Transforming technical people into top-notched sales professionals in Singapore

Raymond is feeling very frustrated. He was once the company's best engineer, and was transferred to become a sales engineer because of his seemingly good people skills.

Since Raymond enjoyed dealing with people just as much as doing his engineering work, he accepted the challenge. After all, he could potentially make more money, not to mention having the chance to progress exponentially in his career.

However, after some months into his work, he found that he faced some unexpected challenges such as:

• Despite proposing what is objectively the best solution for the customer based on the customer's needs, the customer eventually decided to buy something that is in some ways inferior;

• Despite being willing to share with his customers all his professional technical knowledge, some customers simply couldn't care less to understand the features and benefits of what they are buying;

• Despite getting very positive feedback from a customer, that customer just changed their minds at the last minute

To be fair to Raymond, he actually had been through some really good sales training programmes. So he's really proficient in asking questions and understanding customers' needs.  He's also consciously aware NOT to overwhelm the customer with too much technical details, and focus on the key value and benefits instead.

Still, Raymond felt like he had hit a brick wall, and is feeling very discouraged. He even thinks of quitting his job, and join another company as an engineer all over again, even though he really likes his current company.

Now what could have gone wrong with such a high-potential sales engineer when dealing with customers?.

Customers are Different from Machines

Neither You Nor the Customer is Always Right

One of the requirements of a technical person's training and work is to derive at the precise correct answer every time. In other words, if you can't provide a definitive answer to a technical problem, then perhaps you are not going to be a good technical professional.

However, there may not be definitive answers to a customer's needs. The reasons could be:

• Customers may not always know what they want;

• Customers may buy for relationship reasons, than for rational reasons;

• Customers may be pressured internally to buy from existing vendors, despite that the solutions provide by existing vendors are not the best-fit for the customer, etc.

These are just some of the many reasons why customers may not select the best-fit solution that meet their needs.

Many technical sales people and sales engineers will be quick to point out that customers could be irrational when buying consumer products. However, when it comes to buying multi-million-dollar high-value industrial project items, they will behave a lot more rational.

Well, according to a research by Shipley's (the world's leading consultants on bidding management), only 52% of the technically-superior proposals will win in an open bidding. That means almost half of the technically-superior proposals will actually lose in an open bidding.

What this means is that buyers, especially industrial or B2B buyers, are a lot less rational than we think they are. The key message to technical sales people is:

Customers can be right, even when you know they are wrong.

This is something that many technical professionals find hard to accept. However, if they know the reasons behind such seemingly irrational customer behaviours, they could then use their analytical abilities to improve their sales performance.

From Technical Professional to Sales Guru

While buyers could be less-than-rational when purchasing high-value items or projects, sellers would have to be very rational when it comes to mapping out the right strategy to win the sale.

What technical sales people will then need to do is to analyse the various buyers' motivations, thinking and behaviour, in addition to the technical needs of the customer. Hence, some of the "buyer" oriented factors to consider could include:

• Will there be negative consequences if customers don't make a purchase?

• Is the customer's evaluation criteria favourable to our success?

• Do we understand the customer's buying decision process?

• Does the customer have the right budget to fund this purchase?

• Is it a worthwhile time frame and revenue to pursue this sale?

• What is the level of resistance of the key buying influencers?

• What is the level of the relationship strength of our competition with the customer?

• What is the level of solution strength of our competition? etc.

The moment they understand that customers are not always rational, technical sales people are generally more adept in applying analytical tools to analyse their customers' buying behaviour. They can then base on such analysis and observations to decide:

• If a certain sales opportunity or key account is worth pursuing;

• What needs to be done to drive the sale, in terms of the strength of our solution, relationship with customers or our ability to align internal and external resources;

• What are the emerging needs of certain customers so we can capitalise on them before they become explicit; etc.

Hence, it's no surprise if a technical sales person who also enjoys interacting with people, could leverage on his or her analytical abilities and training, and become a top-notched sales guru eventually.