Inside Sales Telesales Tips Blog

5 Rules to help your sales engineer to help you to close the sale

  

  

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As a telesales rep selling technical products and services, you're probably using presales tech support, a sales engineer, or a systems engineer, often popularly known as an SE. This provides high value to the prospect as a major part of the consultative sales process, but it also provides high value to you, the inside sales rep. Without the SE, sales wouldn't happen. In my experience, SEs love being part of the sale, they celebrate when sales are made based on their expertise, and frankly, aren't appreciated enough. I always bring this up in my telesales training courses, because it's so important. There are 5 important rules in working efficiently with your SEs, and if you follow them, you can increase sales pretty dramatically. Here they are:

Basic SE rule #1:  You don't have to (nor, in many cases, should you) be on the telephone with your SE during a tech call.  Because:    

1. Your time is better spent making sales calls to prospects and customers
2. Your SE is capable of handing the call in your absence, provided you've given him or her the data needed to represent you
3. SEs expect to be able to handle the call alone

Basic SE rule #2:  Provide a feedback loop to your SE, so he or she can assess team-prospect progress

1. After you've fully qualified the opportunity, try to get your SE engaged right away. SEs enjoy being part of the sales process.
2. SEs might be able to help you to propose a more effective solution. (And by the way, SEs are typically trained to suggest more effective solutions to you, not the prospect).
3. In pre and post-call debriefing, discuss ways your SE can help you in upselling (expanded feature sets) and cross-selling (complimentary products and services).
4. Post-demonstration: ask the SE to send all relevant issues to you, to use in your follow-up call to the prospect.
5. Ask your SE to copy you on all prospect-SE correspondence (you can then cut & paste it into your CRM, or drag & drop into a correspondence folder particular to each field rep
6. Tell the SE about any account-specific needs (e.g. a larger-than-usual opportunity, a "challenging" prospect, etc.)

Basic SE rule #3:  Respect (and work with) your SE's time constraints.  An example?  Short-time calls. SEs can field ad-hoc calls on an as-needed basis, but there are several things you can do to help them use the time efficiently (so they can help as many of your telesales colleagues as possible). Here they are:

1. Tell the prospect that you can get him or her five minutes or so with an SE right now, provided that one is available and off the phone. This will help set the expectation on the part of both parties that the call will not be a long one.
2. Recognize that "a quick sec" is never just that, from you to an SE, or a prospect to an SE.
3. As an alternative, you can set up a scheduled time for the prospect to talk with an SE, if longer is needed.
4. Best of all worlds: ask the prospect to forward an email to you, with the tech issues defined. The SE can then get back to the prospect efficiently, and effectively.
5. When using a calendar to schedule a prospect-SE discussion or demonstration, always tell the prospect that it's tentatively scheduled, based on confirmation that the time hasn't been booked simultaneously by the SE. Fill out the schedule in your calendar, then email the SE, requesting confirmation.
6. Use instant messaging for quick questions, when you're engaged in another task.
7. Ask your SE to let you know when the evaluation you've sent out has been "handed off" to someone else.
8. On scheduled demonstrations, make sure to invite all prospects well ahead of time, to ensure your SE's time allotment is well-used.

That leads to Basic SE rule #4:  Always provide the SE with the information he or she needs to make the call successful for you.  The information consists of:

1. The URL for the prospect's company (the SE can help you more if he or she knows what your prospect makes)
2. Your CRM data filled out properly, so the SE can see what you've been discussing with the prospect, and how far you've gone in the qualification process. Make sure you have the title of your contact, as well as his or her mobile number. Important qualification for the SE to know would include:

• the business reason that your solution makes sense for the prospect
• when the prospect needs to have a solution on board
• what the prospect needs to see or hear in order to say "yes"
• what your next step is with the prospect, after the tech call has taken place
• an explanation to your SE the logical reasoning behind any unusual/non- standard request regarding a prospect transaction.
• Information about any other competitors that may be involved

Basic SE rule #5:  Make sure your SEs know they are appreciated. Here are four ideas:

1. SEs need to hear about sales wins as much as you do. Let them know how much they've helped to make the sale go through, and thank them.
2. Don't burn their time on unqualified calls. Ensure that each call you refer to an SE has been qualified first.
3. If you have a number of SEs, ask your least-familiar SE to help you with a prospect, then take him or her out to lunch to discuss business, philosophy, and fun.
4. Make sure they always get credit on the OPF (order processing form).

So now you have some great thoughts on better ways to work closely with your sales engineers. They are an extremely critical piece in the technical sale, and far too often they're taken for granted. But believe me, every sales person cries when a great one leaves the company. And if you treat them right, they won't want to leave the company, and will continue facilitating your sales success. Why don't you do something nice today, and take your SE out to lunch. While you're at it, you can ask how you can make his or her job easier in trying to win you the sale. And add superior communication with your SEs to your Best Practices playbook.