Last updated: 8/2008

Sales Training for Engineers
Sales-training courses and manuals for professional sales engineers, sales managers of technology companies and business owners.

The Selling for Engineers manual and seminar teach sales skills specific to engineering and technical products and professional services.

You will learn;

Effective ways to locate new clients

Convert more enquiries into profitable orders

The best ways to get through to the right person

How to make appointments

What to focus on in a 'sales interview'

A good way to handle difficult prospects.

The formula for writing a convincing proposal

A structure for persuasive presentations

Good answers to hard objections

The best ways to close the sale

To develop a Sales Process.

The course covers the complete range of competences you need to successfully develop sales for technical products and services. Whether you are a one-man-band or a multi-national corporation, you will find this information helpful.

The seminar and manuals are intended for:

New Recruits
People converting from other jobs into sales
External Sales Representatives
Sales Engineers
Technicians who visit customers
Business Owners
Experienced sales people who need a refresher
Sales Managers

If your job title includes such terms as Business Development, Applications Engineer, Account Manager, Product Manager, Account Executive, Product Sales Engineer, Technical Sales Manager (or any of the other variations usually employed to disguise the fact that you have a sales role), you'll find this an interesting, dare I say, fascinating course and/or manual.

It's particularly useful if you are a small, specialised company and you have received little or no formal sales training.

Links technology and sales

'Selling for Engineers' bridges the gap between technology and sales, making sales easy to grasp for people with a scientific mind. The course and books are meant for people whose primary role is scientific or technical but who want to win new clients and contracts.

There are two further, related titles. 'Prospecting for Engineers' explains step-by-step how to find new clients.

'How to Hire a Good Technical Salesman' helps sales managers with the difficult job of selecting suitable people; ones who bring in good orders instead of disappointing you and wasting your time, money and opportunites.

Do you face the task of turning technical people into sales people?

(Perhaps that is a bit strong for what you want and what is realistically possible.J How about, 'You'd like them to have more commercial awareness' ?)

Many sales managers and company owners have said to me, 'When our guys are at a client's site they have a good opportunity to find out if there is more work that we could do, but somehow they don't ask'. The problem, as many of you will be aware, is that techie-type people may not be comfortable with putting such questions as, 'What other projects have you got in the pipeline?' or telling the client, 'We could help you with another aspect of your business'.

Sales Engineer Personality Traits

The underlying issue is, of course, that the personality type which is appropriate for sales is poles away from that which you find as the standard for an engineer. (Try a psychometric test if you have any doubt about this.) There are some people who have a bit of both traits, I'm one of them. And in a group of 15 or so people that I normally get on my events, there will be perhaps 3 or 4 such hybrids. Typically, they quickly demonstrate that they have got the point and intend to use the approach I have taught them.

Small Business Owners

A lot of small business owners are in this category too. The guys who pay for the event themselves are always the keenest. But there's usually one or two individuals, sitting at the back of the room with folded arms, who have been 'sent on a course' and who demonstrate by their body language that, 'There's nothing you can teach me. I've been on the road for 20 years'. J

So don't assume that you can convert all techie people; some will get the message straight away but there's usually a few who don't and perhaps never will.

But I can't see how a bit of sales training can do any one harm.

I particularly enjoy working with young people, either ones who have previously been technicians or graduates fresh from university. My hope is to be able to show them good sales methods before they are exposed to the bad habits old-timers can be prone to.

'One-Man-Bands' (sole traders)

Another category I feel affinity with is one-man-bands. Been there and done a lot of that myself. When you are a professional engineer with a small practice, sales is important but hard to focus on when you are under pressure to get existing jobs completed.

Here is a comment emailed to me one such consulting engineer who came to an event.

'You will be pleased to hear that using the Seviour method I had a selling success within 72 hours that can solely be put down to your methods!"

Ken Wright, Wright Associates, Aberdeen, Scotland

Others say, 'I was pleased to find out that what I have been doing for years is the right approach'. That translates to having more confidence and conviction in doing the sales part of the job. And confidence and enthusiasm engender the same in clients.

A common remark at the end of the day is, 'I enjoyed that and it's directly relevant to my job'.

The sales approach taught in Selling for Engineers

What I have tried to do, and I believe have often succeeded at, is to get my seminar delegates to see that not only is winning orders necessary, but that it doesn't take a 'born salesman' to do it.

I don't try to get course participants to parrot slick, 'salesy' phrases. That would be pointless, because the type of people I work with don't want to be slick.

Personally I can't stand it if a salesperson opens up with a cheesey line such as, 'How many of these items are you ordering today?'

