What is the development prospect of pre-sales engineers?

Pre-sale Standard Route (I)-Pre-sale Technical Route

Pre-sales is a position between technology and sales. Strictly speaking, pre-sale is not about technology, but about skills, including the improvement of technical capabilities such as technology and business, as well as the improvement of market capabilities such as business. The author summarizes these skills as follows: understanding products, business, commerce, technology, demand, trend, writing and speaking. (See the article "What does pre-sales do" in the "IT pre-sales circle")

Main pre-sale

Position: Demand Engineer, Pre-sales Assistant

Mastering skills:

Understand the demand: demand investigation, demand analysis, demand scheme preparation, demand review, demand disclosure, etc.

Product knowledge: have a basic understanding of the project or product in charge;

Understand the business: understand the basic signing process;

Understand business: have a general understanding of customer business; Understand the needs of customers and the development trend of customer business;

Understand technology: briefly understand technical knowledge such as software development, database, hardware and network, and learn new technologies related to cloud computing and other industries;

Able to write: all kinds of documents should be well understood, such as technical specification, PPT of scheme, feasibility study data, budget table, bidding data, innovation data, etc.

Key abilities: learning ability, pressure resistance.

Growth time: 1~3 years

Average salary: about 8.5K

(Note: Salary data comes from the average salary of pre-sales engineers in April 2020, the same below. Interested readers can refer to the article "Is the salary of pre-sales engineers high" in the "IT pre-sales circle")

The pre-sale threshold is low, between sales and R&D, higher than sales and lower than R&D. As long as you have a professional education or background, you can get a bachelor's degree. However, on the way to pre-sale and upgrade, the knowledge and skills you need to master are much higher than those of the two. Therefore, it is generally two years before the sale to get in touch with these skills. There is no end to the professional knowledge and new technologies that need to be learned before selling.

Pre-sales usually help the old pre-sales when they first enter the bank, such as demand research, demand writing, tender inspection and so on. , meet with sales and old pre-sales customers, participate in program exchange, etc. After studying for a period of time, small projects are generally arranged for new pre-sales. Through the experience of small and medium-sized projects, I can be responsible for the company's main projects, get the recognition of leaders, sales and customers, and be able to be independent and complete the evolution from primary to intermediate and then to pre-sales.

Intermediate pre-sale

Position: pre-sales engineer, solution engineer, consulting engineer

Key skills:

Understand requirements: improve the accuracy and efficiency of requirements work;

Product knowledge: in-depth understanding of the project or product in charge, such as the ins and outs of the project, the functions and needs of the product;

Understand the business: familiar with the signing and bidding process; Understand the organizational structure, decision-making process and key personnel of customer units;

Understand the business: very familiar with the customer's business; Have a better understanding of customer industry;

Understand technology: constantly learn new technologies: such as cloud computing, blockchain, AI, AR, 5G, etc.

Know the trend: understand the latest progress and development direction of the industry, and understand the pain points and demands of the industry;

Can write: be familiar with all kinds of official documents and improve the efficiency of official document writing; Ability to write solutions according to user needs;

Able to speak: able to talk about plans and communicate effectively with customers and teams;

Key abilities: learning ability, pressure resistance and coordination ability.

Growth time: 3~5 years

Average salary: 1 1.5k or so.

Intermediate pre-sales need to be improved in various skills, such as the summary and deep understanding of demand work, products, commerce, business and technology.

Focus on providing solutions and explaining them according to customers' needs, and get technical recognition from customers; Cooperate with sales to sign the bill continuously.

At this stage of pre-sales, we should have a panoramic grasp of industry trends, customer needs and competitive products. Be able to make useful suggestions to enhance the competitiveness of products; Be able to find or create sales opportunities from a business perspective.

Advanced presales

Position: solution expert, consulting expert

Key skills:

Understand the business: understand the customer's business from a higher angle;

Know the trend: understand the industry trend and be forward-looking;

Can write: PPT master

Will say: solution master

Key abilities: learning ability, pressure resistance and adaptability.

Growth time: 5~ 10 year

Average salary: about14.5k.

The technical development goal of pre-sales is to become an industry expert.

The IT industry has a small circle, and some businesses have only two or three competitors, which represents the highest level in this field. Senior presales should be very familiar with their own products and solutions, have rich cases and practical experience, be familiar with competitors' products and situations, and know the IT development history and future development trend of the industry like the back of their hands. Only in this way can we keep up with the pace of customer development, provide customers with forward-looking solutions and create cooperation opportunities.

