I Used to Be the Buyer
What Government AI Vendors Get Wrong About Their Audience
Most AI vendors pitch fear, jargon, and vague promises to government buyers. Having sat on the other side of the table, here's what actually gets a meeting - and what gets you ghosted.
The Inbox Problem
I used to be the person reading those emails. Sitting in a government office, wading through vendor pitches that all sounded the same. "Revolutionary AI." "Cutting-edge machine learning." "Transform your department." Delete, delete, delete.
The vendors who got meetings weren't the ones with the best technology. They were the ones who understood what I actually needed. That gap - between what vendors think buyers want to hear and what actually lands - is where billions of pounds go to die.
The Vendor Pitch Simulator
Step into the vendor's shoes. Pick your email strategy and see how a real buyer reacts.
What subject line do you lead with?
What Buyers Actually See
On a typical Monday morning, a government technology buyer might have 15-20 vendor emails waiting. Most get less than 10 seconds of attention. The subject line is the entire pitch for 90% of them.
What surprises most vendors is how little their technology matters at this stage. Buyers aren't evaluating your AI model. They're evaluating whether you understand their world. Do you know what keeps them up at night? Do you know what their minister just asked about? Do you know what went wrong last time?
The Buyer's Inbox
Five vendor pitches landed this morning. Rate them - then see which ones actually got meetings.
Instructions: Click each email to read the full pitch. Rate each one 1-5 stars based on whether you would take the meeting. Rate all five to see the results.
Speaking Their Language
The single biggest mistake AI vendors make is leading with their technology. "Our platform leverages state-of-the-art NLP with 99.2% accuracy on benchmark datasets." That sentence means nothing to a buyer who needs to process 40,000 benefits applications by March.
The translation is simple but most vendors can't do it: start with the outcome, not the input. "We helped DWP process benefits applications 60% faster, cutting the backlog from 12 weeks to 4." Same technology, completely different conversation.
The Outcomes Translator
Vendor-speak to buyer-speak in one click. Can you spot the pitch that actually lands?
“Our platform leverages state-of-the-art NLP with 99.2% accuracy on benchmark datasets, powered by a proprietary transformer architecture.”
Which rewrite would actually land with a government buyer?
Want help landing your pitch?
We've been on both sides of the table. We know what government buyers actually respond to - and we can help you get there.
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