52 WINNING EDGE

FEATURE | TECHNICAL SALES

THE BEST OF BOTHIAIN HARVEY

describes how to ensure both

technical expertise and commercial

flair in your sales team

“My organisation sells technical products, often complex and with a long sales cycle. We usually recruit technical experts (internally or externally) into sales because that’s what we’ve always done and we think that’s what our customers expect. But these people often struggle to adapt because the skill sets required for technical experts and salespeople are vastly different. Being methodical and analytical is important for technicians and engineers, so expecting them to be entrepreneurial and adaptable, as the best salespeople are, leads to underperformance, frustration and ultimately causes them to leave.”

If you recognise this situation, you are not alone. Indeed, it is one of the most common issues our clients ask us to help them with ie. Should we employ proven salespeople or technical experts? Therein lies a central problem, that it is often seen as a binary choice – to recruit either one or the other.

So why does this happen? Our experience leads us to recognise two main factors. Firstly, that the kind of people recruited is strongly influenced by the person who is running the business or team. They recruit in their own image, meaning that salespeople look to bring in salespeople and engineers look for engineers.

Secondly, when complex products are sold, technically inclined business leaders assume the buyers are very often experts themselves. They fear that if salespeople do not demonstrate a high level of knowledge they, and by extension we, will lack credibility and our prospective customers will look elsewhere. On the other hand, managers from a sales background fear losing sales because overly complex, technical pitches will frustrate customers.

We have a classic ‘Catch 22’ that many organisations fail to tackle. But it doesn’t always have to be this way. There are some practical steps that can be taken to ensure the optimum combination of technical expertise and commercial flair in your sales team:

IAIN HARVEY is a consultant with Mercuri International, a global sales training and sales performance consultancy. Visit www.mercuri.co.uk or call 0330 9000 800.

l Clearly define rolesSales engineer, applications specialist, technical sales, and product support – the variety of job titles in customer-facing roles alone is mind-boggling and can often be used to justify arguments along the lines of “I didn’t realise that was part of my job”. If people are expected to contribute to the sales effort, then make sure this is clearly defined with proper objectives and measurements put in place. Make people accountable for their performance and incentivise them properly. l Have a trainable, uniform sales process Common ground between sales and technical people lies in following a set of clearly defined processes to solve a problem. So if you put in place a logical and, crucially, trainable sales process then everyone should be comfortable with it, albeit they will be executing it in their own personal style. It also facilitates team selling so you can pair engineers with sales experts in business development or account management pursuits and so optimise your talent pool. l Get the blend right The most successful teams are never comprised of people with the same skill set. There is no rule that says you must exclusively employ either engineers or sales experts. Build a team with both and get them working with each other. l Conduct proper assessments Too many appointments into critical, revenue generating roles are based solely on face-to-face interviews, often with gut feel as the deciding factor. All too often, someone already working for the organisation, with a good reputation and known as likeable and dependable, gets the nod. This is not sufficient. Psychometric testing can give a clear indication of attitude and motivation and a robust competence analysis can give a reliable view as to aptitude. Put candidates into a realistic, observed business simulation and see how they perform under pressure. Once you have a clear, objective profile of capability and confidence you can make an informed decision on whether someone is right for the role. l Invest in developmentBoth technical knowledge and selling skills can be improved by training, so if your team is in place but you are not getting the results you want, don’t accept the status quo. The assessment tools mentioned above can also be used on your existing people as part of a training needs analysis to identify and then address skills, knowledge, attitude and aptitude gaps.

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