Breaking into Tech Sales....

[shep]

Another thought is to look at smaller managed service providers IE. the local 3rd party tech providers. The one I was working for was a partner with HP, Microsoft, Shoretel, Sonicwall and a few others. They only had 10 employees. http://www.lammtech.com/general/indu...tnerships.html Places like that can expose you to several different products both hardware and software to at least get started.

[toofun]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the info. ALOT of good research material and ideas to kick around. I definately will do my homework for sure. Funny thing is I have had two interviews with Oracle in the last year. Both times I made it to the final interview but they have decided to go with the candidate that came from a tech background. All very good points to be sure and I appreciate all of the input. One boundary I always come up against is when interviewers talk about my lack of tech experience and how I am going to sell a customer on the product. Here is what I always say in response to that. My job as a salesman is to create what I call a "buyers vision". You have to paint a picture for the client to show them the value of your product and services you provide, to show them benchmark performance records with other companies that have used your product and how it made a vast improvement in their company. As long as I can understand the basic framework of a company, what they use and how they use it, I can get my foot in the door to try and sell them on the value our products. Technical aspects of the particular software,hardware, and compatibility issues are the job of the tech experts on your team. You need to utilize them in your sales process to extract their valuable knowledge and experience.They are the ones you pull into the mix when the customer wants to pinpoint the details on the products themselves. I could be in sales for years and NEVER understand the product as good as the tech advisors do. Thats what they get paid for to come in and help solidify the selling process and then I close the sale. You are only as good as the TEAM around you...

See to me I think people who come from the outside make better salesmen than people who come from tech. Because nothing is worse than a guy who comes from tech who has a superman complex. Their confidence turns to cockiness thinking they can answer all the questions customers have to ask when they should be taking a back seat and let their tech experts take over from their.. Just my .02 cents.

Anyways, thanks for all the info, I will definately check it out!!

Mark
TOOFUN