Mark Amtower, founder and managing partner of Amtower & Company and a Washington, D.C. legend in marketing to the government, joined host Aileen Black on this week’s Leaders and Legends to discuss leadership in government marketing.

Amtower is a consultant, speaker, best-selling author, columnist, adjunct graduate professor and radio host. For 12 years, he has hosted Amtower Off Center on Federal News Network, which was the first radio show in the country to address issues impacting the government contracting community.

Amtower has advised over three thousand large, medium and small companies on all aspects of marketing to the federal government since starting Amtower & Company in 1985. He was selected by BtoB magazine as one of the Top 100 Business Marketers in the United States in 2008 and he specializes in helping companies develop thought leadership positions in a defined niche and leveraging social media to gain targeted visibility in the government contracting market.

His books, Government Marketing Best Practices (2005) and the Amazon best seller Selling to the Government (2011) are industry standards. In November of 2018, he was awarded the inaugural Government Marketing University Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Government Marketing.

In addition, Amtower is recognized as one of the top LinkedIn trainers in the world and the only trainer focused on the U.S. federal market. He said the most successful companies in the D.C. area use LinkedIn better than their competitors.

“Having studied LinkedIn closely for over 14 years, I know that most companies are not even close to using the potential of this platform,” he said. “It’s not about learning how to be ‘on’ LinkedIn. It’s about learning how to more fully leverage LinkedIn to market to the federal government in ways that were never possible before.”

Working with the government is a relation-driven market, and Amtower said growing and managing your business network has never been more critical. He quoted Silicon Valley marketer and investor Regis McKenna who said “marketing is everything and stands the test of time.” McKenna is best known for taking the story of Apple and turning it into folklore.

Amtower also offered some advice for the next generation of government marketers: “Never stop the learning process and avoid the cheap shots.”

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