Always looking to improve. Just curious if anyone on here has any tips for reaching prospects in A&D.
Any tips for calling into Aerospace & Defense industry?
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Always looking to improve. Just curious if anyone on here has any tips for reaching prospects in A&D.
First you gotta target your customers properly, find opportunities before they are actively worked on and too much time is invested. No one will switch to your solution mid-bid or mid-contract unless you have MASSIVE value. Even then, the risk to projects is usually more than any company will take on during their bid/delivery/obligation period.
Search defence publications and SAM.gov for upcoming projects, track defence spending and get ahead of the big guys before they work on their next big thing. You want to help them make their new solution faster, smarter, cheaper, etc so sell that BEFORE they start working on it. I'm talking concept phase.
Go to trade shows and meed with BDR/Sales guys to get the inside scoop on R&D projects, build some rapport so they are willing to connect you with the engineering teams. The engineers almost never had outside contact with sales teams and are skeptical of every salesperson, but actually listened to any referrals I gave them.
Another thing to target is the smaller Mom/Pop subcontractors. They often get big chunks of projects and are easier to sell into than say Lockheed/Raytheon/GD. If you get enough of these guys on your side their engineers might even vouch/refer you to the big dogs.
Lastly, it is going to be slow going for sure. Most companies invest little in software until they absolutely need it. Cybersecurity requirements are also changing (CMMC), if you are not compliant then you better get to it or no one will buy from you.