Sales Engineer Personality Traits

The underlying issue is, of course, that the personality type which is appropriate for sales is poles away from that which you find as the standard for an engineer. (Try a psychometric test if you have any doubt about this.) There are some people who have a bit of both traits, I'm one of them. And in a group of 15 or so people that I normally get on my events, there will be perhaps 3 or 4 such hybrids. Typically, they quickly demonstrate that they have got the point and intend to use the approach I have taught them.

Small Business Owners

A lot of small business owners are in this category too. The guys who pay for the event themselves are always the keenest. But there's usually one or two individuals, sitting at the back of the room with folded arms, who have been 'sent on a course' and who demonstrate by their body language that, 'There's nothing you can teach me. I've been on the road for 20 years'. J

So don't assume that you can convert all techie people; some will get the message straight away but there's usually a few who don't and perhaps never will.

But I can't see how a bit of sales training can do any one harm.

I particularly enjoy working with young people, either ones who have previously been technicians or graduates fresh from university. My hope is to be able to show them good sales methods before they are exposed to the bad habits old-timers can be prone to.

'One-Man-Bands' (sole traders)

Another category I feel affinity with is one-man-bands. Been there and done a lot of that myself. When you are a professional engineer with a small practice, sales is important but hard to focus on when you are under pressure to get existing jobs completed.

Here is a comment emailed to me one such consulting engineer who came to an event.

Others say, 'I was pleased to find out that what I have been doing for years is the right approach'. That translates to having more confidence and conviction in doing the sales part of the job. And confidence and enthusiasm engender the same in clients.

A common remark at the end of the day is, 'I enjoyed that and it's directly relevant to my job'. 

The sales approach taught in Selling for Engineers

What I have tried to do, and I believe have often succeeded at, is to get my seminar delegates to see that not only is winning orders necessary, but that it doesn't take a 'born salesman' to do it.

I don't try to get course participants to parrot slick, 'salesy' phrases. That would be pointless, because the type of people I work with don't want to be slick.

Personally I can't stand it if a salesperson opens up with a cheesey line such as, 'How many of these items are you ordering today?' 

What Buyers Want

What serious buyers are looking for is someone who knows his stuff, listens actively, can give an intelligent answer to questions, and who genuinely tries to offer a suitable product or service. Not someone full of glib phrases, fresh off a training course.

What I teach could be summarised in a few words as, 'Find out what the customer wants and help him/her get it'. (Don't worry, sales managers; I also make sure students know what a buying signal is and how to close when they get one).

Nor is the course a 'Ra-Ra' motivational event. More than anything what results from the seminar or reading the books, is that it opens peoples' eyes to many simple ways to pick up 'sales intelligence' and then make sure that potential opportunities aren't wasted.

But increased motivation definitely is a by-product. I get letters with phrases such as, 'I don't know what you did to them, I've never seen them so keen'.

'Techie' sales faults

An essential is to tackle the typical mistakes that techies are prone to. For example, the serious problem of talking too much about your own products and company and not finding out what the clients´ interests are. Another one is not shutting up and closing a sale when the customer has virtually told you that he is ready to say yes.

If you work with engineers, I'm sure you know what I mean by this. So I run an exercise at the seminar which highlights the problem. Then we spend half an hour or so practising, using appropriate questions to find out what the prospects´ real interests are and asking for the order if he is ready to place one.

This role-play isn't an embarassing grind, such as I have experienced on other training courses. Actually, although there is a serious point this section of the day always involves a great deal of animated discussion and much laughter. It's a real eye-opener for almost everyone.

Tangible products, Services and Consultancy

By the way, don't think that my training is just for 'widget' or product-in-a-box sales people. The learning points are valid for all technical sales, including long lead-time capital equipment sales such as fleets of aircraft or construction projects to governments. (I ran a course for BAe Jetstream Aircraft, Prestwick, Scotland, and for some of the world's biggest civil engineering companies).

Nor is it exclusively for 'Engineers' in the strict sense. The course is meant for bright people who do something in technology or science and who need to be able to contribute to their organisation winning more good orders. (Which really means everyone who has contact with clients or potential ones.)

I've taught people who provide medical supplies to the National Health Service, PhDs who supply lasers to university research departments, lots of chemists, software developers. Do you get the picture? All these people are highly qualified in their field but generally know little about sales.

That's not always the case, I've had some guys (and women) on the course who obviously know what the sales game is about and who get the most benefit from such course featuers as 'how to conduct a sales interview' which leads to 'how to make a powerful sales presentation'. Often these individuals were previously technicians; they are ambitious to progress their career and their boss has noticed that they have aptitude for sales. 

It's been a universe of tech products and services

The variety of client companies has been amazing, I've met people that design / make / sell paint, cranes, screws, hinges, aircraft components, advanced materials for 'stealth' applications, apparatus that aligns and joins fibre-optics, artificial ski-slopes, office machines, street-cleaning vehicles, machines that dispense ink for printers, crystal oscillators, cash-in-transit devices, security systems, measuring and weighing equipment (and I also presented a course for the UK National Weights and Measures Laboratory, Teddington). And every type of technical consultancy - bridges, railways, network-design, forensic analysis of industrial boilers.

If you want to see a vast list of companies who have bought my books or had a course, click here. client list