Making the leap: Why sales people make great engineers

In the last 12 months, we have seen the most difficult job market in U.S. history. The pandemic caused millions of people to be furloughed or permanently lose their jobs, with some industries having such significant impacts to how they do business in the future. These include hospitality, transportation, arts, entertainment, tourism, retail and food & beverage, just to mention a few. Even with businesses reopening, it could be unlikely that places will return to full-capacity or how it operated pre-pandemic. This has caused companies to rehire a fraction of the staff they once had. Many have had to take on part time jobs to make ends meet hoping to get their previous jobs back eventually, but also many are making the leap into completely different industries.

For the last year, I was fully invested in learning about software development. After applying to many sales jobs in tech, despite 15 years of sales and leadership experience, I was rejected left and right due to my lack of experience selling SaaS and PaaS. I quickly turned my attention to advancing my skills with courses on project management and programing, then attending school full time. It was something I had been wanting to do for the last 3–4 years, and this couldn’t have been a more appropriate time. For four months, I spent 8–10 hours a day studying and taking online courses prior to starting school in November. Once school started, classes, studying and projects were anywhere between 60–80 hours a week. I lived and breathed software engineering. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but also the most rewarding thing I have ever accomplished. I’m proud to say I graduated in March 2021 and gained amazing skills I never thought I would have.

Throughout this time, I continued to stay active and engaged on LinkedIn, and would see many posts from those unemployed, along with those from leaders and recruiters from different industries, advocating the value that hospitality sales people can bring to any industry. It was sad to see how many people I’d always admired, with such strong professional and sales backgrounds, posting about giving them a chance as they looked for open positions in different lines of work. I couldn’t believe they were overlooked. But I also had no doubt, the resiliency and optimism of these individuals.

In the last few months, I’ve finally seen many of my peers get jobs in these other industries such as finance, tech, consulting and many more. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. I know that this is also in part, due to businesses reopening and rehiring. But I also know that companies have become more open to diversifying their teams, and giving those with different experiences a chance. With so many people having made significant career changes in the last 12 months, I wanted to provide my take on why people with a sales background make great engineers and other roles in tech. I hope this can help companies see the value of diverse backgrounds on their teams, and inspire people to realize the value of their own skills, to go after any career they want, with hard-work and perseverance.

Here are the top reasons why sales people make great candidates for tech roles:

Customer-first mentality

Sales people tend to have a customer-first mentality. They know that a happy and satisfied client makes all the difference in the success of a business. They are experienced in communicating with people, dealing with objections and providing solutions. This often equates to less negative feedback or reviews from customers, and creates a positive working environment. Who doesn’t want that on their team!?

Ask great and effective questions

Great sales people don’t hesitate to ask the right questions. They also tend to not be afraid of asking difficult ones as well. They know that in order to provide the best offer, product or proposal, they need to gather as much information they can from a client, in a professional, friendly, and effective manner. They understand that the quality of their questions can make a significant impact, and that feedback from those questions can be the difference between a mediocre versus excellent proposal. They are skilled in gathering logistical requirements, as it translates from proposal, to contract, to successful execution. They ask well-rounded questions and know to ask for hot buttons, feedback, and deciding factors.

Building relationships

Sales people are obviously great at building new and managing existing relationships. They know how important relationships are to a business, but also to their professional development and personal lives. They value the connection with clients in providing consistent follow up and engagement, and build positive relationships with those around them.

Problem-solvers

They can be excellent problem-solvers! Great sales people know how to handle problems and objections, and can think creatively. They are trained to know what to provide based on specific requests, and can quickly think out-of-the-box to satisfy both the customer and business. They know to anticipate challenges and proactively prepare for problems with alternative solutions.

Verbal and written communication

From drafting proposals, back-and-forth emails, phone calls, in-person and virtual presentations, sales people must possess excellent communication skills in order to be successful at their jobs. Sales people typically possess higher than average communication skills, some having had formal training through their employer. They realize their communication could be the deciding factor of a customer’s trust and business. They have great follow up skills, write compelling offers, know how to frame their wording to make a positive impact and have experience dealing with objections. Additionally, they possess great presentation skills having had experience presenting at trade shows, conferences, networking events, on-site, and virtually.

Great analytical skills

Some may not think this, but sales people typically have great analytical skills. They know how much sales they need to generate in order to reach goals. Sales people are often goal and data-driven! As an example from my hotel days, July-August were slower months, March-May were busier. In working with businesses during those times, not only did we analyze historical data of our hotel from the same time prior year, we looked at rates from our competitors. We then looked at our availability, what we were anticipating to sell over that timeframe, calculated the piece of business’ overall ROI or company’s potential impact if they provided us repeat business. If we had to go at a lower rate, we evaluated other revenue potential they provided or the impact of not taking the business…and the list of analyzing factors goes on and on. Strong sales people analyzed historical data, future forecast and history of a company in order to make the best business decisions. This happened on a daily basis. I feel like it’s a skill we overlook upon ourselves, as it’s built in to the day-to-day responsibilities of selling, however sales people have excellent analytical skills that are so valuable to an organization.

Bottom-line

We all get busy with our jobs and the daily tasks associated with them, that we can sometimes forget the bottom line. To better define, bottom line refers to a company’s net profit or loss. Experienced sales people at the end of the day, know that every activity we do as a business overall, impacts the bottom line. Maybe because I worked with budgets and operational costs daily in my particular role, but the bottom line was always a part of my thought process and decision-making efforts. I know that in order to make money, you need to spend money sometimes. But sales people also tend to be fiscally aware of the bottom line at the end of the day. As much bad rap as “sales” people get for being the department that spends the most, great sales people are also the most business-minded and practical when it comes to revenue, aside from finance of course!

Competitiveness/Competitors

Sales people will the most of competitive employees you have. Naturally, they’re competitive as they are used to vying for business both within their own teams and within the market. This makes for positive growth within a company as they know what it takes in order to make customers happy, and to close or keep existing business. They also have an awareness of competitors. Many advance their knowledge by intimately studying competitors products, and finding ways to improve their offerings or go about selling their product different to be competitive amongst other offers.

Handling tight deadlines and pressure

The tech world can often be fast-paced agile environments, with many changes and pressures to meet tight deadlines. Sales people most certainly have experience with all this! Receiving RFPs and responses are due in 2 hours, working on several leads at a time all due simultaneously, bosses asking how much you’re going to close, think you’re going close, when?, is the signed contract in, oh yeah…did you track your prospecting activity in the CRM, but where’s that contract? Slow season is no easier feat than busy season, you’re expected to have more activity. From having high goals, to knowing what the repercussions are if you’re well under achieving them by month end, sales people are used to and know how to handle deadlines and high levels of pressure.

Resilience

This isn’t the last great trait of a sales person, but I’m going to end this here, because you’d be reading for a long time if I didn’t. Sales people are the most resilient folks I’ve ever met. They know what it’s like to constantly get hung up or have the door closed shut on them. They have to hear a dozen no’s before even getting a yes. They get so close to winning the business only to lose it. They spend days, weeks or month working on something only to get rejected and still keep carrying on and pushing forward. Obviously rejection is part of a sales job, but it has developed this incredible grit and resiliency that impacts them positively in other facets of their careers and personal lives.

There are so many more reasons why a sales background makes for some of the most incredible employees! Diversify your teams and give potential candidates from other industries a chance. And not just sales reps, but from artists, to teachers, from restaurant servers, and any many more. I am a strong advocate for diversifying the work and culture we live in. You never know what benefit or positive value someone with a different background and experience can bring. Are there other are great traits of sales people that I missed above? I’d love to hear it!