First of all, let’s describe what Tech Sales is, and then we’ll talk about the necessary attributes for success in this challenging, yet highly rewarding career.

Tech Sales is a business-to-business (B2B) transaction of technology solutions from a provider to an organization. This is not to be confused with business-to-customer (B2C) transactions that are defined by a shorter decision-making process and a smaller number of decision makers. Forbes columnist Chuck Cohn provides a clear contrast on B2B versus B2C here.

In Tech Sales, you’re selling to business executives. These sales typically happen at the executive level because of the perceived risk and enormous expense involved. Also, these decisions can catapult a company toward their strategic objectives because the technologies purchased have an enterprise-level impact.

When selling to business executives, you have to convince them that:

1 – You know what you’re doing,

2 – You can orchestrate resources, and

3 – You have a company that will stand behind you

Particularly when you’re selling for a re-seller, the executives have to believe in you and trust you personally before they’re going to make this type of investment.

So at a very cursory view, these are the activities of a Tech Salesperson:

1 – Establishing trust

2 – Digging to understand the customer needs

3 – Orchestrating the resources to make sure that you can solve the customer’s problems, and

4 – Following through with your customers and with your company. Put simply, doing what you said you were going to do.

So what do you need to be great at Tech Sales?

First of all, you need to be extremely accountable. You have to be willing to be the go-to person… the person that is ultimately responsible for the success of the mission.

And what is your mission? Your mission is to get the order, and have a happy customer at the end of the project. All of your efforts must be focused toward these two objectives.

What else do you need? You need to be creative, you need to be resourceful, and you need to be resilient.

You have to love to win… You have to be driven to win and achieve superior results.

Most great salespeople have a higher than average drive to make more money. Their reasons for this vary, but successful salespeople are often wired that way. We consider this a critical ingredient.

Ultimately, sales is a people business, and your ability to relate and create relationships is extremely important. This means that you have to be a great listener and a great communicator.

We believe strongly in some principles laid out in the insightful book The Challenger Sale, which is about Teaching, Tailoring, and Taking Control.

• Teaching, where you possess a unique point of view and help the customer be successful by advising them on what they need to do.
• Tailoring is your ability to take your messages and what you’ve learned, and match the benefits and impacts of your products and services to the things that are most important to the customer. And finally,
• Taking Control. You have to be an active versus a passive person in sales. You have to take the bull by the horns.

And if you have these attributes, Tech Sales is a highly satisfying and profitable career!

Find out more about breaking into Tech Sales at www.staging.techqualled.flywheelsites.com.