In this episode, two public sector leaders from small to mid-sized governments join me to share what isn't working and dig into things that need to change when it comes to selling to them.
We've had the opportunity to talk with governments of all sizes and companies ranging from seed stage to establish enterprise giants and know firsthand the difficulties in reaching the public sector. Geoff Milz from Colerain Township, Ohio, and Tom Carroll from Village of Silverton, Ohio, join us to talk more about the obstacles that keep them from signing on the dotted line and what organizations may want to consider in their approach to public sector sales.
Episode guests:
Geoff Milz - Township Administrator, Colerain Township, Ohio
Tom Carroll - Village Manager, Village of Silverton, Ohio
Visit govlaunch.com for more stories and examples of local government innovation.
Lindsay: (00:05)
Welcome to the Govlaunch podcast. Govlaunch is the Wiki for local government innovation and on this podcast, we're sharing the stories of local government innovators and their efforts to build smarter governments. I'm Lindsay Pica-Alfano, co-founder of Govlaunch and your host. I've had the opportunity to talk with governments of all sizes and companies ranging from seed stage to establish enterprise giants and know firsthand the difficulties in reaching the public sector. In this episode, two public sector leaders from small to mid-sized governments join me to share what isn't working and dig into things that need to change when it comes to selling to them. I'll turn now to Geoff Milz and Tom Carroll to talk more about the obstacles that keep them from signing on the dotted line and what organizations may want to consider in their approach to public sector sales. Geoff, I'm excited to have you back on the podcast for those who are new, can you reintroduce yourself and share a little bit about your role?
Geoff: (01:08)
Sure. Lindsay, thanks for having me back. My name is Geoff Milz. I'm the township administrator for a place called Colerain township, which is a first string suburb just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. We're a community of about 60,000, uh, just to put it in perspective. Our annual budget is usually right around 40 million. We've got about 250 employees.
Lindsay: (01:31)
And Tom you're here with us for the first time today. So welcome. Can you give a quick introduction as well on you and your government?
Tom: (01:40)
Sure. Thank you, Lindsay. My name is Tom Carroll. I'm the village manager for the village of Silverton. We too are a first string suburb, bordering Cincinnati. We are a community of about 5,000. Uh, our annual budget is about three and a half to four and a half million, depending on the size of our capital budget and we're an interesting community because we've been split pretty evenly between 50, 50 black, white for a good 40 years. It's really unique to have a community that is split and stays that way, uh, split so evenly and remains so. That's part of our brand. We were inclusive before it was expected that you'd be so.
Lindsay: (02:21)
Well, that's great. As leaders in small to medium local governments, you really represent over 90% of local governments out there in terms of community size so I'm eager to hear your unique perspectives. As I think it's going to highlight how a lot of others in the space feel. I want to start outlining some core mistakes you feel companies are making when attempting to get in the door. Do you have one or two main complaints you'd like to share right off the bat? Geoff, I'll start with you.
Geoff: (02:48)
Sure. Sure. So, you know, in a community of our size, we are resource constrained as many, uh, folks are, and really there's the financial resource constraint, but really time is a huge resource constraint, right? We don't have a lot of people just sitting around wondering what they should do next. Everybody's got their nose to the grindstone trying to do more with less, right? So unsolicited emails that come in and require you to figure out like, is this something that I was working on and I forgot about, or is it, do I need to devote time and attention to, to figuring out what this really does become a nuisance. And it's amazing how that sort of ticked up in recent years, that mode of cold calling, it's not coming across the phone anymore. It's landing in the inbox. I bet if I added up all of the seconds that I spend trying to figure out if I need to do something with this email, uh, I probably have an hour at the end of every month, you know, which I can do something with.
Lindsay: (03:43)
Right. And Tom how about you?
Tom: (03:45)
Yeah. I agree with everything Geoff said, I would add a couple of my pet peeves. One thing that has become pretty common for me lately has been, I'll get an email and within five or 10 seconds, I get a call from the same vendor. And, and you know, I always answered my phone, I guess that's my mistake. My phone number is on our website. So people call me directly and there's nobody, nobody to screen. So before I know it, I've picked up the phone and um, somebody is saying to me, oh, I just emailed you. And I haven't even had a chance to read the email. I don't even know what the person's talking about. And it's, it really is a cold call as well as a cold email. And that's, that's a bit irksome to me. The other thing that I've noticed a lot lately is people will sales people will in their emails, reference other jurisdictions that are using their product. If I haven't heard a testimonial from the person who they're referencing, or if I don't even know the person that they're referencing, it just never lands well with me. So that's kind of a miss in my view.