What Buyers Want

What serious buyers are looking for is someone who knows his stuff, listens actively, can give an intelligent answer to questions, and who genuinely tries to offer a suitable product or service. Not someone full of glib phrases, fresh off a training course.

What I teach could be summarised in a few words as, 'Find out what the customer wants and help him/her get it'. (Don't worry, sales managers; I also make sure students know what a buying signal is and how to close when they get one).

Nor is the course a 'Ra-Ra' motivational event. More than anything what results from the seminar or reading the books, is that it opens peoples' eyes to many simple ways to pick up 'sales intelligence' and then make sure that potential opportunities aren't wasted.

But increased motivation definitely is a by-product. I get letters with phrases such as, 'I don't know what you did to them, I've never seen them so keen'.

The original letters, blu-tacked to the office wall.

'Techie' sales faults

An essential is to tackle the typical mistakes that techies are prone to. For example, the serious problem of talking too much about your own products and company and not finding out what the clients?? interests are. Another one is not shutting up and closing a sale when the customer has virtually told you that he is ready to say yes.

If you work with engineers, I'm sure you know what I mean by this. So I run an exercise at the seminar which highlights the problem. Then we spend half an hour or so practising, using appropriate questions to find out what the prospects?? real interests are and asking for the order if he is ready to place one.

This role-play isn't an embarassing grind, such as I have experienced on other training courses. Actually, although there is a serious point this section of the day always involves a great deal of animated discussion and much laughter. It's a real eye-opener for almost everyone.

Tangible products, Services and Consultancy

By the way, don't think that my training is just for 'widget' or product-in-a-box sales people. The learning points are valid for all technical sales, including long lead-time capital equipment sales such as fleets of aircraft or construction projects to governments. (I ran a course for BAe Jetstream Aircraft, Prestwick, Scotland, and for some of the world's biggest civil engineering companies).

Nor is it exclusively for 'Engineers' in the strict sense. The course is meant for bright people who do something in technology or science and who need to be able to contribute to their organisation winning more good orders. (Which really means everyone who has contact with clients or potential ones.)

I've taught people who provide medical supplies to the National Health Service, PhDs who supply lasers to university research departments, lots of chemists, software developers. Do you get the picture? All these people are highly qualified in their field but generally know little about sales.

That's not always the case, I've had some guys (and women) on the course who obviously know what the sales game is about and who get the most benefit from such course featuers as 'how to conduct a sales interview' which leads to 'how to make a powerful sales presentation'. Often these individuals were previously technicians; they are ambitious to progress their career and their boss has noticed that they have aptitude for sales.

Delegates at an in-house Selling for Engineers Seminar, Farnham, Surrey, UK

It's been a universe of tech products and services

The variety of client companies has been amazing, I've met people that design / make / sell paint, cranes, screws, hinges, aircraft components, advanced materials for 'stealth' applications, apparatus that aligns and joins fibre-optics, artificial ski-slopes, office machines, street-cleaning vehicles, machines that dispense ink for printers, crystal oscillators, cash-in-transit devices, security systems, measuring and weighing equipment (and I also presented a course for the UK National Weights and Measures Laboratory, Teddington). And every type of technical consultancy - bridges, railways, network-design, forensic analysis of industrial boilers.

If you want to see a vast list of companies who have bought my books or had a course, click here. client list

Locations that the seminars are held in

In the UK, seminars have been held in Aberdeen, Glenrothes, Livingston, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Norwich, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, East Midlands, Peterborough, Cardiff, Bristol, Basingstoke, Reading, Uxbridge, Guildford, Belfast. In the USA, the locations have been Dayton, Ohio; Austin, Texas; Chicago Illinois; in Canada, Vancouver. In Europe; Brussels, Belgium; Voorschoten, Netherlands; Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich, Germany; Vienna, Austria; Trondheim, Norway; Ireland, Dublin and Limerick. I present the seminar in the french and german languages as well as english.

Small Business

A category of people who benefit particularly is owners of small techie businesses. Usually their fort¨| is developing an original product. Once again, they mostly lack experience and training in sales. There's a heck of lot of value in the course for such people .

I know because I've been in their situation and learned the hard way about sales in a small technical company. Having developed a product (intelligent controls for heating systems) and built a successful company around it, I talk from experience.

My background was mechanical engineering with no knowledge of selling. But almost by chance I went into a sales job and was surprised to find that I had an aptitude for it. What made a critical difference for my career was that I had an excellent sales manager who coached me until I was producing good results. My initial reluctance about sales slowly turned into enthusiasm and excitement when I brought in a good order. If you are already a successful sales person, would you agree that winning a big order is one of the greatest highs there is?

