You’re not selling, you’re helping people buy. Train engineers to understand buying psychology, and what value to customers really looks like (beyond the obvious). Then help them design intelligent questions that probe for that value, or expose it and amplify it. Then train them to listen and guide buyers through the decision process. Call it ‘value-building conversations’ or ‘trusted-advisor approach’, not sales. Engineers respect methodical, ethical processes that buyers appreciate too.
Key facts
- The word ‘sales’ alone scares engineers off because they see themselves as smart, intelligent problem-solvers, not pushy pitch-merchants. The resistance is from cognitive dissonance rather than capability.
- Engineers can learn to add sales skills by stealth: better conversations that don’t feel like selling to them but produce commercial results for the business. One of our clients turned a casual account into a multi-million-pound strategic partnership doing exactly this.
- Most sales training fails technical teams because it’s ill-fitting, conflicting in styles, or because it’s forgotten quickly. Engineers need an intelligent, sensible, proven approach to building the right skills, knowledge and mindsets over time, whilst enjoying the compounding effects of doing so.
- The trusted-advisor approach works: go in not as the smartest person in the room, but as the empty vessel who’s about to learn and fill up on everything important to the customer. Then align your value accordingly. There’s a methodical and fast way to learn this.
- A free 3-minute starting point is the Revenue Generator Score diagnostic tool linked to below, which reveals where your sales approach is breaking down and the single area to fix first.
What does ‘salesy’ actually mean to engineers?
Engineers tend to think of their worst possible perception of a bad pushy sales person, then realise that’s the last thing they want to be like, and because of that cognitive dissonance, they refuse to lean into anything even remotely ‘salesy’. It paralyses them. To get them moving, they need to see how they can be themselves, strong, intelligent, professional and proud of it, and align that towards helping their customers make the right decisions. To help them into that position requires an intelligent and sensitive approach.
What’s the alternative they can actually live with?
If they go in to meet the customer where the customer is at, and then help lead them through their buying decision in a way that fits how they want to buy, they will gain a lot of trust and respect. They must go in as the empty vessel and learn what’s most important to the customer. They must listen, and playback the right things to that customer. And earn the right to lead their thinking towards the most valuable decision. This approach is learnable and we specialise in helping engineers and technical teams to do that.
Why do engineers really resist ‘selling’?
Most MDs think their engineers resist selling because of who they are: introverted, technical, analytical. Perhaps surprisingly, those traits can help, and can benefit buyers if used purposefully. The real block is they’ve never been shown what good selling actually looks like. They’re rejecting a pushy stereotype, not the structured problem-solving approach that would actually suit them perfectly. Fix the information gap and the personality excuse disappears.
The cognitive dissonance, and how to dissolve it
The majority of sales challenges, even for full-time salespeople, are mindset-related. Cognitive dissonance occurs when we don’t act in alignment with how we see ourselves. If we don’t see ourselves as a ‘sales professional’ we’re unlikely to lean into behaviours we associate with that. One of the keys is to help your engineers to align behaviours that help their customers make buying decisions with the very strengths and character traits that they see already within themselves, like being helpful, smart, and ‘fixing’ the buyers problems. When you train and support engineers to do that, they tend to take to it willingly and professionally, and the result can be eye-opening.
How do I teach my engineers conversational skills without making them feel like they’re ‘doing sales’?
Teach them how to structure and deliver value-building conversations. Teach them that we don’t sell ‘to’ customers but we work with customers to help them think and buy. Teach them how to ask the questions that switch on real, relevant buying drivers. Teach them conversational jiu-jitsu, the framing that lets them say or ask anything comfortably, and have the buyer respect them more for it so that they become the trusted-advisor of choice. Do that and your engineers become strong revenue-generating assets. And none of it is (or even feels) salesy. One of our clients, Vinci Energies, had a technical engineer who we trained up and he turned a casual nuclear-sector account into a multi-million-pound strategic partner. His Director, Andrew Hunter described it as ‘adding sales skills by stealth’. The engineers didn’t think they were selling. They thought they were just being extremely helpful to their client and helping that client to think things through.
Does selling damage technical credibility, or build it?
Bad selling blocks technical credibility. Good selling enhances and connects it. Bad selling is the type of selling that’s common for people to do when they’re untrained. Good selling requires understanding and structure. It establishes technical and commercial fit and builds value for the customer through the very conversation alone. Bad selling usually shows a lack of listening and understanding and making it all about ‘us’. Good selling makes it all about the customer, and how to realistically make them better off. It’s about smart discovery, helping the buyer discover compelling reasons to buy from you, so that they vote for your technical expertise and credibility. Buyers recognise the systematic approach, the attention to detail, the problem-solving mindset. These are engineering qualities applied to commercial conversations. The trap to avoid is hiding inside technical mode when conversations get commercial. Engineers retreat to their solution-detail comfort zone when things feel uncomfortable or sales-like. The buyer reads that as evasion, or disconnection, not expertise. Your team need to stay in right conversation in the right ways and at the right times, tying value to the commercial requirements and with technical depth on tap when needed, not the other way round.
