Atlas Space Operations: Why Contact Sport Beats Content Marketing in Government Sales

Atlas Space Operations: Why Contact Sport Beats Content Marketing in Government Sales

Your content marketing playbook is useless for government sales. Every framework you’ve learned about inbound marketing, demand generation, and conversion funnels breaks down when your buyer is a federal procurement officer.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Brad Bode, Founder CTO & CIO of Atlas Space Operations, a ground software as a service platform that’s raised over $37 million, explained why government go-to-market requires throwing out the SaaS playbook entirely.

The Blunt Truth About Government Marketing

Brad is unambiguous about what doesn’t work: “There’s no amount of Google Adwords you could do to help you with the government.” No SEO strategy. No growth hacking. No viral loops. None of the tactics that work for B2B SaaS apply to government contracting.

This isn’t because government buyers are technologically unsophisticated. It’s because the procurement process is fundamentally different. Government contracts are awarded through formal processes with specific requirements, evaluation criteria, and compliance demands. Decision makers aren’t searching Google for solutions. They’re evaluating responses to requests for proposals.

“You can’t really market to the government,” Brad explains. The entire paradigm shift happens in that sentence. In commercial B2B, marketing generates demand and sales converts it. In government, that separation doesn’t exist in the same way.

What Actually Works: The Contact Sport

Brad’s chief growth officer—who also serves as CEO of Freedom Space Technologies, Atlas Space’s government-focused subsidiary—has a specific term for government sales: “It is a contact sport, as he says.”

What does contact sport mean practically? “You’ve got to take it to the road and you’ve got to go to the grip and grins where you grip handshake and grin, right? And make people aware,” Brad explains.

Grip and grins. It’s almost quaint compared to modern SaaS GTM language about product-led growth and self-serve funnels. But it’s the reality of government sales. You show up at industry events. You shake hands. You make people aware you exist. You build relationships one conversation at a time.

This isn’t networking in the Silicon Valley sense of collecting business cards and LinkedIn connections. It’s sustained relationship building with specific people at specific agencies who make or influence contract decisions.

Why Presence Matters More Than Content

The underlying reason contact sport works is that government buying isn’t driven by discovering solutions to problems through search or content. It’s driven by trust, relationships, and demonstrated capability.

“It is getting to know the people in the government, getting to know their procurement process, and being willing to bid on some of these smaller contracts so you can scale upwards to win some of the bigger contracts,” Brad explains.

Notice the sequence: know the people, know their process, win small contracts, scale to bigger ones. Nowhere in that sequence is “publish blog posts” or “optimize landing pages” or “run paid ads.” The motion is entirely relationship-based and proof-based.

Your marketing in government sales is actually winning contracts and executing well. “You’ve got to be willing to bid on some of these smaller contracts so you can scale upwards,” Brad emphasizes. Each small contract serves the same function that case studies or testimonials serve in commercial B2B—proof you can execute.

The Agency-Specific Problem

Government sales complexity multiplies because each agency operates differently. “I would say it’s completely different. Some of them might use some of the same terms, but the expectations and the massaging and the meetings you have to take are always very different,” Brad notes.

Atlas Space has worked with NASA, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Space Force, and Space Development Agency. Each has unique procurement processes, evaluation criteria, and relationship dynamics. “In my experience, they’re all very different,” Brad says. “We’ve been on NASA, diu, Space Force, Space Development Agency, and each one is pretty much its own unique thing with some similarities in their overall approach. But you need to know the subtleties of each.”

This creates a scaling challenge that doesn’t exist in commercial SaaS. When you figure out how to sell to one type of customer in B2B SaaS, you can apply that playbook to similar customers. In government, learning how to sell to NASA doesn’t automatically translate to selling to Space Force. The relationships are different. The processes are different. The decision makers are different.

Your “marketing” becomes building agency-specific knowledge and relationships rather than creating content that works across all buyers.