This exerience provided me with a key ability for developing my own company. And I came to appreciate that you have much less chance of success in business if you aren't competent at sales. The course contains the distillation of my 30 years of practical sales work.

Topic headings in the Selling for Engineers manual

The importance of sales

The symptoms of weak sales ability

Comparison of a 'sales-led' versus a 'product-led' company

An ethical approach to sales

A definition of selling

Should we hire a science graduate and train him/her to sell?

The reason why most 'techies' are not 'natural' sales people

What 'techies' really think about selling - the negative stereotype

Beliefs drive attitudes, attitudes drive behaviour.

The personality traits needed for sales.

Inter-personal skills

Sales basics for beginners

The 'Sell your watch' exercise - the instinctive way is wrong

The 'Old Way' of selling versus the 'New Way'

Other common faults

When your are the customer, what do you look for in a salesperson?

Why does anybody buy anything? A fundamental understanding

People will take action (buy) to get the solution to a problem which concerns them

Be very well informed - know your product, industry and customer history

The 'ideal' sales personality; see yourself as a 'Successful, friendly expert'

How to prospect for new business

Understand the importance of prospecting and do it

See prospecting as a pump filling a pipeline

Who are you targeting? Get face-to-face with more or the right prospects

Prospecting methods - mail, phone, visits, email, fax, exhibitions, referrals etc.

How to write an effective sales letter

What to say on the phone

'Qualifying' the prospect

Protect your prospecting time

Log your prospecting statistics

Know the value of each new prospect contact

Dealing with common problems

Setting appointments

Meeting the prospect - the sales interview: A structured approach - your objectives

How to deal with different personality types

Sales interview technique - discovering the buying motivations

Professional questioning - The two key words to obtain strategic information

Professional listening

Avoid verbal (and other) 'irritators'

Price-conditioning

Understand the power of addressing 'soft needs'

The sales presentation

Your objective: Generate confidence

A simple 4 stage formula which gives you the best chance of success

Understand the importance of 'What's in it for me?'

The common mistakes and how to avoid them.

Adapt your message according to the personality type of the buyer

Don't treat people the way you like to be treated

Three common types Characteristics of the 'Dominant/Managing Director/President' type and how to handle them

The trap of the friendly, helpful buyer

Presenting to academics and experts

People buy for emotional reasons but frequently justify them with 'logical' ones

How to use this powerful understanding daily to win far more business

This technique operates subliminally, is it ethical?

Asking for the order

The reasons for asking

Right and wrong ways of asking

'Negotiating with yourself' - a bad habit

The best (and simplest) technique

Closing the sale

Done right you obtain the order without 'closing'

Seven classic closes

Good answers to difficult objections, including

- 'It's too expensive'

- 'I'm getting other quotes', We're happy with our existing supplier'

- 'I want to think about it'

Dealing with 'difficult' buyers

- The aggressive/dominant type

- Indecisive people

Handling rejection

Common reasons for lack of sales success - and what to do about them

Building your confidence

Believe wholeheartedly

What's great about your product, people and company?

Start easy

Self-limiting beliefs and how to neutralise them

Sabotaging your own success

Expand your 'comfort zone'

How to stay motivated - Why is far more important than 'How'

The only way to get out of a 'slump'

Self-limiting beliefs and your 'Circle of Influence'

What is your vision of your life in the future?

A refresher for older / experienced sales people

Guiding principles for Sales Managers

- What is the purpose of your organisation?

- Jointly create a common vision

- Eliminate de-motivators

Upselling - expanding the order

How to win repeat business.

Don't 'one-night-stand' your customers

Professional complaint-handling

How to grow fast but stay successful long-term

The reasons for the rise and fall of companies

The 'Success Cycle'

The 'Sales Process Flow Chart'

Seminar Prices

Seminar place per delegate, $595.00 USA and Canada, $300.00 GBP in the UK.
Please contact me for prices of in-house events (run at your company location).

Course Manuals
With the full content of the seminar
Price USD $37.00 (equal to approx $20.65 GBP)

An exercise in progress at a Selling for Engineers Seminar, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. The course is also presented 'in-house' for companies, worldwide.

Customer Comments

Dear Robert
We were delighted with the manuals.

