Interview With a Sales Engineer

I recently got the opportunity to sit down with my uncle, Paul Steen, a Sales Engineer in Denver Colorado. I had the wonderful opportunity to hear about and discuss the real world of sales and what it is like from the perspective of a seasoned veteran. Below is written what I hope you find to be helpful information and perhaps answers to questions you might have had about what a career in sales looks like.

1. Why should someone choose sales?

Sales is a wonderful gig for many reasons. Perhaps the most fascinating and beneficial aspects of working in sales, is that you operate on the profit side of a company. This lies in contrast with 90% of jobs that most companies offer;. Everything from PR, to HR, IT, marketing, and production is all the cost or expense side of business. Sales, by contrast, is one of the few jobs in which your sole job is to make money; your only role is bring in revenue. My uncle provided the example of a car company, who employs thousands of workers, most of whom have jobs that involve spending the companies money to produce and market cars, and to maintain the companies systems. While these roles are vital to the companies operations, the company can’t exist at all if there is no one to sell the cars. In addition to this, the average salesman is expected to 10x their salary in company revenue. That means that a salesman who makes $100,000 a year is expected to bring in a minimum of $1,000,000 in sales annually. This is why, he says, in times of financial hardship for a company, salesman often are the last employees to be laid off.

The hard part is that salesman are often scorned and looked on very poorly for their job. However, salesman don’t care, because while everyone else is busy complaining about salesman, salesman are on their way to the bank to deposit a check the size of their mortgage. For more info on income, see paragraph 5.

2. What about the stress and worry of being fired?

Being a salesman is a stressfull job. It is also a lot of work. Salesman carry the burden of being entirely responsible for their own job success. Each year or quarter, a salesman is given a quota and it is his responsibility to meet that quota. If he does not, he runs the risk of being fired. However, this fact does little to dissuade or scare salesman. Because of the volatility of their career, all salesman are guaranteed a few bad years. A good salesman, my uncle says, has enough good years that he knows he can always get a job.  Salesman, he says, are like professional football coaches. One year they win the Superbowl and 2 years later they get fired. However, their record speaks enough to ensure future job opportunities. “Good sales reps. are never on the street. They get jobs fast.”

3. What are your thoughts on Sandler Sales Training?

There are tons of good sales strategies and methodologies. His company for example, just went through Challenger Sales training. He has used Sandler Sales strategies, MEDDPICC, and more. The key, he says, is pain discovery. All notable sales methodologies revolve around this idea. A good question is always “How are you dealing with it today because clearly you are dealing with it.” This forces the prospect to consider how bad his own situation and brings to light the amount of work and stress the current situation is creating.

4. What is one thing that the best salesman are good at?

You would think that it is talking, or asking questions, or listening, or all things related to charisma. However, while these things are vital, the best salesman are excellent forecasters. Forecasting is the lifeblood of corporate/enterprise sales. Forecasting is defined as predicting how much you are going to sell, and when you are going to sell it. Not being able to forecast is what kills salesman. This is because all companies expect forecasts from their salesman. You can’t avoid it. In fact, forecasting is not unlike any business operation; you need to have a goal, and a date for when you plan to hit it. The reason it is so important for Salesman is not only because it is hard to predict what a prospect is going to do, but also because failure to properly forecast can seal a salesman’s termination.

The difficulty arises because salesman need to have a good grasp of how their prospect thinks (perspective taking), what their prospect is willing and able to spend, and how long it will take the prospect to come to a decision. The latter will include considering who is making the decision, how many people are making the decision, and how many levels of corporate leadership the decision goes through. On the question of cost, a salesman always needs to remember that no one buys at list price, and therefore must be able to predict how much the prospect is going to offer, how much the prospect is likely to settle at, and therefore how much he needs to offer the product for. Understanding this, my uncle says, we can see that the heart of forecasting is “knowing your business.” A salesman must know his territory, his industry, and the kinds of people that make up both.

5. Are sales reps. well compensated?

While naturally it depends on the level of sales, and the industry, in general an enterprise salesman’s income potential is up to him and how many sales he can make. Most enterprise sales jobs are 50% salary and 50% commission (the commission percentages are typically set at around 5% of every dollar of the sale). However, the 50% commission is typically based on whether or not the salesman meets his quota. Take for example a salesman who makes $150k base salary. His commission – if he meets his quota – will be another $150k (50%). If he fails to meet his quota, his commission might only reach $100k. The rub is that salesman are not limited by their quota. In fact quite the opposite is true; salesman are encouraged to exceed their quota by what is called “accelerator pay.” Accelerator pay means that your commission percentage increases as you exceed your quota. i.e what might have been a 5% commission might quickly turn into a 10%-15% commission. This type of pay scale encourages salesman to work tirelessly year after year to exceed their quota by leaps and bounds and turn what would ordinarily be a $300,000 yearly salary, into a $1.5M payout. By all technicalities, salesman are only limited by their prospects. This is why salesman are, what my uncle would call, adult; they work very independently and can make seemingly however much they want.

6. How do you get into this level of sales?

Most people get into enterprise sales by getting a job in inside sales, making phone calls. They start out with a script and a stress ball. Quickly they learn what works and what doesn’t, the percentage of people who pick up the phone, and what they have to say to increase that percentage. Eventually they  start getting good enough to exceed their quota and hit accelerators. Once this happens they’re making enough money for the company that they get promoted. By this time they are comfortable enough on the phone to have a good grasp in the conference room. A general rule is that out of 10 salesman in a room, 2 are going to blow their quotas out of the water and impress the boss, and the rest will stay where they are. No matter what the sales job is, if you see a target, aim way beyond it. The farther you are from your target, the more waves you make and the higher you climb.