#247 The Rules of the Sales Cycle And Presales Engagement

Notes:

Are you an aspiring sales engineer who wants to learn to become one without spending thousands of dollars? Or perhaps you are already thriving in your sales engineering practice and are looking for affordable ways to improve.

Here, at We the Sales Engineers, we offer an affordable coaching package that could help you find a sales engineering job or improve in one. We call it the SE Hotline.

In this episode of the Sales Engineering Podcast, I present to you what happens in one of these SE Hotline coaching sessions. In this particular session, I coached Jean Lubin, a Solutions Consultant at Standardtech who describes himself as “a customer-focused individual that enjoys helping people solve problems.” This episode features a 40-minute coaching call where we dive into a comprehensive discussion of the sales cycle.

Key Takeaways:

The sales cycle as illustrated through the process of buying a house
Farming vs. hunting in the context of sales
How leads are generated
Strategies for getting referrals
The importance of budget, authority, need, and timing (BANT) in qualification
How discovery is made in sales
The different people involved in creating and presenting a proposal
Conducting closing and negotiation
Creating an implementation plan
What a solution architect is
What a technical account manager (TAM) is
Why selling has its own sales cycle
How the hero’s journey matches what happens in a demo
What a POV plan looks like

Quotes:

Sales engineering is the process of solving a business problem through technology. If a customer doesn’t have a business problem, it doesn’t matter how cool the technology is, you’re not going to sell anything. — Ramzi Marjaba

Every meeting with a customer is a discovery call. — Ramzi Marjaba

Throughout the sales process, at any point, the sales process can end with a loss. And it could be a loss because they bought already from somebody else or you found out at that time it’s not a good fit. — Ramzi Marjaba

Obviously, you want the sales cycle to be as short as possible. But the more you meet them [your customers], the more you can actually give and take. — Ramzi Marjaba

You can show almost anything in a demo. A demo, I guess, is a story. We can spin it whichever way we want. They might ask very hard questions. But if we’re good, we can answer almost any question. — Ramzi Marjaba

When you’re looking for a job or when you’re looking to move—if you become an SC and you’re looking to switch to another company—you want to make sure where you are in the sales cycle. — Ramzi Marjaba