Reviked

Federal Account Manager

Does anyone have advice for selling to the DoD as an SDR in cyber?

I'm having a lot of trouble generating traction within the DoD.

Phone numbers are pretty abysmal as most don't answer their phone and ZoomInfo often pulls the main HQ number.

LinkedIn seems to have the best response rate but I'm capped at 100 connections a week.

Outreach limits me to 4 emails per address per day so say I'm reaching out to the Air Force (us.af.mil) I can only get 4 emails so most emails are using Outlook.

Maybe June and July are slow but I could really use the help, please.

🔐 Cybersecurity

👨‍🌾 SDR

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braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

The outreach restrictions seems odd. Are you saying you can only email 4 people at a single domain per day?

To the broader question -- SDR in cyber is hard, SDR in cyber to DoD/Fed/etc is even harder.

Email/digital is probably most effective, but you have to get really good at copywriting and personalization.

I've heard DoD buys 100% through the channel, so also focus on networking with VARs.

Reviked

Contributor

Federal Account Manager

Thanks for getting back to me.

Correct, Outreach limits to 4 emails per email domain per day. I don’t know if it can be increased if you have a better subscription but that’s what management told me.

From my previous role I can tell you that the DoD does purchase a lot through VARs but we already have reps that cover those accounts.

My quota is 6 meetings and 3 meeting with next steps per month. It doesn’t sound that hard but a lot of prospects don’t want to meet because they have 0 purchasing or decision making authority nor know who does.

The company I work for is great but I’m finding that the DoD is incredibly difficult for new logos.

Is there a good place I can learn to become a better wordsmith for the Federal space?

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

Spend time with successful reps and partners

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

You must be new to selling to Gov't.

You need to find a Contract Vehicle to put your stuff on. Without a good contract vehicle, the odds of selling to the DoD/Feds are low (same with ANY government entity). And no amount of cold calling/emailing will help you.

So instead of calls to "buyers", call the Procurement people who can steer you toward the right contract vehicles so that when you call a buyer you can tell them you're already on "X Contract".

Reviked

Contributor

Federal Account Manager

Honestly this might be what I need to do, I could run reports on GovWin to find procurement people who can then point me in the right direction.

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

Hire a lobbyist. My company has seen great results by hiring a lobbyist to help us get meetings and working with a Federal Secure distributor to sell software

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

@LordOfWar

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

Guessing you’re new in the role. First thing I would do is figure out who is hitting that number and how they’re doing it with the restrictions in place. The domain limit is likely out of a concern for burning your company domain with spam lists. So, you gotta live with it for a while. In the meantime, ask for help.

As for the crafting of your messaging, empathy has to lead. You really have to fully understand the pain your solution cures. I know of no other magic billets for DoD penetration. Maybe someone here has a magic wand. But you’re more likely to find answers internally.

Wishing you luck.

Reviked

Contributor

Federal Account Manager

Thank you, I have been asking the team but my AEs have decades of Federal experience and contacts. A lot of their approach has been leveraging people they know and attending events like AFCEA.

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

Checked you some useful articles I believe you can count on:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-sell-department-defense-dod-richard-r-mackey/
https://business.defense.gov/Portals/57/Documents/2017%20Guide%20to%20Marketing%20to%20DoD.pdf?ver=2017-09-21-121932-073
https://defensestudies.net/products/how-to-effectively-market-and-sell-to-the-department-of-defense-and-military-bases
Hope that helps!

Reviked

Contributor

Federal Account Manager

Whoa thank you I’ll check those out!

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

Any Time.

Account Executive

SDR to DoD is very hard. You have to use a targeted approach. The best way to get targeted names is to see who the procurement contact is on Federal Bids posted. Look at the Federal Bid sites and see what RFQs fit what your company is doing.

Reviked

Contributor

Federal Account Manager

Thank you for the advice. It’s very difficult especially this time of year when people are on leave. I’ve tried using GovWin but its fairly outdated imo. I think it’s good for finding where the money goes.

quotascammedeverytime

Opinionated

-1

account executive

They lost 6 billion dollars and spend billions on diversity initiatives. Can’t be too hard