I used to think software engineering was the most disciplined skill I'd learn—until I tried selling.
For engineers looking to understand what it takes to go from eng to sales, this post is for you.
Why sales? If you can build and if you can sell, you can run a business.
The framework I learned is Mitch Morando’s Morando Method: https://www.morandomethod.com/
Mitch teaches founders GTM, and he’s very good at it. The mental model is “Ship Code : Ship Revenue”. That is, you can learn to ship revenue in the same way you can learn to ship code.
Every sales process starts with identifying the prospect's pain.
Where there is pain, there is $$$.
As a solutions engineer, I liked asking: What is the highest priority use case you’re hoping [product/service] can solve for you today?
Then the follow-ups: How much time/money/resources does this cost you now? What’s at stake if it goes unsolved?
Once you understand the prospect’s pain, then you need to reach two distinct “yes” checkpoints (in this order): product-yes and commercial-yes.
Getting to product-yes involves understanding the minimum set of requirements your [product/service] must address in order for the prospect to feel confident in choosing your solution (and your company as their long-term solution partner).
The key word here is minimum requirements. It’s not a laundry list. You align with the prospect on what they would need to see in order to answer: “Does this [product/service] solve my pain?” Make sure you understand each criterion and what specific pain point it addresses.
This is the primary role of the sales/solutions engineer. Whether it’s running a demo or overseeing a paid pilot scoped to the minimum required criteria, the SE shows the prospect how the solution solves their pain and aligns on product-yes.
Once there, the next step is to get to commercial-yes. This is the process where cost, value, and ROI are evaluated. The goal is to align on a cost structure and a commitment date (given by the prospect) to sign an agreement.
After commercial-yes, you still have to navigate legal review and sometimes other processes like procurement and security/compliance.
Time kills deals. The best deal teams move with urgency and align with stakeholders early.
Sales is a steep learning curve. Active listening, solution selling, and objection handling are surprisingly harder than they look.
I hated watching the video recordings of myself after sales calls, but I did it anyway because that’s how I improved.
By the end of my first year, I had influenced $XXM in revenue.
Sales sharpened my teeth like no other discipline. I wouldn’t be a co-founder (running sales and operations) without it.
Have you pivoted to sales from another field? I’d love to hear your story.
Zia Fernandez from Landed designed this post 😊
