Engineers often are labeled as geeks, a term that is not particularly endearing. But to the engineer, he may not be offended as he immerses himself into his world of design and creativity. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing the product you designed used in the real world or developed into a lifesaving device. If you are this type of engineer, you probably are cast in the correct role.
However, if you struggle to develop products and prefer or even enjoy teaching and coaching, there’s a high probability that you have the skills necessary to be a sales engineer or an application engineer.
Not everyone can make it. But if you have the passion, then give it a try. Some traits of a good sales engineer are the following:
• Perseverance: This is an essential attribute to keep you going when the door is slammed in your face or you lose an order. But on the other hand, there is nothing more satisfying than helping someone choose the right solution.
• Self-Motivation: There often is no manager telling you what to do next; you have but one goal and that is to find customers that will purchase your product. In many cases, it is said that money is the key motivator. But this is only a very short-term form of motivation. The real drive comes from the love of the job.
• Outgoing Personality: If you are easy to get along with and can talk to everyone, you have a great starting point. Being able to break the ice with a customer is a great asset.
If you still are unsure, there are tools on the market that make a science out of understanding your personality and should always be considered before making a career change. The CALIPER organization, for instance, takes an approach that begins with an objective, accurate assessment instrument that provides data for measuring potential, personality characteristics, individual motivations, likely behaviors, and job-related progress. The company then has the information needed to guide an organization or individual to a higher level of performance.
Once your personality style is understood and you feel you can make it as a sales engineer, how do you find a position when most of the time companies usually want someone with experience in sales? How do you gain this experience?
Well, there is an intermediate step you can take: move from pure design engineering to marketing where a great deal of interfacing will take place with customers to help define and develop the next product. Another option is to transfer into product support or applications engineering, each having a fair amount of time in front of customers and, in many cases, supporting a sales engineer.
During this apprenticeship period, take note of the successful sales engineers you meet and attend classes on selling. But most importantly, read books and watch videos on selling. Take every opportunity to learn.
In the same way a design engineer cannot go through life without learning about new products or methodologies, a sales engineer also must continue the educational process. As a sales engineer, it is critical to know about the products being sold and how to sell them.
A knowledgeable sales engineer is an invaluable asset to everyone he sells to and for. He is the one person who can apply his products to the application the design or test engineer may be developing. There have been many occasions when a sales engineer has solved a customer application problem within minutes of a first meeting, and the resolution may have been very different than the design engineer was considering.
New products come to market that don’t work quite the same way as previous generations. It takes a sales and applications engineer to convey how these features will improve the performance of the product being designed.
Imagine being one of the first sales engineers trying to sell a digital voltmeter to engineers convinced that they could do everything with an old analog Simpson meter. For a long time, many engineers wouldn’t change because they found it difficult to make adjustments to circuits using a digital instrument. The sales engineer took this information back to his company, and marketing defined products with small analog displays as well as the digital display.
So having transitioned from design engineer to sales engineer, you no longer are considered an engineer by your contemporaries, but more like a sleazy car salesperson who is not worth talking to. This perception may have come about for all the wrong reasons. The truth is that most respectable engineering companies hire sales people with good, if not great, engineering backgrounds.
Check it out next time you have the opportunity to talk to a salesperson. Remember, if you are a design engineer today, you owe it to yourself to talk to these engineers, and here is why:
• Sales engineers ARE, more often than not, qualified engineers.
• They can help in applying products to the customers’ requirements.
• They know aspects of the products that the customer can’t see from the datasheets.
If you are a manager at an engineering company, the best training you can give to your engineers is to invite sales engineers into the facility. Set up a lunch-and-learn session. Ask the sales engineer to present some interesting applications that his product might be used for in your organization. It won’t cost a penny to train your engineers using this method.
If you are a manufacturing company, having skilled sales engineers creates an excellent way to glean market information, improve product acceptance, or learn what new features might be needed. Because the sales engineer is suitably qualified, he can translate customer requirements into specifications the company can use.
Often it is said that nothing happens in a company until a sale is made. And while this is partially true, a company cannot exist without all the disciplines. The complete exercise of developing new products is a team event involving everyone in a company from sales, marketing, design, and production.
Design engineers, production engineers, test engineers, and—yes— even sales engineers make up critical parts of the company you work in today. And the leading companies are using qualified engineers in all these roles.
About the Author
Malcolm Levy, the vice president of sales and marketing at Giga-tronics, has been involved in sales and marketing of electronic test equipment for 25 years. Mr. Levy is a member of the Institute of Incorporated Engineers based in the United Kingdom and before moving into sales and marketing was a communications engineer working on terrestrial point-to-point radio networks. Giga-tronics, 4650 Norris Canyon Rd, San Ramon, CA, 94583, e-mail: [email protected]
February 2009