The SLED Buyer Insights Playbook

Hey! I’m Justin 👋 

I founded Starbridge to help businesses win more government and education deals.

Welcome to the SLED Sales Brief — a newsletter for gov & edu sales leaders.

Back when I was selling, I was always curious about what schools and agencies actually wanted from vendors. So, we went straight to the source.

We interviewed real SLED buyers to find out what makes a vendor stand out—and what makes them walk away.

Today, I’m sharing all the insights we’ve gathered.

Let’s dive in.

Standing Out in the Sea of Outbound

1. Start with the challenge

Public buyers aren’t looking for vendors; they’re looking for solutions. Make sure your outbound message starts with the challenge, not your product.

💡 Proof Point: Success Academy only responds to vendors who show they’ve researched Success Academy’s strategic plan to understand their key priorities.

2. Build reassurance through social proof

Word spreads fast among public buyers. Get ahead of the word-of-mouth by incorporating happy customers who are peers, neighbors, or even competitors in your initial outbound.

💡 Proof Point: The first thing a city manager does when they’re exploring a solution is ask their peers if they’re currently using it.

3. Get to the Point, Fast

Although we like to think buyers care about our origin story, most don’t want to hear the whole TedTalk. Give them a clear reason to reply — a one-liner on how you solve a problem they already have works great.

💡 Proof Point: The best outreach is short, to the point, and easy to forward internally.

Section 2: How to Deliver a Demo That Converts

1. Make It Hyper-Relevant

A school district doesn’t care about a city’s challenges. A suburban borough doesn’t care about an urban city’s tools. Show you’ve done the homework in your demo—use their data, talk about their workflows, and make it obvious how this fits them.

💡 Proof Point: A vendor won over the CBS team by customizing a demo down to room size and Bluetooth coverage for their attendance tool.

2. Give Them a Hands-On Experience

Seeing is good. Doing is better. The best demos feel real—they walk through actual use cases and let buyers try them themselves. Give them sample accounts, mock scenarios, and clear before-and-after results.

💡 Proof Point: Success Academy’s best demo pre-loaded real-world sample data so they could see an immediate impact.

Section 3: How to Win the Deal & Close Faster

1. Sell the Relationship, Not Just the Product

This was true of every buyer we spoke to. It’s easy to see through the vendors that are just there to sell. Public buyers want partners who stick around. Show that you’ll support them through implementation, training, and beyond.

💡 Proof Point: Canvas by Instructure won Success Academy over by having a responsive customer success team always on hand.

2. Be Patient—Their Process is Slow (And That’s Normal)

Public buyers aren’t like private buyers—they have hoops to jump through. Budgets, approvals, legal reviews—it all takes time. If you push too hard, you’ll create friction vs. progress. Instead, help them navigate the process, set realistic timelines, and play the long game.

💡 Proof Point: Government buyers appreciate vendors who understand the procurement obstacles and work within their timelines.

What’s New at Starbridge

We recently launched the Starbridge web agent!

You can now scrape any page or document from an agency/school website to get contact information or find relevant mentions.

Some use cases we’ve seen from customers already:

• Find curriculum adoption schedules (in our benchmarks we're extracting with 90%+ accuracy)

• Identify agencies that are approving a Generative AI use policy or launching pilots

• Locate schools that are preparing for an accreditation cycle

• Find the physical address of a government or school office

• Identify a buyer persona’s name, email, and phone number

You can then use these to inform an outbound sequence or to enrich your CRM

Here’s a demo of what it looks like in our product.

Thank you for reading!

Next week, I’m sharing our outbound sequence guide — a deep dive into how we structure our outbound sequences at Starbridge.

If you have any questions, reach out via Linkedin. My inbox is always open.

See you next week,

— Justin