What if helping them buy means telling them not to buy from us?
There are customers you should be doing business with because it makes sense in every way for both parties. Equally, there are customers you should not be doing business with because the cost for both parties is far too high and it just doesn’t work. Part of your job is to identify who you should be doing business with and who would benefit from doing business with you, and to mutually understand and agree on this together. Equally, where there is no fit and it becomes too costly to do business together, your job is to also let that be known and redirect that buyer to a better alternative. In doing so, you maintain the status as the Trusted Advisor, and they know it. This means that they are more likely to come back to you should that ever make sense or refer you to buyers that do fit your ideal customer profile.
What about the engineers who really, really don’t want to do this?
Two questions for them. One: when you’ve helped the customer in front of you understand their situation and how your solution fits, and that they’ll be better off with it than they would be by holding on to their investment, are you really going to stop them buying? Two: how much of what you want in your career, your work, your life, depends on someone saying yes to you at some point? Once those land, the resistance is mostly an information problem, not a values one. Engineers don’t see themselves as salespeople. They see themselves as smart, intelligent engineers who get things right. Well that describes the approach that they can learn in order to get more ‘yeses’ and help the right buyers buy.
What does success look like over six months?
An engineer who would have refused to lead a client conversation now opens with a clear, calm framing of intent, runs a proper discovery, surfaces fit and value in the buyer’s own words, and moves the conversation to a clear next step without flinching. They don’t think of themselves as a salesperson. They think of themselves as a better engineer, who happens to win more work. One of our clients said ‘a night and day difference between my sales skills before and after’. He added: ‘now I don’t think sales is as scary as some time ago.’
What evidence is there that this approach works for technical people?
Most of my named clients are technical people who ‘didn’t sign up to sell’. Haskoning called one session the best training in over thirty-five years of professional experience. SpaceForge’s CTO got ‘about 200% more value’ than from previous training. Vinci Energies’ engineer turned a casual nuclear-sector account into a multi-million-pound strategic partner using a paint-by-numbers approach. These aren’t naturally ‘salesy’ people. They’re engineers who learned that you’re not selling, you’re helping people buy. The approach works because it respects how technical people think while giving them language and structure to be commercial.
How do I tell if my team is selling well, or just pushing harder?
Listen to a few of their conversations, or read their proposals. If the conversations are them talking, demonstrating, pitching benefits, and pushing for next steps, that’s pushing. It’s hard to get a square peg into a round hole. If the conversations are them asking, listening, summarising the buyer’s words back, surfacing genuine fit, and inviting decisions, that’s selling well. Good conversations create buying tension by helping buyers discover their own compelling reasons to act. Poor conversations try to manufacture urgency through pressure. Value is in the eye of the beholder. Your engineers should be helping buyers see that value, not forcing it on them.
Do engineers need to become ‘salespeople’ to win business?
No. Engineers who try to become traditional salespeople usually fail because it conflicts with everything they believe about being professional and ethical. The far majority of sales training doesn’t work because it’s generic training, and delivered as a one-off, that’s like going to the gym just once and expecting to build muscle. Engineers need to stay engineers and add commercial skills that fit how they think. They need to become trusted advisors who help people buy, not pitch-merchants who pressure people into buying. The gap between what it feels like to the team and what it produces in the business is what clients keep reflecting back. Smart but didn’t sign up to sell.
How do I avoid making it worse with bad training?
Don’t put them through a generic sausage-machine course. Don’t bring in a trainer who hasn’t sold themselves recently. (Many just come in and ‘train’ but haven’t sold in years). Don’t teach them out-of-date hyped-up techniques. Don’t run a one-off event and expect anything to stick. All four of those will harden their resistance, not soften it. Going to the gym just once and expecting to build muscle doesn’t work. Engineers need a smart and proven approach to acquiring sales capabilities that feel right to them and their customers.
About the author. Mark Moore is an ex-engineer turned sales specialist with 30 years of experience in commercial development and sales. He runs Help People Buy from the UK, working with engineering firms and technical SMEs to lift commercial performance without turning their engineers into salespeople. He has worked with McKinsey, Apple, Capgemini, KPMG, National Grid, and Ofgem. Engineering with Business Studies degree, Warwick University, 1998. Ran an accelerated learning consultancy from 2003.