Sales Engineers

[eliou]

Hey guys,

I am looking to find a new job in the next couple of months and need some advice. One of the positions which I am looking at is with a HVAC equiptment sales company. From what I have heard (one of my friends had an intern position there before) the engineers there make very good money due to the commission. The questions I have are the following:

1) What's the differences between a sales engineer and a salesman?

2) Is it hard to get out of the sales field and find another type of engineering job 10 years down the road due to the lack of technical knowledge you would gain as a sales engineer?

3) My friend claims that sales engineers (the hard working ones) there were making around 500k in a good year and around 200k in a normal year, anyone know if this seems reasonable? I find it to be ridiculously high.

Thanks!

 

[tbuelna]

A sales engineer is a sales rep. with an engineering background. In my current job, I deal with them once or twice a week. I must admit that most of the ones that I choose to deal with are very helpful and have a good technical understanding of their products. And they are also usually more than happy to let me speak directly with their engineering staff if they cannot answer my questions. I'm sure that since they are sales reps. though, they are paid a commission.

I work in aerospace and the project I'm working requires a lot of custom hardware. And the biggest problem I run into is not with the sales rep., it's with the management of the companies that don't want to bother building my custom parts because they don't see that it is financially worth their effort.

Of course, when business is good, they won't even return your phone calls. But when business is slow, they're pounding down your front door.

Sad as it sounds, a mediocre salesman will always make way more money than a good engineer.

 

[jmw]

SomptinGuy,
I like your definition of a sales engineer but it is incomplete. You need to say that he is selling an engineered product else it could apply to a biscuit salesman.
The sales engineer (a good one) often does know more than his clients about the product he sells and the application it is used in. His engineering expertise may not extend much beyond that. It happens that engineers who switch to sales may make very good sales engineers when selling engineering products or services; i.e. where their morals or integrity are not called into question I'd guess they don't make good time share/holiday ownership salesmen nor realtors nor double glazing/kitchen/conservatory salesmen (and/or women).

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jmw]

I'm going to recant a bit here.
Let's consider a simple product like a new type of flow meter.
The life cycle of this product will have a bearing on the skills set of the sales team relative to the engineers they deal with.
Initially the only skills associated with this meter will be those in the R&D team who developed it and it then goes to trial. For example, in the oil industry.
This coming together of the oil industry engineer and the R&D team from the manufacturer creates a set of skills and knowledge that are then passed to the sales engineers who go and talk to other oil industry engineers.
At this point the sales engineer knows more about this flowmeter and its oil industry application that the oil industry engineer who may know a great deal more about any other flowmeter and his own applications.
As the product matures the oil industry will develop their own skills sets, industry standards etc. and will become expert in its use, often using it in applications that frighten the sales engineer. This is because the R&D team have created a fail safe set of rules for the installation and use that does not allow failure. The oil industry engineer will understand when and where he can break those rules.
As the product matures further the sales activity devlops into a situation where the oil industry engineer makes his own choices and simply orders the meter when he needs one.
Thus as time goes by the salesman and his company lose touch with there clients needs and applications. The R&D team have moved on to other projects or other companies.
The skills set required to take repeat orders is minimal.
In the end the product becomes a cash cow and then no more money is spent keeping it up to date, partly because of the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" belief and partly because of ye olde fear of cross capture... why make your own product obsolete? (the competition end up doing this).
So the average sales engineer may not be smarter than anyone.

The exceptions would have to be where there is some ongoing application of engineering skills. These days there are more and more sizing programs, selection tools etc all designed to take out any engineering nous and replace it with monkey see monkey do type instructions on "how to".

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[oldfieldguy]

Sales engineer is a TITLE to many companies and what it means in what you can expect from the bearer of said title varies greatly.

I've dealt with some who, if they were real engineers, the I would be Prince Consort to the Czarina of All the Russias. And I've dealt with some plain ol' 'sales representatives' who were knowledgeable in their product to the nth degree and their engineer clients knew that.

Until I find out if I'm dealing with the second instead of the first, then a good maxim to keep in mind is "All salesmen are whores".

If you're contemplating a slide into a 'sales engineer' position, I'd hope you would be the second instead of the first.

old field guy