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Are engineers timid? 18

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lacajun

lacajun

Electrical
Apr 2, 2007
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During a conversation with a salesman, he stated that engineers are uncomfortable cold calling companies or people. If you gave one an assignment to call fifteen companies, institutions, people, he would be very uncomfortable doing it. He believes the task would not get done.

All thoughts and humor are welcome.
 
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If an engineer was NOT uncomfortable doing something like that then I suspect that he'd soon discover that if he changed jobs and became a 'salesman' that he'd make a crapload more money.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
 
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The skill set that drives someone to being an engineer includes a list of stuff (ability to comprehend mathmatical concepts, analytical ability, etc.), but it doesn't necissarily preclude other stuff. The sterotypical "engineer" fits the old joke "you can tell an extroverted engineer because he looks at your shoes when he talks instead of his own", but I don't know that guy.

I know accountants, doctors, plumbers, and lawyers who are uncomfortable cold-calling folks (my doctor will do almost anything to avoid making a phone call to someone he knows, and he breaks out in a sweat when he has to call someone he doesn't know). The skill set that makes cold calling easy is just that--a skill set. The percentage of the human population with that skill set is not huge. Some of the people with it are engineers. Some engineers have a total deficiency of that skill.

My guess is that your salesman is the sort of guy who gets through life by putting everyone into boxes and ignoring any skill that they might have outside the box. To say "Engineers are ..." or "Engineers can't ..." is simply asinine (much like saying "women can ..." or "women can't ..."). Hell, a non-trivial number of engineers have run countries (some of them not so well, others were pretty good) and other political entities. Your salesman would certainly say that was impossible.

David
 
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Most engineers hate sales and if we can generalize, I would say the majority (more than 50%) could be classified as timid but not making the calls would be more cause we hate being salesman moreso than being timid. Salesman need to have good conversation skills and love small talk, usually the opposite of most engineers.
 
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Not sure that 'timid' is the reason, and there are certainly exceptions, perhaps a lot, however you phrase it.

I'll agree/admit, I'm not big on phone calls to folks I don't know.

However, I'm not sure timid is quite the phrase or reason.

I can think of a few people that wouldn't put me down as timid, though I probably can be at times.

Posting guidelines faq731-376 (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​
 
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Agreed, I'm not a fan of cold calling. I've gotten used to it over the last few years, but whenever I have to I do get a little nervous. I'm not sure why really.

I'm glad it's not something I have to do on a regular basis.
 
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When I started my business, I had a LONG list of people I had worked with that needed a personal phone call to let them know I was in business. I looked forward to that set of calls because the list was people I knew and liked that I had mostly lost track of. Then I had a REALLY LONG list of cold calls that I dreaded. I would make two calls from that list, one from the other list, take a break. I did this for two weeks before I started my first project (a gift from a friend, but I didn't know it at the time) and never picked up the cold-call list again (but I did finish the first list after a couple of months). None of those guys ever called with work anyway.

I really hated cold calls, but I did it. I don't think I was very good at it (or it just isn't an effective way to drum up engineering work), but I was better than some of the cold calls I get from people who do cold-calls for a living.

David
 
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Depends what you mean by cold calling.

Some sales managers set a quota for cold calling because they think this is what grows the business.

Let's confine this to the sales of engineered products, pumps, valves, instruments, mixers etc. engineering services and so on.
In this area we have the "sales engineer".

There are two types of "sales engineers":
1) the "I can sell anything to anybody" sales man who is trying to sell one of the above. These are the professional sales people who just need a car, an expense account and a catalogue and will use the same methods to sell the above as they would to sell biscuits or time share. (except, most engineering sales are to engineers and most sales techniques are based on emotion.
2) the engineer who is thoroughly versed in the product or service and who has been sent on a sales training course to help him sell.
These are the least suitable for monkey see monkey do read from the catalogue and flip the desk top flip charts and "use the product selector" that are increasingly a part of the Global single source strategic alliance business models (that are, in my opinion, responsible for the "70% of flowmeters are the wrong size or the wrong technology" sales of flowmeters or any other product, if it comes to that).

The latter is very very uncomfortable with cold calling. Especially as most such calls are to engineers.

But with either type, it isn't just about how comfortable either is with cold calling it's about how effective it is.

Usually cold calling is picking on some company and calling at reception unannounced and with no appointment. Most times all you'll get is a compliments slip to prove you've been there. Sometimes you'll get a name of a contact and then you can try and make an appointment. In some cases you'll manage to talk your way into having somebody, usually the wrong somebody because the receptionist will usually pick on someone that is a known soft touch, not someone relevant (of which there may be no-one anyway because its the wrong company to call on).
In this case it means some engineer is dragged away from whatever he is doing to talk with someone he doesn't know about something he doesn't have a use for.

What's the point?
Management want to grow the business. This comes from growing the market or from the competition. many think cold calling is generating new business. Rot.
80% of the sales come from 10-20% of the clients. Growth comes from more sales. The logical place to look is within the 20% that already provide 80% of your business and you want to keep the competition from getting a look in.
The majority of the rest comes from occasional sales to the remaining 10-20% and then there are new clients.
New clients come from marketing initiatives or sales campaigns designed to generate new interest; requests for literature questions asked and even requests for quotes.

Now factor in:
Most salesmen on commission (and especially distributors) will sell the easiest thing to sell and are worried about their end of the month figures.
The easiest sales are of the same product in the same application to the same client.
Next easiest is where you change any one of the above excepting that new products, new applications and new clients will none of them generate short term results.
The very worst thing to waste time on is cold calling.

Now the salesman should have a responsibility to find new business. But cold calling isn't the way, especially not in the era of the internet. He is most comfortable selling existing products for proven applications to new clients. The easiest way to do this is called buffer selling. You take a proven application with one client and then head for the competition. This is the easiest because the competition thinks the only way to stay ahead is to not be left behind so if they learn their competitors (not necessary to name them) are now using product A then they will be more inclined to want to see what product A is all about and maybe buy.

So against all this you have management and commission based salesmen aligned in wanting to hit the end of the month targets. Management may also want to see growth. They have to see an ROI on R&D which means they have to take a proportion of the salesmen's efforts to sell new products. That is a long term return on the salesmen's efforts and must be managed.

So all in all I can think of lots of much better things to do with the sales effort than set quota's for unqualified cold calls (i.e. just call at any convenient business on route for a comps slip and tick the box). Calls by appointment are far to be preferred and structured calls better still.
Since most salesmen spend 1 in 5 writing reports, for the remaining 4, 3 will be spent with existing clients.There isn't room in the remaining 1 for cold calls. Except it isn't 1 because we also have to take out for sales meetings holidays sickies etc.

And what is left is too valuable to waste cold calling.
Most engineers would recognise this as a waste of time and resist doing it. Most fo the rest also recognise it as a waste of time but are happy to waste time if they meet quotas.


JMW
 
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Sounds like he feels a little inferior around you and had to try and find something to cut you down about. Some engineers are timid but I think the typical engineer is a confident well adjusted person.
 
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hokie66...as is common, you beat me to it! I don't consider myself timid. In the business I'm in, have to go "toe-to-toe" routinely. But I hate cold calls. I've done them, will do them again, but don't like them. So what?
 
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Perhaps this will reveal part of the problem:

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However, that real issue becomes obvious here:

23886.strip.sunday.gif


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
 
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