Key takeaways
- Training builds the skills in your own team. It costs the least but takes the most of your team's time.
- Embedded SDRs start conversations with US buyers for you, quickly, while you keep the relationships and the data.
- A distributor or reseller brings existing buyer relationships and contracts, but takes a margin and controls the customer.
- Many companies combine them: training to plan, SDRs to build pipeline, and resellers or cooperative contracts to make buying easy.
Side-by-side
| Train your team | Embedded SDRs | Distributor or reseller | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who finds buyers | Your team | SDRs working as part of your team | The partner's sales team |
| Who owns the relationship | You | You | Usually the partner |
| Speed to first conversations | Depends on your team's time | Fast: KSG programs can be up and running in as little as one week | Depends on the partner's priorities |
| Cost profile | One-time fee plus your team's time | Monthly fee for the program | A margin or discount on every sale |
| What you learn about the market | A lot, first-hand | A lot: every call's results are reported back to you | Little, unless the partner shares it |
| Best for | Teams with time and a sales lead ready to own the US | Companies that want US pipeline now without hiring in the US | Products bought off existing contracts or catalogs |
Option 1: Train your own team
Training gives the people who will run your US business a working knowledge of how the US public sector buys and how to sell to it. KSG's US public sector sales training is live virtual workshops followed by coaching, built around your products and target markets. It covers how agencies buy, choosing segments, registrations and compliance, marketing to government buyers, outbound sales development and pipeline.
Choose this if you have someone who will own US public sector sales and the time to do the work, and you want to build the capability in-house. Watch out for the time it takes. Prospecting into government from another time zone is hard to fit around a day job.
Option 2: Embedded SDRs
With embedded sales development representatives (SDRs), a specialist team prospects for you, under your name or alongside your team, and books meetings with the US buyers who decide. KSG's US market entry service runs in three stages: Landing Pad to validate demand, Beachhead to build a pipeline, and Expansion to help you hire and hand off to your own US team.
Choose this if you want conversations with US buyers soon, without hiring in the US before you know the demand is there. Watch out for follow-through. Someone on your side still has to take the meetings and move deals forward.
Option 3: A distributor or reseller
A US distributor, reseller or systems integrator already sells to public buyers and may hold contracts they can buy from, such as GSA Schedules, state contracts or cooperative purchasing contracts. Adding your product to their catalog can make it easy for buyers to purchase.
Choose this if your product is usually bought through resellers or catalogs, or a buyer needs a contract vehicle you don't have. Watch out for the gap between being on a contract and being sold. A reseller with thousands of products rarely creates demand for a new one, and the customer relationship and data usually stay with them.
How to choose
- Do you have someone to own the US? If yes, training gives them a head start. If not, embedded SDRs can do the prospecting while you decide whether to hire.
- How do your buyers purchase? If they buy through resellers or cooperative contracts, you'll probably need a channel partner as well, and someone creating demand for the partner to fulfill.
- How fast do you need proof? If your board wants to see US demand this year, start with SDRs.
- How much do you want to learn? Training and SDRs both keep the market knowledge with you. A distributor keeps it with them.
Not sure where you stand? Take the readiness assessment.
Combining them
The routes work well together. A common path: train the team that will own the US, use embedded SDRs to test demand and book the first meetings, then add a reseller or cooperative contract once buyers tell you how they want to buy. Each step tells you more about the market before you commit to the next.