Engineering Sales
Engineering Sales
(OP)
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
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





RE: Engineering Sales
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: Engineering Sales
RE: Engineering Sales
http://www.dalecarnegie.com/
RE: Engineering Sales
RE: Engineering Sales
RE: Engineering Sales
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: Engineering Sales
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.
RE: Engineering Sales
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.
RE: Engineering Sales
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: Engineering Sales
RE: Engineering Sales
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