Years ago, in a previous business, I was approached by a proactive salesperson who highlighted that they had a particular machine that could be of value to our company. We were interested and saw the potential. This particular Salesperson highlighted that not only should we buy this machine but also a bunch of accessories to go along with it, which escalated the investment. We were on the cusp of purchasing this machine and the accessories when we thought, let's compare his product to others.
Enter a technical person from a competitor, who visited our premises, asked some solid questions, didn’t talk a lot, but he did say to us that the suggested accessories by the salesperson were not necessary and then made some other suggestions which added real value and significantly reduced our investment.
The Salesperson was proactive and created the opportunity and the technical person provided better insights and information.
Who did we buy off? We bought off the technical person because we trusted this person more, and he taught us quite a lot about what we needed, however without the salesperson the deal would never have happened.
This highlights the challenge for many companies and a question we are being asked a lot. Should you employ a technical person or a salesperson to sell?
What are the advantages of each?
Salesperson
- A salesperson should be more proactive and look to generate more opportunities
- A salesperson should have a better knowledge of the market and be more aware of trends and their potential customers pain points and needs
- A salesperson should be more adept at communicating with customers, providing a great customer experience and following a buyer aligned sales process
- A technical person should have superior knowledge of the product and a deeper awareness of its capability
- A technical person can build a high level of trust particularly if they are also selling to other technical people
- A technical person can provide superior insights, and have a greater capability to solve customers technical problems, which will not only provide trust but also value in the sales process
It is rare to find someone who has a balanced mixture of both technical and sales skills so often we have to make a decision which choice to make. It is very valuable however if you can have both the sales and technical people work together to bring both of their unique skillsets to the table. If companies don’t have the ability to employ both and need to make a decision, then the answer may lie in how technical their product or service is. The more technical the larger the need for technical expertise.
Ultimately how you answer this question will come down to some critical elements of your business and your customer base. For example, how complex is your product, who are you selling to, what is the requirement for lead generation and what is the size of an average deal size?
In the past 18 months with pressures in labour supply, we have seen increasing numbers of businesses coercing technical team into sales roles. What we have also seen is that as with many of those new to sales roles, to really thrive and succeed, these individuals need help to build confidence and to get comfortable having better conversations with prospects and customers. Technical salespeople often have a great ability to really understand customers tricky problems and how to solve them. They may however also need more development and support to understand how to tailor their communication style and approach to develop better rapport and relationships with those customers.
We know that all salespeople need clear KPI’s so they can understand what is needed of them, what we also know that salespeople are hungrier than ever for access to ongoing development and support. Our advice is, If you can find or convert someone into a successful technical salesperson congratulations, as these individuals with the right support can be extremely valuable for your business and any investment will no doubt, be repaid.