Lindsay: (04:54)
Well it's interesting at Govaunch. We're trying to map out all the cities and townships and counties out there that are using certain products or tools to really innovate for their communities. And so our platform is allowing local governments to be connected with these products. A great way for some of these companies to go in and show, Hey, here are all of the clients that we have that are similar sized governments could be on Govlaunch and a way for you all to search on your own time when you're comfortable in a more private way, who all is using what I think would be much more effective than a vendor calling to tell you about other people using their product. Conversely, are there any strategies you feel are most effective in reaching you?
Geoff: (05:40)
Sure. Well, you know, I think one of the key differences that you just pointed out between receiving a cold call and going to a place like Govlaunch is it allows me to look for a solution to my problem rather than to allow a solution to a problem that I might not even have sort of find me. Right. I completely agree with Tom's point about, you know, Hey, so-and-so 80 miles away from you. It's all Ohio, right? You guys all know each other. Um, it, uh, is using our product. That doesn't land well. I get it. But my network, I do put an awful lot of stock in my network. We're all trying to solve very similar problems. So peer, peer referral, when it's coming from a peer, what I'm saying, when I pick up the phone and call, you know, a township administrator down the road and say, Hey, how did you guys handle that? And they said, oh my gosh, we found this great vendor. And it's really working out like, that's huge, right? So, so the trusted advisor is important, but it really does have to be a real relationship there to begin with.
Lindsay: (06:38)
Throwing a curve ball in with this question. But I know a lot of companies in response to the pandemic, knowing that budgets are constrained they were offering freemium models, if you will. So like try it, we'll give you all of our products and services for your segment of our feature set free. What is your general opinion about that model? I've heard some different things. So I'm curious what you all think of that.
Tom: (07:04)
So let me begin by saying nobody offered me anything free. So, um, I, that hadn't happened. It comes across, in some ways it's taking advantage of a vendor. If I really need it, I should figure out how to pay for it. Just kind of found myself in the perspective of really in a retrenchment mode, the first half of the pandemic, and I'm figuring out how to keep the lights on, not, not really figuring out how to continue to advance with some technological solution to a problem.
Geoff: (07:35)
And we had a little bit of a different approach only because we had to figure out how to do things differently. And so there were a couple of, we needed to automate certain functions through the pandemic because people were trying to keep people out of the office. And so, um, you know, thanks to cares act money. We were able to, to make a few investments, um, particularly in our code enforcement and automating some of those workflows and making sure that all the paper pieces that require office visits, um, we were trying to digitize as much of that as possible and get it out. We, we also, uh, like Tom, didn't have any freemium model offers.
Lindsay: (08:15)
Well hey, I think the takeaway is that these promotions are not reaching you all, especially if you're not able to go to conferences or these types of things. Um, so assuming a company and we're still talking more enterprise players versus startups, but assuming they get a meeting to demo their product or solution, can you break down what you feel are the biggest mistakes companies make at the pitch stage of the sales cycle?
Tom: (08:42)
I think my experience with lots of sales folks and, and my brother's a sales coach. Uh, so he works in this space and probably advises people to do this, but, but they talk more than they listen. And I think I wish they would get a better understanding of what exactly is the problem that I'm trying to solve instead of what is the product. Cause they can help me. They can help me tremendously. I will buy it if, if it solves a problem that makes my life easier. Uh, if it's just a commodity and, or seems that way, it comes across that way, then my radar's already up, what am I buying here? What are they trying to sell me? What, how am I getting bamboozled in this deal? But if they're solving a problem that I have, I'm all ears, all ears.
Geoff: (09:34)
That is exactly right. While you're saying that, I was like, that's, that's it. The whole point is to solve a problem that I have. Right. So that's why, you know, we are spending money is, is we don't just do things for fun. We're trying to provide better service to our residents. And, um, and that's huge. The only other thing that I'd add to what Tom said was, um, you know, the pitch deck, isn't flexible when it's like, okay, we've got an hour and, um, I've got 47 slides to get through. And it feels more like the goal is to get through the 47 slides than it is to like, you know, have a conversation that elicits what my problem is. And then, and then is able to dynamically shift to how their product, how their product solves that problem. Um, a lot of times I wish that the, the pitch deck was like, you know, you plan on half of the time being spent on whatever it is that's in your deck. And let's spend the rest of the time showing me through a demo or whatever, how it works and how it solves the problem.
