many years that run in 90-day cycles, that is a real thing because it has had some direct impact, I believe, to short term revenue. But as they say in some Bible passage, this too shall pass. I do believe over time, dust will settle and things will get back to what we’re more accustomed to. The government will continue to operate. The government will continue to rely on industry to provide crucial technology to meet mission. Without a doubt, very tough times for both industry and for government. Let’s remember, it’s been tough on our government friends and associates as well, because they are all looking at their very long careers in the government and trying to figure out what’s next. Lots of disruption right now in terms of daily work-life workflow.
Fred Diamond: Let’s get started. Let’s just go through a list here. What will be your top recommendation to selling professionals selling to the government agencies?
Paul Smith: The last five years have been crazy too, because we started in 2020 with COVID pandemic. Remote work and that whole type of work-life balance, not only for industry, but for government. People just weren’t in their offices that much. I would say for me, this is the time where we have to return to some old style of relationship building, which is face-to-face, and find reasons to be face-to-face with your customers. As we’ve always said, especially with IEPS, it’s like, yes, we are in sales, we’re a sales profession, but we’re really consultants. We’re really subject matter experts. We’re really bringing a perspective to our clients across the industry. Not only people that we compete with, but people that we play with, we cooperate with, tangential types of brands. That’s going to be very important to the government customers for the GovCon base to actually bring that to them.
I would say, first and foremost, find reasons to be in front of your customers where you’re consulting, where you’re adding value, where you’re talking about mission, where you’re empathetic towards the things that they’re going through, the pressures that they’re under, and don’t necessarily be there concerned on the forefront with the next contract vehicle as much as delivering with a high level of effectiveness your current contracts. Checking back in with them probably more frequently in terms of what I like to call reverse QBRs. We’ll go back in and actually do a quarterly business review with customers to talk about how we’re doing on support, how we’re doing on service delivery, what’s coming down the pipe, what are you seeing, and actually bring in some of the senior leaders from the companies as well. It’s not just the account executive or the sales manager, but the SVPs and the EVPs and the CEOs, to actually share that listening and really get involved with what’s important for them, without having that first and foremost thing, it’s like, “Okay, we’re here because we’ve got a pending contract action coming up.” I would say that’s never really going to go away, but that should not be the first focus with these customers right now.
Fred Diamond: Let’s get a little deeper into that. That’s a great bit of advice. Let’s talk some specific things about how you can, as a sales professional, and I loved your idea there about bringing in the CEO, bringing in other subject matter experts. How would you suggest that you do get to have these more in-person meetings? Now, some government agencies are requiring people come to the office. But one thing you mentioned, COVID, of course, even back as far as 9/11, security got very tough. It got very difficult to go into government offices and just walk the halls. I remember in the early part of my career walking around the Pentagon.
Paul Smith: Yes, indeed. Without a badge.
Fred Diamond: Just walking around the Pentagon. You can’t do that anymore. How would you tell people to specifically go about getting in front of people?
Paul Smith: There’s a couple of ways. I think in the last year or two or three years, there’s been a big emphasis on a lot of shows. I’m seeing a lot more activity at a lot of government sponsored types of shows, so be there, be present. But if you’re going to the shows, the thing I never liked to do was booth duty. I did it because you have to do what everyone else is doing as well. But if you’re going to be there, make that as a purpose to set up real meetings at these shows. That’s weeks in advance with your marketing team, with your inside sales team, with other folks that have influence, to set up some real static meetings and get some real face-to-face time at these shows.
A second thing I would really insist on, especially with strategic customer relationships, is set up at least quarterly, if not bimonthly types of meetings where it’s static. It’s like, “On the third Thursday, we’re coming in at 8:00, and we’re going to review,” or see if you can get invited. I know when I was doing a lot of work back in the days with FEMA, they would have a Friday meeting, and their strategic partners were invited to that meeting, and it was open air. The second thing is to see if there’s a way to get involved or start up static types of meetings, quarterly updates, and it’s not really about the sale as much as about the state of the union, so to speak.
Then the third thing is a little bit more casual, and this is where relationships really flourish. You said, I loved it, we used to put in a code and sign and we could walk into the Pentagon, going to the commissary, whatever. It was crazy. I like to do a lot of coffees. Busy people will make time in their schedule. I get a lot of coffees, especially Downtown, at 0730. You can catch people if they’re coming in early, you sit down for 15 minutes at a Starbucks, you have some conversation, and then they get to the rest of their day. They don’t have to make room for you at 10:00, interrupt something, lunches, dinners. Dinners are hard because now you’re getting into people’s personal time.
