Should I go into Technical Sales?
Things to consider before jumping into the career
We are now faced with an avalanche of cool careers, especially for new graduates, where you could go from being a Tik-Toker, or one-hit-wonder Youtuber to an exciting career in sales, and for the ones that get bogged down by the idea of the annoying car salesman, you have the wrong picture. If you just finished a degree in engineering or it’s a veteran coder with tons of experience, you may want to consider jumping into technical sales.
Why would I ever do that?
Technical sales is exciting and fun. Think of using all the coolest and trendiest frameworks and knowledge you accumulated over the years to solve the world’s toughest problems? In summary, that’s what sales engineers, field sales engineers, and solution architects do. Your end goal is to help customers to design, implement and optimize the best technical solution possible. Cool, huh? But, a job is not a really cool job until I get the big bucks, right?
Well, don’t get your hopes too high… Just yet. Although sales engineering is a great career, in practice, it takes time, effort, energy, and opportunity to get good at it, and as a result, really make the big bucks. The good news is the industry is far away from consolidation, and opportunities are booming. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the profession is supposed to grow 6% from 2019 to 2029, which is faster than the average growth rate (all occupations are 4 percent). That translates into building a career where the occupation will likely be in high demand for many years, and given the complexity of current technologies added to how fast companies have been innovating, technical sales is on track to be a highly desired, fast-growth career path.
Do I fit the bill?
Today we have extremely successful sales engineers or technical sales professionals that don’t even necessarily have a technical degree. Obviously, if you do have it, it will be much easier to understand the product you are about to sell and ask the right questions to understand the pains and concerns of your customers. But realistically, it’s definitely feasible to get started in the career by gathering some quality industry experience in an adjacent role and concurrently putting tons of hours to develop your skillset with academic or MOOC courses.
What do I need to be successful?
If you are often excited to talk to people, meet with friends, exchange ideas, have lengthy debates, maybe even nerd out in some eccentric topics, you already have a foot in the door. Technical Sales roles are customer-centric and require daily interactions with customers. At the end of the day: soft skills rule the game. Even more so when things get tough…
Not all rainbow and flowers…
More often than not, products don’t work as they should, demos will inevitably not work, and customers will get upset, no matter how good or how great your product is. It’s getting harder and harder these days with the growing competition across the board.
But, at the end of the day, remember you are a rockstar, and you can do this. How? Simply by remembering: it’s not personal; it’s just business. Over time you will learn how to be mentally prepared, handle objections, concerns, pressing issues, and be a master of handling customers in the most stressful situations.
Ride the Rollercoaster and Smile!
If you decide to take upon the technical sales challenge, you will often be confronted with a rollercoaster of emotions, hitting some lows and having tons of fun in the highs. Just like life: enjoy the ride, and remember don’t get too caught up in the highs nor the lows; everything transforms, including you.
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