GAWDA Edge Blog 
  

Recently, I was speaking with Guy Marlin, president of Lampton Welding Supply, and I want to share a piece of our conversation. In talking about the company’s salespeople, I learned that the company refers to its outside salespeople as “field engineers,” and with good reason, too.

As Marlin explained to me, if you walk in to a customer and say, “Hi, I’m a salesperson for XYZ welding supply,” the first thing the customer will think is that you are coming to get money. If, instead, you say “I’m a field engineer,” the customer will probably give you a funny look and ask you what a field engineer is.

Lampton’s field engineers find out what their customer’s problems are and find ways to help customers. Instead of the customer tuning out, expecting to hear a sales pitch, they will begin to share their problems. As field engineers listen to the customer’s problems and help find solutions, they develop a relationship with the customer.

It’s a simple change, but a smart one. By changing the title of a salesperson, Lampton Welding Supply alters the customer’s expectations. It can even change the mentality of the salesperson/field engineer. A field engineer brings a problem solving mindset. Calling yourself an engineer also carries a certain responsibility to be an expert in industry products and processes. Ideally, it will push them to look after their own continued training and education.

What do you think of the name change? Would you ever try something like this at your company?

Over the last few days, I’ve been talking to distributors about training their salespeople. Everyone has a lot of great strategies for getting the most out of their young salespeople. One of the things I’ve been discussing is the skills that make a good salesperson. The distributors agree: personality is the ultimate key. But it’s where they don’t agree that I’m most interested in.

I’ve heard some different perspectives, and I want to know what you all think. Here’s the question: Let’s say you are in charge of hiring a new salesperson for your company. Would you prefer someone with 5 years of sales experience or someone with 5 years of technical (welding, cutting, joining, etc.) experience? Let’s assume both candidates have great personalities. There are two basic schools of thought on this.

One side says, “I’ll take the sales experience. You can always teach the technical know-how through manufacturer product training. It’s more important to know sales skills that only come from experience, such as time-management, customer service and self-motivation.”

The other side says, “Give me the welder. You can teach selling, but there’s a risk they won’t like the industry. On top of that, customers respond to a knowledgeable salesperson, so someone with technical experience has a head start.”

What do you think? I want to hear your argument for picking one side over the other.