I took your manuals into the first marketing meeting and left it with them. At the second review meeting the Production Director found them so good that he couldn't put them down.
The conscience consideration (we could have quite easily put it through the automatic copier and then sent them back to you with a note saying we are not interested) was not allowed by virtue of the fact that they were so good and we were delighted with them.
When you are driving a company forward some tools are useful and some are essential. These manuals are not only good value for money but they fill all the gaps we have been looking for.
At our last marketing meeting I said that I was so pleased that I would be getting in touch with you. It was the realisation that you are not a large company but a small company that has put an awful lot of effort into a very good product
Colin Dawson, Managing Director, Daletech Electronics Ltd

"I recently read a book entitled Prospecting for Engineers by Robert Seviour. It was written in simple, plain English and made a lot of sense from a practical point of view (totally the opposite to a lot of theoretical business books I have tried to read). I got the impression he is a very, practical, down to earth sort of guy."
Mark Robinson, Managing Director, Starret Precision Optical Ltd.

Dear Robert
I am writing to you to let you know how invaluable we have found your manuals 'Selling for Engineers' & 'How to Create Powerful Technical Sales Literature'
For a small High Tech company staffed mainly by engineers we have found the manuals so good we are delighted to recommend them to anyone that needs to focus on advertising and selling their products and services.

At first our engineers were reluctant to even look at them. However shortly after one of them took up the challenge, it became apparent we had to ration the manuals as they were all after them with an enthusiasm I have never witnessed in the company

Thank you for such a fine piece of work.

Yours sincerely,

Ronald G Kerner, Technical Director, Turning Systems Ltd

Dear Mr Seviour
I have just read your two books, 'Selling for Engineers' and 'How to Create Powerful Technical Sales Literature'. I found them both full of extremely wise pointers and comments. I believe the principles presented by the books are absolutely right!
Congratulations on the books.
Paul Bentley, PJB Business Development

Most companies fail not in their attempts to be innovative or creative. In this country most of them fail because they undervalue the importance of professional selling. -

Sir John Harvey Jones

Robert,

I recently downloaded your book Selling for Engineers, which I found very useful.

I'd like to get a copy of 'Sales Prospecting for Engineers' .

btw, the collection of Engineer jokes is great!

Cheers,

IT Executive

Brisbane, Australia

. . . . The price is absolutely reasonable. . . .

Rolf K. Bratli

The 'Selling for Engineers Manual' comes in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. If you don't already have a copy of Acrobat Reader, you can download one free from the download site.

By ordering online, you save money with no shipping, no taxes, and the lowest prices.

Download time at 56kps is less than a minute.

When your credit card is authorized you will receive an order confirmation via email and instant access to download your manual from the web.

A charge of $37.00 USD United States Dollars (equal to approx $20.65 GBP) will appear on your credit card statement. Sales tax is in addition in some countries. There are no other charges.

Once you press the order link below you will be able to download immediately

Click here to order 'Selling for Engineers'

I guarantee that you will like my books. If you don't agree, I will refund your money immediately, without question.

Sales Prospecting for Engineers - manual
A complete guide for any engineering, scientific and technology company wanting to increase sales fast at low or no cost. It teaches you everything you need to be successful at winning new clients for technical products and services. 92 A4 (US letter size) pages, many illustrations.

Sales-led companies (most of them in non-techie sectors) use prospecting as their standard way of developing business because it is simple and has been proven effective over decades. But very few technical organisations have followed this example. That's a shame because the method works for any activity and it can deal with some otherwise difficult problems:

If your business has times when there's too much work and others when there isn't enough, prospecting can regulate the workflow and make it more manageable.

It can improve the profitability of the jobs you win and increase the proportion of quotes that turn into orders.

If you are in a competitive market, competent prospecting gives you a potent advantage.

The reason 'techie' companies don't do much prospecting is mostly because they don't realise its potential and they are deterred by an inaccurate view of what it entails.

If you have been reluctant to start prospecting, I sympathise. There was a time when the idea had little appeal for me, but after having done many years of it, I've changed my mind completely. It really does work extremely well and if you go about it professionally, it's not hard.

I won't wish you good luck, because if ever there was a field where it's true, in prospecting, you make your own. This manual explains how.

Chapters

Foreword

Why prospect?

Identify your target.

Make a list or database of prospects.

Plan your prospecting campaign.

Give your offer impact.

Deliver the message.

This technique gets you the best prospects.

A simple way to get started.

Read the prospect's mind with powerful questions

Presenting your offer with impact.

Make follow up calls which pay.

Effective answers to prospecting problems.

Tune your operation by keeping records

True stories

100 Ways to Find New Business.

The 'Sales Prospecting for Engineers Manual' comes in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format.