Matter of fact, when I went out for “dinners” when I was on the road outside of Washington DC, I’d always insist that customers would hook up with us at around 4:30 in the afternoon. They get a chance to leave the office a little early and a little bit more relaxed atmosphere outside of the perimeter of the security gates, and then get home to their families by 5:30 or 6:00. I found that the dinners that started at 6:30 or 7:00 went to 10:30 or 11:00, then I was foggy the next day. You don’t get as much done as you do maybe in a cocktail type of conversation.
Those three things, be really impactful at the shows, see if you can set up static meetings just for updates, and that’s where you have a chance to invite in techies, executive management, and then see if you can get those coffees going early in the days. I find a lot of people find that it’s not intrusive to their work schedule.
Fred Diamond: I want to talk about two things you brought up, the concept of empathy and mission focus. When we’re talking to public sector, they’re not about increasing profits. They’re not about growing sales. It’s about helping the agency achieve its mission. We talk about this all the time on the Sales Game Changers Podcast about mission-driven technology and things along those lines, if you will. Give some advice here to some of the sales professionals listening about what they can and shouldn’t be talking to federal customers about. We have a lot of people who are listening who are senior, and again, these are human beings that we’re talking to, so you could probably talk about last night’s game, but to get really focused, give some advice on the empathy, which basically means putting yourself in their shoes and understanding what they’re going through, and the whole concept that the customer is mission focused.
Paul Smith: Mission focused and what we deal with on the defense industrial base or contractor base is not really a lot different. They’re just different types of pressures. We have 90-day pressures to deliver revenue to our shareholders. Our government customers have maybe longer term, but mission-oriented things that they have to deliver for their reviews and for basically national security or whatever it might be. It’s just important to start conversations where you are sensitive to what they do. They have hard jobs. They feel pressure. They want to deliver not just for their bosses, but for their constituencies. You have to just pay attention to that and start conversations there.
Fred Diamond: I want to talk about the concept of adding value. A lot of times when things are a little bit challenging, people feel the urge to discount. Give us some of your insights, is that even a worthwhile strategy? As we all know right now, we’re doing today’s interview in June of 2025, the government is pressuring industry to provide the best possible costs that they could and things along those lines. But from a sales strategy, what does it mean to add value? I talked to you before about multi-year proposals versus giving customers discounts today, if you will. Talk a little bit about what are some of your thoughts on that right now?
Paul Smith: Government contracting officers wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t ask for a look at how can we be doing this more efficiently? How can we be doing this more cost effectively? You guys are going to have to drop your price. One of the anecdotes I always like to use is, I don’t like to lead with my chin in a fist fight, that’s called discounting. Sometimes you do discount, sometimes you restructure contracts. But what you can certainly do when they have a need is, first of all, you have to go back and review the good decisions that they’ve made. What was it they we’re trying to accomplish? Again, on these reverse QBRs, how are we doing with specific milestones against those things that we’re trying to get done.
There are things you can do with your contracts. You can talk about loss leaders with your existing executive leadership. Rather than lose this, why don’t we add some value? We’ve got X amount of dollars on this contract, why don’t we give additional services or additional hours without additional cost right now with an understanding that we’ll get well later on down the pipe. The concept there is for me, if you are with your customers in tough times, and these are tough times, because it’s just uncertainty. People have fear around what they don’t know, what’s coming next. If you’re with your customers during what they perceive, what we perceive are tough times, they will be with you in the good times.
I take a look at some people, one of the folks that really is a huge contributor to your program, an old friend of mine, especially women in technology, I look at Tamara Greenspan over at Oracle. She’s been there for like 33 years. She’s climbed the ranks from entry level job all the way up to senior vice president. I see her all the time in front of her customers. I’m an alumnus of Oracle as well, going back into the day, and I always love working for Larry, but you don’t survive being viable to a customer for that many years unless you’re adding value. Believe me, if you’re there for 33 plus years, you’re going to have gone through a lot of different cycles, a lot of up and down cycles. But she is always in front of her customers. She has a trusted relationship with her customers, and she knows that they know that this is going to be a very long-term type of relationship, which is going to outlive the ups and downs of the 90-day quarters.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great point. Actually, I’ve spoken to Tamara about that many, many times. For the most part, people who work for the government, they’re there for decades. They’re there for the mission. They’re there because they want to provide value to the citizenry, if you will. I’m curious, you’ve talked to, if not tens of thousands, thousands of government officials, government customers. I’m just curious, what do they want from sales professionals, from selling professionals? What do they expect from the people listening to today’s show, selling professionals in the B2B space, what do they want from you? How do we make that relationship mutually beneficial by giving them what they need from you?
