Title says it all. Has anyone made this transition, or have general tips on breaking into sales? On a side note, anyone have numbers for compensation differences between pure sales vs sales engineer? Thanks for taking the time
Good opportunities as sales engineer if you have the people skills GE offers good opportunities
Top sales people at sfdc do earn millions but they work hella hard too
Start in a technical customer / field role then move to more sales roles if you want. For the right person it isn't hard to do. Finding the right person can be tough - you need the mix of technical, business and soft skills. Many tech companies put engineers into sales roles, so it isn't hard to find an opportunity.
I made the switch! Took some serious effort and proving myself to do it. If you are at Salesforce, look into your Customer Success Management roles and convince a hiring manager to give you a chance. From there slide into a quota sales role or BD if you like hunting. It’s possible to cross over, but defiantly not easy. I was told ‘no’ more times than I can count and have been successful in sales as I can go between the technical team and the business teams.
Can you talk about the comp differences? How much were you making as an engineer vs sales?
I have held Sales roles at 3 different companies. If you are on Quota higher payouts, but more stress and lower base. I have sold different products/ solutions and each industry varies. Comp is all over the board. More money in sales than Engineering for me.
In my opinion good sales guys are typically a ‘different breed’ and rarely align with the type of person who is also an engineer. If you do have really good ‘soft skills’, there is probably more money in technical consulting roles (check out the PA and BA roles at SF). Because sales is commission based the pay range is huge. 100k for entry level or underperforming to 1m+ for top performers. Sales engineer is more stable but can have a commission portion 150k-250k.
Typically but not always. In fact Engg who happen to have the rare Sales talent tend to have amazing careers. I know several from my Salesforce days in the mid 00’s that are now in big head of Sales roles.