Pre-sale Standard Route (II)-Pre-sale Management Route

The development of advanced presales is presales management.

Here is a brief introduction to the management route of product line pre-sale and regional pre-sale.

Pre-sales of product line &; Regional pre-sales differences (source "IT pre-sales circle" article "What to do before sales"):

Many large IT suppliers have multiple R&D product lines and set up many regional centers all over the country. So the classification of product line pre-sale and regional pre-sale appeared.

Pre-sale of product lines is usually aimed at a certain industry or even a certain kind of business, and the products are considered and laid out in a forward-looking way, facing the national market.

Regional pre-sales are closer to customers and better understand customer needs. Regional pre-sales need to face multiple customers and even multiple industries in the region, and the depth of business understanding is not as deep as that of product line pre-sales, but the breadth is more than the latter.

In such companies, product pre-sales and regional pre-sales often need to learn from each other and go out at the same time.

Product line pre-sales management route

Generally, each product line of IT vendors is equipped with a pre-sales department, which is the responsibility of the pre-sales manager.

The pre-sales manager has the following basic functions:

Management function: responsible for the management of pre-sales personnel in the department, the formulation and distribution of performance tasks, and responsible for the overall performance;

Planning function: responsible for product planning;

Pre-sales function: responsible for the pre-sales work of key projects;

If the product line has a multi-layer structure, the pre-sales manager of the product line can be promoted step by step.

If the performance and ability are particularly outstanding, you can also rely on continuous job transfer for upward promotion.

Regional pre-sales management route

Compared with product line presales managers, regional presales managers do not need product planning functions. However, regional pre-sales managers usually take on more responsibilities than production line pre-sales managers.

If the company has multi-level regional division, the regional pre-sales manager can be promoted step by step.

If you continue to be promoted, the regional pre-sales manager will be transferred back to the headquarters one step more than the product line pre-sales manager.

Pre-sale turnover method

Not every presale can be promoted from junior presale to general manager of the company. Any level of pre-sales will encounter development bottlenecks. At this point, you can choose to continue to improve in your respective posts or turn around.

No matter what kind of occupation, there are usually five main choices for turning around, namely job-hopping, career change, career change, sideline and entrepreneurship.

job-hop

There are two main options:

1. Job-hopping to other manufacturers in the same industry for pre-sales: If you are not optimistic about the company's development prospects or are not satisfied with the treatment, you can consider this option. The value of pre-sale is reflected in its professional level, which makes it easy to choose companies in the same industry and improve the treatment;

Second, job-hopping to other industries for pre-sales: If you are not optimistic about the development prospects of your own industry, you can job-hop to other industries. However, it is generally difficult to improve the treatment when starting over, and it is necessary to learn a lot of professional knowledge in new industries.

Be transferred to a new job

No matter what type of work, the IT industry has an eye for other industries.

There are usually five job transfer options before sales:

Regional/product line pre-sales conversion: regional pre-sales are close to home and there are few business trips. There is more room for pre-sale of product lines, and you can travel around; Both can take what they need and transfer jobs internally;

Switch to sales: sales can build a better relationship with customers without learning so much technology and knowledge and writing documents all the time; However, the pressure of sales performance is great, and the work is not as stable as other positions;

Switch to product manager: the position of product manager is very similar to that before sales, but one is biased towards signing bills and the other is biased towards planning products;

Transfer to project manager: the project manager has many things to manage, and the delivery pressure is great, which requires strong coordination ability and project management ability; If you like this challenge, or if you have to, you can also switch to project manager;

Transfer to R&D: If you like relatively stable work content, are not good at writing materials and communication, and have technical ability, you can consider transferring to R&D. ..

Change jobs.

The IT industry has the highest average wage. It is not recommended to change careers unless there is a better way out.

Table: Average wages of enterprises above designated size in various industries in 20 18 years

Do sideline business

Pre-sales engineers usually don't have enough time, so it is difficult to use their spare time to do sideline work. If there is capital accumulation, you can consider investment, wealth management, shareholding and other projects that don't take too much time.

start a business

Before the sale, it is difficult to fire your old boss and start your own business in this industry, just like some industries. If you are still eager to try, here are two suggestions:

Don't start a business because the pre-sales work is not good, because it is more difficult to start a business;

Opportunities are at your fingertips, the path is clear, and you can start a business when you see profits; The success rate of starting a business out of thin air is low.