Technology innovation eliminated many jobs. While technology is becoming involved in almost any job nowadays, many people still feel skeptical about technology sales. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Joseph Fung discusses technology sales. Joseph Fung is a founder and CEO of Uvaro, a company offering a sales training program focused solely on tech sales.
The interview discusses:
- Most common fears in tech sales
- Career transition to tech sales
Common Fears
When people hear about tech and software, they often connect them with coding. However, companies spend only about 15 percent on research and development and between 25 to 35 percent on sales and marketing. Thus, there are much more opportunities in sales and marketing. The first thing that many people question is whether they belong in the tech sales field. That is mostly because they already have applied to so many jobs but have not received any answers. And the second thing they question is whether they want to go into the tech sales field. However, many people do not understand that tech sale is about finding the right solution to the customer’s problem instead of forcing people to buy stuff. Technology buyers are so overwhelmed with information and selection that they need a sales rep to guide them to find the best solution.
Transition to Tech Sales
Following the process and telling good stories are fundamental sales skills that people from other industries have too. Thus, shifting the career from a niche market to sales tech is possible and not as hard. A person who was a pastor for 20 years now works in a security software company. Since communication and connection with people are the essences of being a pastor, asking discovery questions, finding a source of the problem, and running a process were already familiar skills to embrace in tech sales.
Another example is a person with experience in operations and logistics landing a job in a data science space company and exceeding his first-month quota by far. Being reliable, responsible, and diligent in his work helped him to understand the tech sales system. Once the system is understood, working in sales tech is not as complexed as the technology itself might seem to be.
And the last example of a radical career shift is a former athlete switching her current finance career to tech sales. As a former athlete, she understood the significance of training, practice, constant improvement, and professionalism in sales as much as in sports. She gained the necessary skills through her past experiences. The only thing she needed was to learn the terminology and tools used in tech sales to get a job.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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