Five directions of career planning for pre-sales engineers

Five directions of career planning for pre-sales engineers

There is a special professional post in IT field-pre-sales engineer. We have discussed the growth process of pre-sales engineer, which is a challenging, magical and novel position, especially for young people who have just graduated and are full of energy. Many friends have asked me, what is the career of pre-sales engineers in the future, and must I switch to sales? What is the career path of technical posts? From a big perspective, what is the future of people who do technology in China's enterprise companies?

Some people think that pre-sales engineers are just fooling customers, in the words of ordinary people? Talk? The highest state is that what is not said is said to be yes, what is said to be alive is said to be dead (there are many so-called professional consultants who give people this feeling now). This view is a misunderstanding of sales work. Whether it is a pre-sales engineer or a salesperson, the process of completing sales is a process of building trust and communication with users. You fooled the user. As long as you lose trust once, no one will give you a second chance to communicate.

Pre-sales engineers have their own careers, just like the challenge when entering this threshold, the future of pre-sales engineers has always been full of wisdom and novelty. I made a simple summary based on my own experience and the development of my colleagues in the pre-sales technical circle, hoping to give you some enlightenment.

Pre-sales engineer is a job between sales and technical support. The goal is to help sales sign more orders and sign big orders. The ultimate way to convince users is to help users sort out their own needs and find the most suitable solution.

The threshold for entering the pre-sales engineer is to have a deep understanding of technical theory and product operation. You can make it clear only if you know and use it. After becoming a pre-sales engineer, according to the degree of experience accumulation and ability improvement, the career of a pre-sales engineer can be divided into five stages:

1, Sales Assistant:

Position: pre-sales engineer, sales engineer

Main ability: communication ability.

The most basic job of the pre-sales engineer is to support the sales work, including product exchange, scheme provision and tender preparation. However, to become a sales partner, we must correctly understand the real intention of the sales staff. Isn't it the same every time you communicate with customers, explain a product like a text, or give customers a solution, or just change the company template to the user's name, let alone write a tender or copy the whole text? what's up Good salespeople have a strong role in promoting user projects. Every time I meet a customer, my purpose is different. You only have? Do you understand? Only by knowing the real purpose of sales can we provide effective support and not waste sales? Hard work? Strive for various technical exchange opportunities.

A pre-sales engineer should keep in mind: users are not our training ground, what about users? A mouse? To enhance the experience, we have to pay a high price.

Being a sales assistant is to be able to integrate into the sales process and cooperate with sales tacitly. Your technical support is like the support of the assistant doctor on the operating table to the surgeon. As soon as the doctor reaches out, you pass the tools you need, and as soon as the doctor looks at you, you report the information you need? Assistant means you look like a salesman? how much is it? The hand that comes out is as flexible as selling your own hand.

2. Sales partner:

Position: pre-sales manager, technical support manager

Main ability: the ability to guide demand and plan.

Note: It doesn't mean that the pre-sales engineer's ability has improved or that he is a manager. He must have an administrative position. But this is a universal fact of China culture (neither the government nor enterprises can escape the influence of this cultural environment). ? Learning to be excellent is an official? His thoughts have a history of thousands of years in China. It is generally believed that the best reward for intellectuals is to make him an official, not to give him a comfortable working and living environment and make him make greater scientific and technological achievements. Because being an official in China means controlling more resources and having a better working environment; Even if you are in an official position, you don't do any official business. China has a special term-treatment. What about China? Academician? Most of them are current principals, deans, directors, directors and ministers. On the other hand, did you become these first? Dragon? It is easier to be selected as an academician. After all, few scientists are known for their pure technology like Chen Jingrun and Yuan Longping. Flowers in the wall, red outside the wall? The example is bleak. Foreigners recognize you as a talent and China society recognizes you. Once you admit your position, you still have to be an official, otherwise you can't show your respect. Pay attention? . Therefore, in the enterprise, considering the improvement of your ability and evaluating whether the enterprise recognizes you is to see whether you hold a management leadership position; Not mentioning that you are a leader often means that you have not realized your ability. Professional design public welfare network (www. 16 175。 Com) recommended career planning task force.

Of course, this culture is different from the west.

The pre-sales engineer is not only an assistant to the salesperson, but also helps him sign more and more orders. How to give constructive suggestions to sales and how to make users recognize our solutions and products from a technical point of view? It is not enough to understand the sales intention.

Sales partner means that pre-sales engineers can not only help sales to complete technical work, but also provide information needed for sales. Create? Sales demand? New opportunities? For example, analyze the technical advantages and disadvantages of competitors' products, give customers clear, convincing and targeted solutions, and use technical roles to obtain all kinds of information?

As a sales partner, you no longer consider what you want; Instead, actively create sales opportunities and discover sales opportunities. When sales have no ideas, you have the ability to help sales find new sales ideas.

Many pre-sales engineers switch to full-time sales at this stage because they think they are salespeople.

3. User partners

Position: product manager, marketing engineer

Main ability: marketing ability, turning your solution into a long-term cooperation model for user business development.

Knowing the advantages of one's own products and the situation of competitors is only one aspect of the sales process. The ultimate goal of sales is to convince customers, not to defeat competitors. Therefore, as a pre-sales engineer, we must understand the needs of customers.

User partner means that the pre-sales engineer is familiar with the user's business process and gives a reasonable solution for selling products from the perspective of the user's business development, which not only supports the user's current business needs, but also supports the business needs to be expanded in the future. Because the IT industry is a rapidly developing industry. Moore's Theorem It doubles in a year and a half (the software industry is faster). If the manufacturer's products are not upgraded for a year and a half, the performance is only half that of others, and users themselves understand this.

Some people say: how can I know the user's business like the back of my hand? It's hard for users to say clearly. How can I make it clear? This statement is that we have not found the essence of work and can't be experts in user business. In this case, you can directly do his business instead of the user; Your strength is to be familiar with the products you provide and the support of your products to users' business; The latest technology of your product is definitely not as clear to users as you are. What is the combination in the middle? User partner? The value of existence.

User partner shows that you have become the helper of users in this field and the guide of users' demand for your products.

As a sales partner, you may only support one or a few salespeople, while as a user partner, you may support a sales team, and your technical solution should be reproducible when the same user needs it.

There is a new position here: marketing engineer. Marketing is more extensive than pre-sales. If the first two pre-sales engineers support advanced sales, marketing means that you start to help a lot of ordinary sales, so that people with average ability can make achievements that high-ability talents have. This is marketing. The success of McDonald's is not his cooking, but his management. They use laid-off workers and inexperienced students? Instead, let them sell more fast food than big hotels and let a group of ordinary people do what super people can do. This is the power of marketing methods.

Some pre-sales engineers can't stand the temptation of success at this stage and quit their jobs to start their own businesses, because they not only have the ability to guide users, but also lead their own teams. Of course, there are many successful people.

4, industry marketing:

Position: Marketing Manager, Architect, Chief Engineer

Main ability: the promotion ability is to establish the monopoly position of industry sales and become the market leader.

In the user partner stage, you support several big customers, and you have to spend a lot of time getting familiar with the user's business. When you know this industry? * * * Sex? In the face of industries that span several provinces and face the whole country or the whole world, you support more than just a sales team, don't you? Distributed? Sales team.

Industry marketing is to show your macro support ability, industry shortlisting, regional distribution, model building and scheme promotion? You are not only facing the competitors of products, but also the giant integrators and developers of the industry. Orders are no longer one after another, but the inevitable result of long-term cooperation. The result of marketing is: users ask you for products, not you ask users to sell products. Brand charm, leading technology, accurate demand and user recognition?

Do some sales, do some marketing

As an industry marketing, it not only pays attention to users, but also pays attention to the development direction of the company's internal products. What should an enterprise's products look like, what functions should be realized, and which functions will become the main ones for us to stand on in the market? Sharp weapon? Because you are the chief designer.

At this stage, the pre-sales engineers who started to set up their own enterprises often established a lasting market competitiveness based on their own technologies and products, and already had the ability to manage the operation of large companies.

5. marketing guru

Position: technical expert, technical vice president and general manager

Main ability: educational ability

The sexual needs of industry users can be replicated, and so can the sexual needs of users between industries. As a marketing guru, it is not only your technical ability and management ability, but also your educational ability.

Talent is the key to enterprise development, isn't it? Batch? People who cultivate team success are not worthy of being called masters. What is a master? A master is a person who can simplify complex truths and make them understood and accepted by ordinary people.

With the guidance and help of marketing guru, the sales with high savvy will soon become the top sales team, and the sales with low savvy will soon form the sales team with the strongest sales ability.

This stage is the advanced stage of the pre-sales engineer. Education, management and planning become your main tasks. How to do it should be your own choice, so I won't say it here.

Summary: Pre-sales engineers take the route of technology and market and do technical sales. It is also logical to become a marketing manager. Even if you switch to sales midway and pay attention to the cultivation of customer relationship, after all, you are technically born, which is still different from sales that only do customer relationship. If it develops to the level of sales management, it is the same as the development of marketing management.

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