Intro

No matter if you are an engineer or a manager, being good in sales is a skill that will always be highly worth.

“But selling is something I don’t like to do” → well, let me tell you that being good at it is no longer a choice, but it’s necessary, especially if you wish to progress to Senior+ roles.

And my prediction is that it’s going to be a must-have in the future for both engineers and managers at any level. Especially as time goes on and the tools for developing software will be more and more easier.

In this article, we will cover:

• why selling is an important skill to have in your toolbelt both as an engineer or a manager,

• my personal story of how I found out the importance of sales skills in the engineering industry and

• how you can develop your sales skills!

This is an article for paid subscribers, and here is the full index:

- We are all selling everyday
- We are selling every day as engineers and managers and we might not even realize it
- As engineers, we are selling with
- As managers, we are selling with
🔒 This is how I learned the importance of sales skills in the engineering industry
🔒 5 tips to get better at selling as an engineer or a manager
🔒 1. Build your credibility
🔒 2. Be well-prepared professional
🔒 3. Good communication skills always help
🔒 4. Know who are you selling to and what are their motivations and challenges
🔒 5. Focus on building good relationships
🔒 Last words

Resources mentioned in the article:

• How to build credibility in the engineering industry (paid article)

• Empathy is a superpower in the engineering industry (paid article)

• How to communicate with stakeholders the right way (paid article)

• How to build good relationships inside and outside your engineering team (paid article)

Let’s get straight into it!

We are all selling every day

Both professionally and personally we are all selling every day. In some of the professional roles more in some less and the same is true for our personal lives.

Professionally → with every idea, if we want it to be accepted we need to “sell it” to the right people.

Personally → we influence, have conversations and have negotiations, all of this plays a part in selling.

We can’t avoid selling and the best thing we can do is to accept it and focus on improving our sales skills as much as possible.

The better we are at selling, the more success we will have in various things both personally and professionally.

But what specific things are we selling as engineers and managers in the engineering industry you ask? Well, let’s get into that next.

We are selling every day as engineers and managers and we might not even realize it

As engineers, we are selling with:

• Every PR that we open

We need to create good enough adjustments to the codebase, either addition, change or subtraction in order to be accepted. And it’s not only about that, it’s also about how well can we write the PR description, the size of the change and sticking to all the guidelines.

With PRs, we want to make it as easy as possible for reviewers to review them and that’s how it will be accepted faster → and that’s exactly what selling is.

• With every estimation or adjustment to the scope

If we say that something will take longer, we need to have valid reasons for it and back it up either with data or something tangible. Just saying that it’s going to take longer because it’s not that easy to do is not good enough. We need to “sell” it so people can understand the “why” behind the reason.

Example: “This will take longer because we need to wait for the other team to implement the API and then we need to also make the adjustment to the Authentication service, which may affect a lot of other parts and we need to test it thoroughly”.

• With every idea, improvement or aproach that we suggest

We need to influence people in a way that they will “buy” our idea or suggestion. Just presenting it without backing it with data or tangible reasons of WHY this is such a great thing to do will result in not being accepted.

It’s so important that we present it in a way that others will easily understand it and see the benefits. That’s selling!

As managers, we are selling with:

• Setting the vision

You need to “sell” the vision to your team, your manager and other stakeholders. And again, as we mentioned before, you can’t just expect to send a document via email and everyone will magically agree. It doesn’t work that way.

You need to influence everyone in the direction that you see the vision to go. You do that by having great arguments for it and overall credibility, so that people are willing to accept it.

And it’s not just important to do that for the stakeholders, it’s important to do the same for your team as well. Your team is not going to just magically accept it, you need to present it in a compelling way that everyone will buy in to it.

And the best outcome? The team also owns the new vision that you have set.

• Doing coaching and mentoring

You might think that with coaching and mentoring there is no selling, well let me tell you that you can’t be a great coach if you don’t know how to sell.

You need to find out the right way to approach the situation and provide relevant direction to the person that you are coaching.

It’s not just saying things like “this is what you need to do”, but the key is that the person on the other side really understands why this is important and learns from it.

And the best outcome is that if you give them the tools so they are able to move forward without you!

• Unblocking the team, hiring, adjusting the software development process, etc.

For all of these activities, you need a good amount of sales skills → you can’t unblock the team if you don’t communicate with the team or people who can do that effectively.

The same is true with hiring, you need to give the relevant points on why you need a new person on the team, what is the business reason and what outcomes we can expect if we hire a new person.

And of course with every adjustment to the software development process → we need people to buy into it. And that is often the hardest part because people don’t like changes.

But it’s on you to make everyone believe that the change is for the better!

This is how I learned the importance of sales skills in the engineering industry...