Watch the original Substack video, or listen below while you read.

Meetings Win Contracts.

Meetings with government contracts, contracts with other businesses, and high-ticket contracts with consumers. In other words, B2G, B2B, and B2C.

I’ve closed millions of dollars in deals on Zoom calls.

That doesn’t even include the 6- and 7-figure government contracts where a Zoom meeting was the turning point that won the work.

If you sell anything high-ticket, you have to talk to people.

And most people completely mishandle it.

In this video, I go over mistakes people make on virtual sales calls and one strategy that 10x’d my business.

Preview below

The Three Rules That Changed My Business

There are three principles I teach on every call.

1. Tell the truth.

Start by telling the truth to yourself.

You are not getting on that call just to “connect.”

You are there to determine whether a sale should happen.

Does this person have a real problem you can solve?
Do they have the money?
Are they the decision-maker?

If not, you shouldn’t be on that call.

The objective isn’t to keep people in your pipeline.

It’s to move them out of it — one way or another — as fast as possible.

2. Shut up.

If you’re doing most of the talking, you’ve already lost.

New sellers make the call about their résumé.

“My experience.”
“My clients.”
“My background.”

The call isn’t about you.

It’s about them.

Your job is to keep them talking about their problems, their constraints, what’s worked, what hasn’t.

The more they talk, the more they sell themselves.

3. Brutal honesty wins.

Early in my consulting career, I got tired of hearing how others had promised companies fast federal contracts, easy wins, quick GSA schedules.

I was always truthful on sales calls, but after hearing about one particularly misleading salesperson, I decided to be so extreme in my honesty that I was almost trying to talk companies out of selling to the government!

One of those first conversation sounded like this:

“Selling to a federal agency is the hardest sales process your company will ever go through.

It’s long.
It’s regulated.
It can take 12–24 months.
You can waste hundreds of thousands of dollars if you focus on the wrong things.”

I thought I had just blown the deal.

Instead, I closed one of my biggest clients.

Why?

Because honesty is rare.

And when you’re a consultant, honesty is what you’re being paid for.

If You Want to Learn This System

Inside the GovClose Certification Program, we teach this entire approach — not just how to win government contracts, but how to build real leverage around it.

Once you understand how federal sales actually works, there are three primary revenue paths:

1. Start your own consulting business helping companies sell to the government.

2. Build and sell your own product or service into the federal market.

3. Use this skill set to land an account executive or business development role in the public sector.

Selling to the government is one stream.

Leveraging that knowledge is where real income flexibility happens.

You can learn more about the program here:

Join Us in Houston

If you want to go deeper in person, we’re hosting the GovClose Working Group Conference in Houston on March 25.

This is a working session.

Pipeline.
Targeting.
Positioning.
Real conversations about what it actually takes to win.

Details here:

Ready to go pro?

The GovClose Professional Training Program is built for people ready to commit to learning a new skill set, implementing that skill set, and working with a community of professionals who are serious about winning in the federal market.

If you think you have what it takes, set up an enrollment interview with the GovClose advisory team.