Sales engineers have to visit their customers so they need to move extensively and spend a large portion of time traveling to meet with customers. Sales engineers are specialized in sell complex scientific, industrial and technological products or services to other engineers. Sales engineers use their technical knowledge, business acumen, professional relationships, knowledge of the targeted industry, and soft skills to explain the benefits and value of their products or services to potential customers, so they probe how their solution can help the customer to achieve their goals.
Sales Engineering exposes salespeople to many different industrial environments, technologies, and technical challenges while working with customers. Successful sales engineers have a technical background and knowledge about the sales cycle, customer buying behavior, market competition, sell strategy, sales planning process, contract negotiation, market pains, and needs, etc. Typically they move in a risk/reward world based on core salary plus sales commission.
A sales engineer has multiple responsibilities, like meet with customers to understand their needs, set up pre-sales demos, and proof of concepts for customers. Sales engineers like working with lots of different people on lots of different projects, like a key account manager they are usually are the primary point of contact and are also responsible for managing the relationship with the customer; besides, they design engineering solutions that will meet the business outcome and will not exceed the customer’s budget; they help prospects to make the right decision, build trust, address pricing & billing issues, help customers set up and deploy products once sold, continue working with customers to ensure high satisfaction and discover any new business opportunities.