Pitching Strategies to Skyrocket Your Technical Sales Engineer Salary
As a technical sales engineer, pitching is a significant factor in your success. How well you pitch can determine how big (or how small) your technical sales engineer salary will be for the year. Unfortunately, many sales engineers do not get enough technical sales training about how to pitch effectively. Most of them make the same mistakes and lose valuable potential clients and sales in the process. Let’s take a look at some pitching strategies that can help your technical sales engineer salary skyrocket.
1) Don’t “Show Up and Throw Up”
We don’t mean literally throw up, of course. We mean going into a meeting and throwing up information, even if the information is valuable to the person. It’s common for technical sales engineers to walk into a meeting, introduce themselves, and then jump directly into presenting their entire deck. They start going through all the information they have – from company history, customer testimonials, value propositions, case studies, product lists, and so on.
Droning on through information is the guaranteed way to lose your audience. And all too often, people don’t stop to consider if what they’re sharing truly giving value to the prospective client. Don’t fall into this trap! If there is anything that should be included in all technical sales training, it should be this – don’t present information just for the sake of presenting.
2) Have a Conversation, Not a One-Sided Presentation
Although not often mentioned in technical sales training, the most crucial part of meeting a prospect is getting to know them better through a conversation, not a one-sided presentation. There’s a big difference between talking with a person and talking at a person. To be honest, most people prefer hearing themselves talk. Your goal should be to have a conversation with your prospect and learn about what they need, understand their pain points, and empathize with their problems. Let them tell you what they want to say instead of telling them what you think they want to hear.
If you’re having a real conversation instead of a formal presentation, you’ll be able to address the problems immediately. This is a much more effective pitching strategy compared to asking them to sit through your entire presentation before you “Open the floor for questions.” It doesn’t matter if you’re meeting with one person or an entire team. A conversation is much more effective than a presentation. Remember, your technical sales engineer salary is relying on this.
3) Be authentic
What else can help you increase your technical sales engineer salary? Of course, it’s closing sales. How do you improve your closing rate? One important aspect that can help is building trust between you and your client. We’re sure this is one of the things you’ve learned in basic technical sales training. Trust will get the client to buy from you. This applies in any sales situation, not just in technical sales. When you are authentic, it’s more likely that your client will trust you. Be yourself and be genuinely interested in your prospect’s pain points and problems. Most people can spot someone faking it a mile away. If a prospect had to choose between someone they thought was genuine versus someone they sensed was inauthentic, who do you think they would choose? Always the one who’s real.
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4) Focus on value
Think about the value you are giving to your prospective client. This is also related to the points above. What value is your client going to get from you? What problem can you solve for their company that they haven’t been able to figure out themselves? More than facts, figures, and testimonials, they want to learn about value.
You can even go straight to the point and ask, “What is your current supplier not giving you?” If they are truly unhappy with the supplier’s performance and willing to changing suppliers, they’ll open up and let you know. When you’re having a conversation with prospects, focus on emphasizing the value they will get from your product or service. Maybe your product will save them time or increase the efficiency of their manufacturing process. Whatever it is, make sure you highlight the value when you meet with them.
5) Build the relationship
This is also related to trust. A relationship doesn’t happen overnight, both personally and professionally. A relationship between a technical sales engineer and a client takes a number of conversations, a number of emails back and forth, and several face-to-face meetings. However, it will all be worth it in the end. When you can build long-lasting relationships with clients, you’ll be top of mind when they have other needs and requirements. If you can maintain professional trusted relationships with clients, you’ll keep in touch for many years after. Just imagine how this will impact your technical sales engineer salary. Instead of a one-time purchase, you’ll be able to expect repeat business with them over the years.
These are some tried-and-tested pitching strategies to increase your technical sales engineer salary. At the end of the day, it all boils down to communication and trust. You need to listen to your prospect’s pain points and offer them a way to fix it. Once you have a clear understanding of their needs, focus on building trust. These two things are the essential points that should be covered in any technical sales engineer training. When you have a solid foundation with a prospect that’s been built from communication and trust, it will make closing a technical sale that much easier.
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