The new school year is kicking off in full swing! As school districts look to buy products and services, how can businesses effectively generate pipeline and navigate the purchasing process?
In a recent webinar, Pavilion spoke with Rick Gay of Fort Bend ISD and Greg Long of Seminole County Public Schools to share how suppliers can navigate stakeholders and processes in the K-12 space to sell more effectively.
Here are 3 key takeaways:
1. Meet with Procurement first
“If you make an appointment, I’ll be glad to lay out the land for you and explain our rules. If you go and meet with our departments, you’re going to end up having to come back and meet with me anyway. You’ll be much better off – much more successful – if you reach out to me and have a discussion about your products.”
– Rick Gay, Fort Bend ISD, TX
“Sometimes we engage suppliers through our principals. If they’re going to a conference, we tell them: you can take information, but suppliers will need to come talk to procurement before they do anything with you. The last thing you want somebody to do is to have a supplier help write a bid, because in Florida, if you do that, that supplier is not going to be able to get on the bid.”
– Greg Long, Seminole County Public Schools, FL
2. Align your outreach and sales conversations with budget cycles
“We’re going to start buying on July 1. Paper, school supplies, curriculum materials – things that are needed to start up the school. So we see a lot of buying in July, August, and September. March, April, and May is when the big buying season starts again because they’re using up their budgets. If you have a capital budget, on the other hand, that budget can run over 3-4 years – furniture and fixtures, equipment, all the new things that go into the school.”
– Rick Gay, Fort Bend ISD, TX
“Knowing when to approach schools can be the difference between securing a contract and missing an opportunity. For textbooks as an example, talk to us in March for a purchase in August.”
– Greg Long, Seminole County Public Schools, FL
3. If your product is on a cooperative contract, you already have an advantage
“We use cooperatives for about 40% of our spend. In fact, that’s our go-to rather than doing an RFP. RFPs can be time consuming and take 3-6 months to put in place. I’ve used cooperative contracts for office supplies, athletics, paint, plumbing, HVAC, job order contracts – anything out there, we’ve used cooperative contracts.”
– Rick Gay, Fort Bend ISD, TX
Listen to the full webinar to learn more about the importance of following federal purchasing rules, the role politics can play in purchasing, and other key insights to help you position yourself for success in the K-12 market.
