Engineering Sales

[mielke]

My role at my company has expanded to application engineering, and I wanted to take the initiative and try to acquire new clients and customers.

My company has no sales or marketing department and has a solid customer base from its history and reputation. This, and the fact that my technical education has absolutely no references to sales or marketing, leaves me at kind of a lost as to how to go and acquire customers.

I've done some reading in sales and marketing but was hoping to get a more engineering view point here. We sell heat exchangers, mostly small scale, to industrial costumers, power plants, gas refinery, etc..

Im hesitant to making calls to prospective clients fearing my inexperience and lack of knowledge to sales will give them a bad reputation for us. So basicaly I was wondering if anyone here has experience that they would like to share in sales and marketing of industrial equipment for an engineer or if they can refer me to any specific helpful references.

Thank You

 

[MacGyverS2000]

While your initiative is commendable, you are an app engineer, not a salesman. There are several reasons the two positions are typically separate, but suffice it to say you'll end up shooting yourself in the foot quite often if you try to do both.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[mielke]

I realize this. The company is realy small, in fact there are basically only two other people and they have a sales background that have pretty much been doing app.

 

[stanford94]

go here and get some training. it may help.

http://www.dalecarnegie.com/

 

[Ron]

Please, please, please don't turn into a "salesman". If you need to represent your product for sales, learn everything it does and everything it can't do...then talk to your client from a knowledgeable standpoint...let the product sell itself...your clients will be more satisfied as a result. You have two choices..."sell" the product and hope it can produce, or let the client buy the product based on their knowledge of it (which you provide) so that they are not pushed into decision...they arrive at their decision by deduction...not production.

 

[mielke]

Thanks Ron, but I'm more interested in how to acquire new customers and not specificaly how to sell to them.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

How do you intend to "acquire" more customers if you have no intention of selling them on your product? Saying "Hey, we've got a product you might be interested in, talk to our sales guy" out of the blue to some unknown doesn't really scream "quality company" to me.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[mielke]

macgyver, I think you misunderstood me. The point of my question is how to acquire new customers, or atleast make them aware of what we do and offer, and not how do I convince them to buy the product itself. That is what I ment by the last quote. and it is not to say that i have no intention of selling the product just that my question is geared towards a specific topic.

I was wondering if any engineers (specifically applications engineers) out there do anything specific to get new or more applications and clients that they would like to share.

 

[superdaigle]

I agree with some of the posts above and others not. The best sales guys are out of an engineering background in my mind, as if you're smart enough to design a product you're competent enough to sell it. Many of the guys with a marketing background are personable and have formal training, but have to call the factory anytime someone asks them a design related question.

The primary way that we meet new clients is through lunch & learn seminars. Educate your prospective clients about how to apply your technology, places where you've helped solve similar problems. Teach them how the equipment is designed (obviously leaving out proprietary information). Ask them where you can help. Ask them if they are facing challenges with their existing equipment.

The best "sales" guy doesn't sell anything. Spend your time listening to concerns & problems, ask a lot of questions, and answer the questions that your client has without feeding them any BS. At the end of the day you won't have to "sell" anything, you will provide a technical service and product that helps a customer do his job.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

The best sales guys are out of an engineering background in my mind, as if you're smart enough to design a product you're competent enough to sell it.

Agreed... but the sales guy should not act as an apps engineer, and vice versa, at the same time.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[spider007]

there is a difference between sales and marketing, and i think what he is looking for is marketing.

 

[kepharda]

I am the sort of person you would be selling to. As a Consulant in the Heavy Industries we typically have different vendors show up and they buy sandwiches and we agree to listen to their pitch for 1 hour.

The best sales job to me is usually from a fellow engineer, for example I can ask him a question and he can answer it in 2 seconds, vs a salesman who has to call back to the factory and then get back to me in 2-3 days.

If you want to grow your business, try looking into finding an equipment vendor who sells similar equipment.

You would need to write specific language to ensure he doesn't just cannibal your current sales, but these types of companies are usually highly networked and can make your company known to people like me that design new systems.

this message has been approved for citizen to elect kepharda 2008