Lindsay: (10:34)
That's interesting because this has been feedback across all local governments. I've spoken with large and small, this idea that you have to come solving a specific problem that you know that I have. And the reality is vendors have access to all this information. This is publicly available information, your financials, your budget information. Most of you have strategic plans that are posted on your website. It's very clear what you're working on and what is a priority for your local government and vendors doing their homework and coming to a meeting prepared, uh, I'm hearing from everybody. That would be huge. So vendors out there take note.
Tom: (11:15)
Yeah. Just one final thought on that question is, is the salesperson should probably think about, they're not selling us something they're helping us. If they can frame it in those terms, we're listening. Right. But if you have a product and I don't have that issue, there's no way we're going to get,
Lindsay: (11:40)
Yeah, this is something we talk about a lot at gov launch. Like how do we get the conversation more around how these companies are solving problems for your peers instead of here's our flashy technology and this is what the technology can do. Before we move on to startups. Is there one more piece of advice you want to give specifically around large established companies in the gov tech space trying to reach local governments?
Geoff: (12:07)
Sure. So the first thing that seems to be an issue across all vendors that I've had is, um, be very specific about what it is your product does today and distinguish that clearly to me, uh, with what you have in the pipeline. So can, can your product do this? Yeah, it's usually the takeaway that I get, but what they actually mean is yet we're developing that right now and it needs to go through like four more phases of testing and then it will roll it out in an update in four years. And then, and that's really frustrating because we get all the way down the line and you're like, wait a minute. I thought they said we could do this and that. And then in implementation, we find out, no that's that's coming, uh, but not, not here yet. So that, that is one of my pet peeves, especially with the larger groups, because they're, they're always either seem to be acquiring new capabilities, which is wonderful, uh, or developing and adding to the capabilities that they have, uh, currently all great things. Just be clear with your sales folks, when you hand off from sales to implementation, uh, the sales folks need to know what's what it can do today versus what it's going to do in six months.
Lindsay: (13:14)
So let's chat a little bit about gov tech startups, or companies trying to break into the local government space. I should first start by asking both of you what your government's approach is more generally to working with these companies. Are you actively engaged with startups now?
Geoff: (13:29)
Evaluating two right now? Um, one is, is less of a gov tech startup and more of a gov services startup related to vacant buildings and, um, things like that. So we're evaluating two, but really only because those were the only two that we've been exposed to. I mean, it's hard to find those folks that are willing to do business with us and provide value for us.
Lindsay: (13:55)
And Tom, how about you all? Are you engaged with any startups?
Tom: (13:58)
Not presently, no. In the past I have. Um, and I don't see a huge difference in how I'm viewing a startup versus an established vendor. I'm not afraid to try, uh, with a startup and try something new. I don't know that I viewed them terribly differently other than I want to make sure that they're going to be around, uh, to deliver the product or service. But, um, I've actually been involved in helping be a beta customer for one, one IT firm that, that wound up getting wholly into the local government space. And, and we work together really because they would, they would develop solutions for problems that we had and then turn around and be able to sell other suites of software or other PA packages to the growing group of customers that were local government.
Lindsay: (14:54)
That's interesting. The takeaway is that they aren't reaching you. You're not getting exposed to these startups that you're not necessarily against working with startups if the right solution came across. So for more established companies, the sales pitch is easier because you've likely seen the product in action in some way or another collaboration with other governments or even potentially you've used it in your personal life for startups that can't clearly point to a successful deployment. What advice would you give them?
Geoff: (15:30)
So I think to the greatest extent possible de-risk our investment, right? It's ways to do that could be tiering of service so that, you know, there is a place to there's enter for different, uh, budget levels. If I want to just dip my toe in the water, potentially, there's a very inexpensive, uh, start starting point. Um, and then there's sort of the fully fledged, you know, jump right in kind of thing. I think it's important to remember that we are all resource constrained and when you have constrained resources, you have to innovate, you have to do things differently and test new ideas and innovation does require risk. And so maybe, you know, the small to midsize places are the, I'd like to think of them as the Petri dish for innovation in America, because we're all trying different things. And we're trying to solve very similar problems in different ways with constrained resources that requires risk that really might lend itself well to small startup companies.