Making Them Aware You Exist

The closest thing to traditional marketing in government sales is awareness building. “You want to make them aware that you exist and that you have serious people who have worked within the government before, and that helps,” Brad notes.

But even awareness building works differently. You’re not trying to get attention from thousands of potential buyers. You’re trying to get attention from specific procurement officers, program managers, and decision makers at target agencies.

The tactics reflect this narrow focus. Conference presence at government and aerospace events. Direct outreach to program managers. Participation in industry groups where government buyers engage with potential contractors. And critically, having team members with government experience provides credibility.

“You have serious people who have worked within the government before, and that helps,” Brad says. Your team composition is a marketing signal. Former government employees on your team communicate that you understand the procurement environment, compliance requirements, and operational realities of government programs.

The SBIR Entry Point

The closest thing to a repeatable government acquisition channel is Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts. “The best way to start accessing government money and making the government aware of who you are as a company is probably through these small business initiatives. They’re called sivers,” Brad explains.

SBIRs serve the dual purpose of generating revenue and building awareness. They’re publicly posted, which makes them accessible without deep relationships. They’re specifically designed for small businesses, which levels the playing field against larger contractors. And winning SBIRs creates past performance credentials that open doors to larger contracts.

“You just have to know where to go to look. They’re public. You look for a topic that you think you could apply your skills to and you attempt to win it,” Brad notes. This is the one area where government sales resembles commercial demand generation—there’s a published opportunity, you respond to it, and you either win or lose based on your submission.

But even SBIRs ultimately come down to execution and relationships. “In this way, you get your foot in the door with the government so you can show past performance,” Brad explains. The SBIR itself isn’t the goal. It’s the beginning of a relationship that leads to larger opportunities.

The Long Game of Relationship Capital

What makes government sales particularly challenging for founders trained on SaaS metrics is the timeline. In B2B SaaS, you can measure sales cycle, time to close, conversion rates. In government, contracts can disappear for a year and resurface unexpectedly. “We just had a contract now that we thought was dead. That was a NASA contract. We thought it was dead and then it for a year and then it came back just recently and we don’t know why it went quiet, but that’s the name of the game,” Brad recalls.

You can’t optimize relationship building the way you optimize conversion funnels. The ROI on attending a conference or meeting with a program manager might not materialize for two years. Or it might never materialize. Or it might lead to an opportunity you didn’t expect.

This uncertainty means government GTM requires different resource allocation than commercial sales. You can’t just hire SDRs and give them quotas. You need people who understand government procurement, can build relationships over extended timelines, and navigate the unique dynamics of each agency.

The Portfolio Approach

Brad’s framework for surviving government sales timelines is maintaining both commercial and government revenue streams. “You have to have a commercial plan and a government plan,” he emphasizes repeatedly.

Commercial business provides predictability while government relationships develop. Government business provides scale and stability once contracts are won. The portfolio approach reduces risk from government sales unpredictability while maintaining access to the largest opportunities.

This dual strategy also applies to marketing resources. You can invest in content marketing and demand generation for commercial buyers while investing in conference presence and relationship building for government buyers. Different motions for different markets.

What This Means for Your Go-to-Market

Three principles emerge from Atlas Space’s government GTM experience. First, accept that traditional marketing doesn’t work. No amount of content or paid ads will generate government pipeline. Shift resources to presence and relationships.

Second, treat contract wins as your marketing vehicle. Each successful execution builds credentials and relationships that lead to larger opportunities. Your best “case study” is a government program you’ve delivered on.

Third, build agency-specific knowledge rather than generic government expertise. The subtleties matter. Understanding how DIU operates differently from NASA or Space Force creates competitive advantage that content marketing can’t replicate.

For founders considering government revenue, Brad’s experience offers a stark warning: your entire GTM playbook needs rewriting. “There’s no amount of Google Adwords you could do to help you with the government, it is getting to know the people in the government, getting to know their procurement process,” Brad says.

Contact sport, not content marketing. Grip and grins, not growth hacking. Relationships, not funnels. That’s the government GTM reality.