I'm Not a Sales Guy.
I'm an Engineer Who Learned How to Sell.

The procurement manager was friendly. I was on-site, so it was easy to talk to him. I could walk across the office and catch him any time. So I did. I knew the relationship was the job. It was a little uncomfortable, but I wanted to push myself.

We already had one field with this customer — that's why we were in their office in the first place. Then an RFP came in for a second field. I quickly wasn't thinking about only the second field. I was thinking about all three. A hundred percent of their work. That became my goal. The feather I wanted in my cap.

Every time we talked, he pushed the same update: phase 2 was "almost approved." The third field would be bigger than the one we already had. More wells, more work, a lot more. Just a matter of time. I could already see the promotion.

So I built my revenue model around it. To lock in all three fields, I discounted the field we already had. Reduced the price on our existing work — proof we were serious about the whole relationship. When the third field grew, we'd make the discount back easy. We "won" the RFP.

At the time it looked like the biggest win in the area. I rode it to a new role and a move to Denver about a year later. I stayed in touch with the people who stayed on the account. And slowly the picture came in. Phase 2 never happened. Not the way the procurement manager said it would. The work that was "just a matter of time" turned out to be almost nothing.

The biggest win in the basin settled into an average contract. I hadn't lost the deal. I just never had what I thought I had.

That was the lesson. I never tested my assumption about the work right around the corner. I'm telling you this because there are founders who can learn from it and skip the mistake I made. That's what today is about — my mistakes, so you can avoid them.

The engineer who didn't want to sell

This was my first real sales role. Leading three other sales engineers, selling the same downhole tools I'd spent years designing. I honestly didn't see it as sales. The contract was already in place. The job was managing it and talking to the customer about the work they had coming. A great transition, because it was light on the commercial side and let me focus on my technical knowledge.

Designing tools for the energy industry means building things that go thousands of feet underground and get one shot to work. I did the drafting, the testing, the project management, the customer witness assembly testing. The product I knew. The room, I was still learning.

The procurement manager wasn't lying… exactly. Phase 2 probably was in planning. It just wasn't what I understood it to be, and I never asked the questions to find out. I took the promise at face value. Built a model on top of it. Offered a discount before I'd verified a single assumption.

That was my mistake — not confirming the work, or connecting my discount to the level of activity. Discounting your work for volume can make sense, but you have to make sure you get the volume, or you just gave them a discount (which is what I did).

In product development there were too many layers between me and the customer — salespeople, field service, product line management, operations. The real problems the customer faced got translated twice before they reached my desk. I wanted to be closer to the problem. That was my engineering instinct. I was missing something.

What I didn't understand yet: the problem was part technical, part human. That day in the customer's office, it was mostly human. And I wasn't reading it well, because it was all new to me.

Sales is just problem solving with another human.

The problem was I was working on one problem — winning all the work — and the procurement manager was working on another: reducing cost. This is why you have to know the problem you are solving and confirm that it's the problem the customer wants to solve.

What Denver taught me

Denver was the next role. Different product, so new technical knowledge to pick up. I stepped out of leadership and into an account manager seat — I wanted to focus on understanding the technical sales before I led people doing those sales.

My manager gave me feedback that changed how I understood the job. He said my edge was that I sold to engineers as an engineer. One of the fastest to pick up the technical side, and that's what would help me sell to them. I could meet them at the problem.

Engineers want a peer — someone who already knows what they're up against. That's when I started to see sales as problem solving with another human. The engineers I worked with wanted a problem solved. I had the product and the services to get them there.

What I had to learn was follow-up, because when I started I saw it as bothering people. What I've learned since is that when you follow up, you remind someone buried in a hundred other problems that you're still there. Still thinking about their situation. Still ready to help when they are.

Then a tool failed. A customer I'd built from nothing, close to $2 million a month, walked out because our team handed them a clean legal answer instead of a real one. I didn't fight for them. I let the process run. I learned that sometimes you go around the T's and C's. You advocate for the customer. You find the human answer and you give them that.

These days I shoot for being a resource. I learned I didn't always have to have the right answer, but I did have to push for what was right for my customer. Sometimes we make mistakes and we have to own them. Yes, T's and C's are there for a reason, and you want to protect your business. But sometimes you just need to meet your customer where they are as a human and help them — even if that costs you a little now.

Two lessons

The RFP taught me to test what I'm told before I build on it. The promise of work around the corner felt like a sure thing. I never checked it. I read the deal I wanted, not the one in front of me.

Denver taught me the other half. Follow up like it's a service, because it is. Advocate for the customer even when the clean answer is easier. Be the resource.

Verify the problem. Then fight for the human who has it.

I didn't have a system back then. I was building one without knowing it. That's why I write ENG Sales. It's for founders who are where I was — great at what they build, unsure how to sell, running point on sales whether they asked for the job or not.

Next time I'll show you what happened when those lessons turned into a system. Three years, a book of business that grew 2.3x, margins up as well. No hot market, no army of reps, no race to the bottom on price. The proof, and the start of the flywheel.

You don't have to learn this the hard way like I did. One assumption I never tested. One discount I couldn't earn back. One customer I let walk. I put those lessons into a quick diagnostic so you can skip the slow version — it reads your revenue flywheel and points you to the one area losing momentum right now. Take the Revenue Flywheel Diagnostic. A few minutes, and you'll know where to start.

This article was originally published on the ENG Sales newsletter.