Lindsay: (16:29)
We've seen some great success with startups approaching their own local government to partner in the sense that they're offering the tool in a free beta status, if you will. Um, and working with feedback from the city to customize the build-out so it's ready for more commercial sales. This is a large city example, but Adelaide in Australia just shared that they're working with a local startup to develop a municipal chatbot was a tourism chatbot before and they're pivoting to try to be more of a city chatbot, um, and Adelaide, the investment that they've made is that, okay, they're getting this great tool for free, but they're the ones that are basically helping build the product out. Have you all considered working with any local startups? Is there an ecosystem available for that type of relationship now?
Tom: (17:22)
So I'll jump in. In my last position very much had that experience working with, uh, a local company who was, was learning to build the car as we drove it together. And, uh, and it was very discounted for us. We did pay them some for the services and the fees, but it was, it was discounted. And, um, you know, we put in some sweat equity by helping them build it. And I found that to be a really rewarding and satisfying model because I don't think anyone can anticipate all the say data problems that might come up in the launching of a, of a new product. It really brought the vendor and the city together and it was a win-win.
Geoff: (18:14)
So we're really blessed in Cincinnati in this region because we have an incredible startup culture, but it's aimed at sort of our big Co's in Cincinnati, right. It's aimed at the, at the consumer goods, you know, Proctor and Gamble's the, um, the Kroger's the big companies and there's this ecosystem of startups ready to feed them, whatever they need. It's interesting though, because every place in America has local government, right? Wouldn't it be cool if we, and Tom, I'm looking at you and maybe this is a project we can start here is to partner with the startup folks in our community and, and turn them loose and see if anybody would be interested in getting turned loose on some of our are gnarly issues that we deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Tom: (18:58)
For sure. For sure. It's a very interesting idea. Yeah. I do feel like we don't tap the private sector power and capabilities that we have in our region. So there's definitely opportunity.
Lindsay: (19:10)
Yeah. This concept of a startup in residence, but on a very small scale where maybe a few local governments come together and you all commiserate on some of your shared experiences and seek some assistance from the community, it's a great way to engage the community Louisville. And a lot of other local governments have done hackathons, try to get creative ideas from people in their community. There's been some great success stories there. And last question for you, and this doesn't necessarily need to be related to startups, but what would be one or two things you'd want to share with companies, um, that you'd want them to walk away with from this episode?
Tom: (19:49)
But this may not be helpful, uh, because every company needs a Salesforce, but, but I generally find, uh, the cold call is, is, is almost never going to work for me. I'm almost never going to buy. I say almost never, because I'm sure there could be an exception, but it's just not effective people in our positions have, you know, 50 different people a day pulling on our time and attention and, and, um, Geoff articulated it early. It's sometimes takes us a few minutes to figure out, is this an email that is a constituent, or is this an email? Um, is this a public records request, uh, that I have to respond to? So when we're barraged by so much information and so many people tugging on our time, it's just, it's just not effective. Uh, it doesn't work for me.
Geoff: (20:46)
Yeah. And I would say yes, a hundred percent. Yes. I'd also add that anything that automates workflows increases productivity, you know, particularly for back of the house functions, anything that gets rid of paper and processes that involve moving paper from one person or place to another, those are the things that are valuable to me at this moment because we continue to have to do more with less. And, you know, we are organizations that, despite a book that I just read that it's called, uh, I don't make, we don't make widgets, which goes on to describe how, in fact, we should think of ourselves as making widgets. I disagree, we don't make widgets. We provide service, we do that with people and equipment. And so, you know, to the extent that you can help us provide better service, um, to our residents and our businesses, that is huge. And we look forward to doing that in a, in a way that is affordable to us and provides value.
Lindsay: (21:42)
Well, thank you both so much for being here and sharing all of your advice with, uh, with the wider community of local governments and also vendors who are ultimately trying to help governments work better. So again, thank you for being here Geoff and great to meet you, Tom, looking forward to following all of your innovative work.
Geoff: (22:00)
Thanks, Lindsay.
Tom: (22:00)
Thank you, Lindsay.
Lindsay: (22:10)
I'm Lindsay Pica-Alfano, and this podcast was produced by Govlaunch the Wiki for local government innovation. You can subscribe to hear more stories like this, wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a local government innovator, we hope you'll help us on our mission to build the largest free resource for local governments globally. You can join to search and contribute to the wiki@govlaunch.com. Thanks for tuning in. We hope to see you next time on the Govlaunch podcast.