Paul Smith: Well, another old friend of mine, I call him Pete the Greek, you may know Pete Tseronis. Pete’s running his own company right now, Dots and Bridges. But prior to that, he was a long-term chief technology officer, chief information officer for a variety of agencies, most notably the Energy Department. I got started in a relationship with Pete way back in the day when he was on the government side. Pete will just say very abruptly, “Show up. Just show up.” They want to be engaged with industry. They want to hear our ideas. They want to hear what we see that’s going on in the marketplace.
For example, today, you have to have an AI story. You have to have an AI tools type of story. Most technology companies I’ve talked with are actively involved in that, either on the infrastructure side, the tools side, or actually delivering large language models that are specific to particular agencies. But Pete’s admonition is, “I want partners. I want folks that are subject matter experts that can help me gain perspective.”
Fred Diamond: That is a great answer. I remember I interviewed CIO for DHS or something during the heyday of the pandemic, and I asked him that question. I said, “What do you want from the sales professionals?” He said, “Tell me how to work with your company. How do we get our customer service? How do we get support? How do we get the contract agreements in place, updates, and things along those lines?” Also, you got to be prepared.
Last question here. You’re one of the most prepared guys that we’ve ever come across, hence you’re our 2017 Lifetime Achievement recipient, and it was such an easy pick that year when you were our selection. Give us some advice for people listening on how to be prepared. What are some things that you do? You mentioned AI. It’s easy to use AI right now, but give us some of your advice for the younger sales or mid sales professionals, what should they be doing to truly be prepared to serve their customer?
Paul Smith: Right now, this is the time to double down. This isn’t the time to use excuse soup and say, “Look, if things are tough in the government, I don’t have anything going on this quarter.” Talk about your business plan with them. Go through your business plan with your customer, review things that can be achieved and establish shared types of agreement on milestones to get to that final goal. Also, look, DOGE is a real thing and we’ll see how it plays out over time. Every day there’s something new in the newspaper about it, how far-reaching it’s going to be or not, but most agencies that I’ve seen are being impacted by it in one way, shape, or form.
As a sales professional, at any level, you need to anticipate that conversation, that conversation for a stop-work, a T for C, a termination for convenience, which is like the almighty type of one saying, “Hey, look, we’re just done.” Be at the ready, ahead of time. Do all the work ahead of time to defend the original decisions that were made. Talk about the cost efficiencies, talk about the transparency, talk about how this is helping protect government data, the whole cyber standpoint, and have that at the ready. If not at the ready, again, at the risk of redundancy, use that type of information when you’re doing your quarterly static reviews with the customers. Tell them, “This is what we’ve accomplished together over the last 90 days. Here’s what we plan to do going forward.” It’s not necessarily about a purchase order. It’s about how are we delivering today, so that you are there in front of them, you are a real entity, you’re building up trust over time. It’s harder for them to fire you than to fire someone that doesn’t show up. Except when it’s five days before the end of the quarter and you need that contract action. It’s very difficult to fire someone that is part of the mission. Just because we’re contractors, it doesn’t mean that we’re not wildly important to them.
Fred Diamond: They want to be successful. They have a huge mission, in most cases, that they need to achieve. It’s complicated to get it done. There’s a lot of things coming their way, like we’ve talked about today as well. They want to make sure that if they’re going to be spending time and investing in you, some cases for decades, that you’re providing value for them to help them achieve the mission.
Paul Smith, it’s great seeing you again. You’ve given us so many great ideas. You want to give us a final thought, something that people should do? You’ve given us like two dozen things that they should do. Give us a final thought, something people should do right now to be successful and taking their career to the next level.
Paul Smith: I’m a faith-based type of guy. I’m a card-carrying Catholic, and I have respect for all faiths. We all get inspiration from other areas, but I’m sitting in church just yesterday and one of the readings was from St. Paul to the Corinthians. It’s wild. It’s like almost I was being spoken to. It talks about be boastful about your afflictions or your challenges, because that builds endurance. Endurance builds character. Character over time builds success and hope, and hope is a good thing.
In any career, if you’re 5 years in, if you’re 10 years in, if you’re 30 years in, or 40 some plus years like myself, you’re going to go through tough times. You just have to build up a thick skin and just be on the proactive side of this and not on the reactive side of this, and go out there and build endurance. It builds your character, builds hope over time. Just deal with that, as some 12 Step programs will say, one day at a time.
Fred Diamond: One day at a time. Once again, I want to thank Paul Smith, the 2017 Institute for Effective Professional Selling Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, for all the great ideas that you’ve shared today. My name is Fred Diamond, and this is the Sales Game Changers Podcast.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo