[Ableza]

Excellent advice, and applicable to more than a service organization.  I once had a CEO who thought since we are an OEM design-centric business, make the engineers also our sales team.  This accomplished two things.  First, since Engineering was out doing sales, no sustaining engineering got done which meant nothing got shipped, and two once an engineer had "made a sale" they stopped pursuing other sales in order to do the design.  They also became very possessive of "their designs for their customers."  The experiment almost crashed the company.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

  Excellent advice, and applicable to more than a service organization.  I once had a CEO who thought since we are an OEM design-centric business, make the engineers also our sales team.  This accomplished two things.  First, since Engineering was out doing sales, no sustaining engineering got done which meant nothing got shipped, and two once an engineer had "made a sale" they stopped pursuing other sales in order to do the design.  They also became very possessive of "their designs for their customers."  The experiment almost crashed the company.

Aieeee! 
 
I also forgot to add, but I thought it was obvious: designers, programmers, and engineers are NOT salespeople. Period. If they wanted to do sales, and were good at it, they would be in sales, not in design, programming, or engineering.
 
Plus, as you note above...if they are selling, how does anything get done?

 

[madwolfa]

While I agree that sales organization should be largely independent, the situation where some product was sold without any feedback from engineering and then we, mere integration engineers, have to deal with all the schiit broken deadlines, unmet expectations and disgruntled customer, is not so uncommon. Because the solution that was hastily sold wasn't technically feasible to begin with. More often than not sales are only interested to sell, whatever. And then the whole organization suffers because of "overpromise, underdeliver" model of operation...

 

[HirschiAUT]

While I agree that sales organization should be largely independent, the situation where some product was sold without any feedback from engineering and then we, mere integration engineers, have to deal with all the schiit broken deadlines, unmet expectations and disgruntled customer, is not so uncommon. Because the solution that was hastily sold wasn't technically feasible to begin with. More often than not sales are only interested to sell, whatever. And then the whole organization suffers because of "overpromise, underdeliver" model of operation...

Oh i can relate to that all too well...
I work as a technical engineer (mostly 3D construction) at a truck manufacturing company.

The sales person comes along like "great news , we sold couple o hundred trucks , this is how they should look like" , and i am like "well, yeah, thats not technically possible, not enough room".
And he replies "well it has to, we already sold it" and adds "just cut it in half, weld a piece inbetween and all will fit"

Not to mention promised delivery dates that get moved by months, if not more, because they have NO idea how much work it is to realize the things they sell as already solved...

I agree that engineers should not sell, and salespeople cant design a product, and so on, but there should be a basic amount of communication and consultation in both directions! imho

 

[serman005]

Oh i can relate to that all too well...
I work as a technical engineer (mostly 3D construction) at a truck manufacturing company.

The sales person comes along like "great news , we sold couple o hundred trucks , this is how they should look like" , and i am like "well, yeah, thats not technically possible, not enough room".
And he replies "well it has to, we already sold it" and adds "just cut it in half, weld a piece inbetween and all will fit"

Not to mention promised delivery dates that get moved by months, if not more, because they have NO idea how much work it is to realize the things they sell as already solved...

I agree that engineers should not sell, and salespeople cant design a product, and so on, but there should be a basic amount of communication and consultation in both directions! imho

Gotta love salespeople...

 

[yay101]

If your sales people are lying about what is capable within your range of products, you need to replace the sales people. You can't sell a product if you don't know what that product is.

 

[Ableza]

If your sales people are lying about what is capable within your range of products, you need to replace the sales people. You can't sell a product if you don't know what that product is.

Sure you can (says the guy who used to run an R&D lab for Raychem.  This was our entire business model.)  But you can't do it for long.

 

[rmoody]

 
Gotta love salespeople...

No, you really don't. Having worked tech support and dealing with them, you really don't have to.
 
What you do have to do is tolerate them as much as you can. Even then, there are limits.

 

[Padgett]

@Jason Stoddard Appreciate the response, thank you!

 

[jacal01]

 
Gotta love salespeople...

 
Yeah, I used to say that I was in the business of delivering the moon.

 

[RCBinTN]

My job is QA.  If you want some fun, try balancing a vertical product launch with no demonstrated process capability.  

 

[Bazile]

  My job is QA.  If you want some fun, try balancing a vertical product launch with no demonstrated process capability.  

I have to admit. I have never been in business for my self. So I have no idea what those business terms mean. But...I do fly for a living, and a vert launch with no demo does strike a chord. RCB, could you offer any insight as to who you work for? 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Meaning a suggestion. The original post was incite. Which is wrong. Do you perhaps work for NASA?

 

[Thad-E-Ginathom]

  While I agree that sales organization should be largely independent, the situation where some product was sold without any feedback from engineering and then we, mere integration engineers, have to deal with all the schiit broken deadlines, unmet expectations and disgruntled customer, is not so uncommon. Because the solution that was hastily sold wasn't technically feasible to begin with. More often than not sales are only interested to sell, whatever. And then the whole organization suffers because of "overpromise, underdeliver" model of operation...

Sadly, many companies consider that salesmen should be compulsive liars.
 
Even more sad, some of those sales people lie their way out of sales into management.  They don't have the been-counting ability to be good administrators,  they don't have the technical knowledge to further the company's products --- but they think they can run the company. And they are good liars, so they get believed.
 
Edit: they can probably spell better than I can. Should that have been bean-counting?

 

[RCBinTN]

  I have to admit. I have never been in business for my self. So I have no idea what those business terms mean. But...I do fly for a living, and a vert launch with no demo does strike a chord. RCB, could you offer any insight as to who you work for? 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Meaning a suggestion. The original post was incite. Which is wrong. Do you perhaps work for NASA?

 
Got it - love the NASA question.  No, we manufacture products.  A vertical launch is when Sales accepts commercial-size orders for a new product that we have limited experience making. We make a small sample, the customer loves it, all of a sudden we have orders for 100 tons to ship next week.  Puts a real strain on the Operations folks.

 

[Armaegis]

This one time as an engineering student, I got a co-op job placement with a large manufacturing firm in town... except for some reason they put me in sales. Obviously this wasn't right, so they made the change immediately... and put me in customer service instead. Now here I am some 19 year old wet-behind-the-ears kid with no idea what he's doing and not enough gumption to stick up for himself, and nobody can help me because it was the vp who placed me into that department and nobody wanted to "correct" him. My "job" was to literally manually type up a spreadsheet summarizing a live database from another part of the country. Each day's work was literally worthless by the next day. I brought up the futility of this a couple times, but the managerial speak spun me in circles and convinced me what I was doing was fruitful. Ugh, stupid me.
 
In my slack time at work (typing up that spreadsheet took 3 hours; I eventually automated it down to 1), I sat in on the company training for the drafting and 3d modelling. I probably logged in 200 hours of unoffical training. When they brought in specialized trainers from out of town, I wasn't allowed to attend because I was in customer service not engineering. Sigh.
 
So anyhow, eventually I approached one of the floor "managers" (not a real manager, more like floor leader who wasn't bound by managerial bs) and he put me to work taking over for a guy who was on paternity leave. I logged in under his name and did his work, but just minor stuff like corrections and making sure all the boxes were filled out, nothing crucial that required an official stamp. Every once in a while I even got to model some sheet metal or whatever based on some specs sent my way, so that was kinda fun. If a real manager happened to come along, someone would whistle to give me the heads up and I'd quickly flip on the screen saver and duck into the bathroom with a newspaper. If I got caught, I was sent back to customer service.
 
Good times.
 
This doesn't have anything to do with sales. I just felt like sharing my tale of company/managerial mismanagement.