Empower Your Engineering Sales Team to Convert More Sales for Engineering

How to create outlook signature

[Music] the 80 20 rule i know what you're thinking you're thinking 80 of my revenue comes from 20 of my customers that is not what i'm talking about my 80 20 rule is probably the most argued rule by the tech people the 80 20 rule is that sales is 80 selling and 20 technical now before you say nope this guy doesn't know what he's talking about i'm gonna click ahead this course is not worth my time anymore he is he does not understand my business i guarantee you i do because i've done it and what i mean by this is that in the sales process while you do need to understand the technical product i'm going to make some assumptions here i'm going to assume that you understand your technical capabilities whether it's a service that you provide or it's a product and you're going to understand the technical aspect of that product or that service you do not have to be able to answer every single question some sales managers may say the people that sell the best are the ones that know the most about the product or the capabilities it's not true now there are some people some black sheeps out there that they are extremely technical when it comes to knowledge of the product of the capabilities and also a great sales person those two things combined is great it's like a unicorn right but that's because those people understand that sales comes first technical stuff comes second the first point is that you need to understand your audience if you're talking to extremely technical people then you usually would have a team product engineers process engineers whatever it is in your company the people that understand the technical stuff the most as a leverage point and has somebody to lean on if you don't have the answer some people think that this best sales people always have the answer no it's just like anything the best sales people can always get the answer the quickest you don't have to give it to them right then and there because what ends up happening is even if you're in an audience with technical people and even if you're talking to somebody that's an engineer or the head of engineering i'm not saying don't talk technical okay you need to go there when you need to go there but sales comes first you have to first understand and ask those questions that are going to make you understand what is it that the problem that they're trying to solve what is it that they're looking for in a supplier or in the system that you're trying to sell them or in the software or whatever it is but oftentimes technical sales people instantly go technical and then they do this thing called show up and throw up and i talk about this in my how to pitch course is that they walk into a room and they just throw up information and it's just like here's what we do here's what our service does here's a system that i offer here's our capabilities we've got this this this this and that and they just throw up information the person sitting there like okay and they may be not in their head like yeah okay sounds good sounds good yep but if you go on it like that and just go straight technical you're gonna miss all the cues and all the questions and opportunities that you have to ask people things so the 80 20 rule is more about understanding selling first and the technical aspect second you do need to understand the technical aspect of your product or service to a certain degree but too many times i've seen technical people fail in sales it's because that's what they have to rely on that's what they know the most if that's what your passion is is being technical and you don't really love sales then go be the head of engineering or go be the head in product development or whatever it is that's extremely technical because that's where your passion is but 80 of sales is people and selling and i get argued with it all the time but if you look at the top sales producers in that company or in the industry they they understand it they know that it's a process of understanding somebody's needs and matching your capabilities and your services to deliver them a solution when you walk into a meeting if you show up and throw up information with them you're going to miss all that you need to walk into a meeting understand that this is just a person sitting across from you and maybe if they're not extremely technical person you don't want to bore them with the technical information you want them to talk more than you're talking you want to ask them questions and get them to open up and give you information because what house are you going to sell them things when you're pitching things a lot of times people just go over the same sort of pitch deck and say here's all the technical information but what if they don't care about that what if all the stuff that you have the stuff that you listed doesn't even apply to their situation you need to look at it from a sales standpoint first first seek to understand what is their problem what are they why are you even there you may say i already know why they told me that they have a problem with this well ask seven other questions to really dig deep into it ask them what are their current suppliers doing for them what is their biggest headache that they have with their current supply chain what is the biggest issue the top three issues that you have with your current system or software or service that that they're trying to replace or what are your top three issues with your current supply chain what keeps you up at night or what keeps you like frustrated throughout the day and then after as they give you the answer ask them for more information and then talk about how your service or solution can make that easier for them or solve that problem for them but people that just go straight technical they miss everything and then when they get out of the meeting it's like how do you think the meeting went it went great well yeah because you talked all the time you missed the the cues that they it didn't go great because they we don't have any answers to our questions or oh we gotta they asked us to do a proposal yeah but we were there to to get more information out of them to get them to to tell us what they really want so that way we can develop it customized to them so you have to know your audience i understand that it'll be different when you're talking to very technical people at your potential customer or people on purchasing commodity management and things like that i understand it'll be slightly different but don't just go straight technical bring in the technical people if you have to and have them there with you to rely on let them talk technical with the other person meanwhile you're watching the person that they're talking to watching the other people in the room just look at that visual cues that people are giving or listening to the answers they're giving and ask follow-up questions your job there is to sell not to just sell the technical side of it but also to sell them on you guys as a potential solution or you guys as a supplier to them so you have to focus on the sales aspect more than just the straight technical