Hey Guys,

Further to my earlier post, I would like to add few points about what B2B sales is all about.

I am into B2B business, where, the Sales Engineer's has to visit all his customers to understand their requirement before a sale is made. All sale is a technical sale, hence meeting customers are mandatory. For eg: sales engineer's visit to customer site will help him understand what exactly they require, for what purpose are they buying this product, how efficiently can you support the customer, what would be the pay-back period, service support and so on..

Moreover for every sale, customer has to allocate funds in their annual FY capex or fund projections has to be done intermittently during FY, as every product is a high value product. Typical Fast Moving Consumer Sales (FMCG) / B2C may not require sales engineer visit, as most of the sale is done either by distributor / dealer or agent. As huge money is involved, its understood without saying that sales engineer's visit is mandatory

Here in this B2B sales, competition is direct, in front of customer and the sale is made or awarded to a company only based on the sales engineer's approach and the way he pitches his product compared to competitor sales engineer.

The advantage of B2B sale is that, almost every sale is finalized only with top level bosses, though procurement & commercial team is initially involved. Hence, Sales Engineer can develop networking with all level of people in any corporate.

Yeah, all above are not only B2B sale.. There are few more areas, which determines the B2B sale.........

Wanna know those areas???? Am sure, you are.... Stay tuned for my next blog to know it...............

Till then take care and stay happy!!!!

Cheers

Karthick Mahadevan

Guys, This is my first blog and am really excited to write one right now. 

Though I donno from where to begin, yeah i feel, I should share some of my experience as a Sales Executive. May be yes, in this blog I will write on how I ended up in sales and maybe my initial experience. Further on, lemme try to get as deep as possible into sales. :). 

Sales, its a mesmerizing filed for guys who want to explore the world available right outside. It helps guys get connected with variety of people, various corporates and most importantly it makes you to do lot of networking.

I was a reserved, timid, fresh, proud, Mechanical Engineer out from a reputed University in Chennai with my campus being a flop show with me rejecting IT companies and Manufacturing companies rejecting my college.

I never had a clue to enter into this sales field, as my aspirations (may be i would call it a lust) was to join a hard core manufacturing company as a production engineer. As lust is always lust and never matures, to love or life, i never joined production department, rather ended up taking sales department through lateral entry in a typical Indian Conglomerate.

As i did not have any other offer in my hand, i was forced to accept this offer as Sales Engineer, typically first year any new grad from engineering college will be called GET (Graduate Engineer Trainee). We were a batch of six people from various Engineering colleges across, Tamilnadu joined together in this company. Three of us were given assignment to get trained in Sales while other three were given assignment of get trained in Service. I reluctantly accepted this Sales Field (B-to-B) as i did not have option and it was never an option given by company, it was almost a decision which was conveyed.

My first assignment was a typical induction training in Mumbai. I never had been away from South India for almost 21 years and my first opportunity to step out individually was to Mumbai ( 24 hr city). It was like wow.  It was November'08, 2006, the day we stepped into Mumbai.

As a immature guy, I perceived Sales to be a door-to-door activity where, i need to tap every company gate for an entry for the product to be promoted by me, as normally done by sales engineer who promote house hold articles.

But to my surprise, as the training started and the induction took a take-off, I realized that I have entered a field which will be my bread and butter for next couple of years. 30 days Induction phase made me realize that, I have reached my "the field" which will be the place where I can excel.

Guys, trust me, sales may look so easy from outside, but its more of an art which has to be taken care at each and every minute. Its a tool which makes yourself get engaged with a unknown person (Sales language customer), thereby building relationship personally and professionally.  I shall start sharing my experience and my learning in the blogs to come..... 

Cya for now and take care

Cheers

Karthick Mahadevan