When your credit card is authorized you will receive an order confirmation via email and instant access to download your manual from the web. Download time on 512k broadband is ca. 40 seconds.

A charge of $37.00 USD United States Dollars (equal to approx $20.65 GBP) will appear on your credit card statement. Sales tax is in addition in some countries. There are no other charges.

Once you press the order link below you will be able to download immediately.

Click here to order 'Sales Prospecting for Engineers'

I guarantee that you will like my books. If you don't agree, I will refund your money immediately, without question.

How to Hire a Good Technical Salesperson

Hiring a good salesperson for a technical business is difficult. When the new guy doesn't work out, it's expensive and frustrating. In this unique book, you'll find detailed information about how to approach the task to succeed.

If you can get one, a really good salesperson will bring tremendous benefits to your business:

You'll get a strong flow of profitable orders

Leads are turned into business, not wasted

Your company grows

You don't have to invest much of your own time, which frees you up to develop other parts of your business

It inspires your other employees by demonstrating that excellent sales results are possible. By the same token they render invalid the usual excuses.

If customers like and respect your representative, it increases goodwill

Good salespeople bring in feedback from your customers. This can be a source of ideas for improvements or new products.

But finding and keeping an outstanding sales producer isn't easy. My experience is that many technology companies, perhaps most, don't set about hiring a salesperson in an effective way.

You need to use the right strategies and, be warned, they may clash with the ideas you hold now.

Have you have tried hiring salespeople in the past and failed to get a good one? Then you'll know the cost and frustrations of getting it wrong.

It's worth doing properly, there's a big pay-back.Read this manual, with an open mind, and you'll get an understanding of what it takes to find your own champion salesperson. It's based on my 20+ years of selling and recruiting and managing salespeople for my own businesses and the experience of sales managers and company owners I've met.

Since 1993 I've trained sales teams for technology companies large and small throughout the UK and overseas. During that time I've had the opportunity of working with some excellent sales-people and seeing which companies are able to recruit them and how, and which businesses fail to and why. I think you'll agree once you see the reasoning behind the process that it's common sense and it leads to predictably good results.

Chapters

Introduction: the benefits of having a good salesperson.

1 The problems of having a poor (or worse) salesperson.
2 There's a lot at stake.
3 The cost of getting it wrong.
4 What causes it to go wrong.
5 Do you really need a salesperson?
6 What we're looking for.
7 Desirable attributes of a good salesperson.
8 Motivation.
9 Where motivation comes from.
10 Defining the job.
11 Sales skills and technical knowledge / job suitability matrix.
12 'Pure salesmen' v 'techies'.
13 See it from the candidates point of view.
14 Is it a good idea to hire someone just like you?
15 The best most companies can aim for.
16 Methods to locate them.
17 The usual hiring process.
18 Job ads.
19 Interviewing ¨C be careful.
20 'Lie your way into a top job.'
21 People who are working for you in another capacity.
22 Psychometric testing.
23 Scientific? Decision-making.
24 Evaluating them once in the job.
25 They start strong, but fade away.
26 What recruitment agencies say.
27 Head-hunters.
28 Does sales-training work?
29 Can you motivate people?
30 The 'direct-sales' method of recruiting.
31 Summary.
32 Hiring checklist.

The 'How to Hire a Good Technical Salesperson' Manual has 74 A4 pages with many illustrations and comes in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format.

When your credit card is authorized you will receive an order confirmation via email and instant access to download your manual from the web. There are 3 sections, in total 3.4MB. The download time on a 512k connection is ca. 1min 40 seconds..

A charge of $37.00 USD United States Dollars (equal to approx $20.65 GBP) will appear on your credit card statement. Sales tax is charged in addition in some countries. There are no other costs.

Once you press the order link below you will be able to download immediately.

Click here to order 'How to Hire a Good Technical Salesperson'

I guarantee that you will like my books. If you don't agree, I will refund your money immediately, without question.

ps At a recent event in Vancouver, BC, Canada I asked the guys on the course to describe it in their own words on the feedback sheet. This is what they wrote;

'A great crash course for beginners and refresher for experienced persons'

'Easy to understand - very well presented. . . . Really helped in structuring the thought process to concentrate on during the selling process'.

'A day boot camp of sales strategies and way of thinking when approaching a potential customer'

I really believe that anyone in sales who isn't familiar with the ideas in the course is missing something important. The comments above from bright, experienced business people confirm that for me.

I'm Robert Seviour, please email me if you have any questions or for seminar booking details.

I wish you success.