What do you really expect when you give an engineer a sales target and a phone?

It's not uncommon— as an MD of an SME you may even have watched it happen—a brilliant engineer transfers to the sales team and gets a sales target. They know the product inside out. But what happens when their world of tolerances, torques, specific heat capacities and volumetric flow rates collides with a customer’s focus on profitability, ROI, and Total Cost of Ownership?

The best engineers are key to innovation, developing products that create a market advantage. They also protect your business from liability by ensuring product specification and design are flawless. But this product-centric approach is often not aligned with the language of the customer.

It was a Thursday...

An engineer, freshly promoted to a sales role, wasn't put off by two days of cold calling rejection. After securing a meeting, by chance, their detailed presentation on every product fact and benefit was met with silence. The engineer, realizing they knew nothing about the customer's business, desperately asked, "So, have you seen anything there that we can help you with?" Ten minutes later, the visit was over. The customer had the brochure, had shaken hands and promised to call once they found a need.

Walking back to the car, the engineer’s emotions kicked in. Was this really what sales was all about? Surely no one could enjoy this position every day? They had all the tools of the trade - laptop, CRM, car and credit card. 💻📈🚘💳 What was missing from the formula for their sales success?

The missing piece

The skillset for an external sales engineer differs fundamentally from a product engineer. They need to be customer-centric; whilst product knowledge is critical, it is secondary to understanding the customer's pain points.

The sales engineer needed a proven process and a specific skillset:

🎯 How to command the cold call and secure interest.

🧠 How to discover the pain by asking challenging questions.

🛡️ How to build credibility and trust that they and their product hold the solution.

💰 How to translate product brilliance into commercial value.

Now imagine a sales coach sat alongside them, with their own experience of a similar transition and the experience of guiding others on the same journey. This coaching would have ensured they were ready in all these areas, including strategy and area planning, and would have made the world of difference to their sales success.

We know this scenario would never happen in your business, so who do you know who might need some help avoiding it? Tell them that for the sake of their sales engineer and their business success they should contact me immediately to get things back on track!

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