Your technical people know the product but they suck at selling.
Your salespeople know how to sell but they suck at product knowledge.
So what do you do?
Most companies train more.
But it doesn’t fix it, because the two mistakes do not cost the same.
Why technical mistakes cost more#
If a salesperson gives 3% too much discount or forgets to charge for the custom color… and you lose a tiny slice of one job.
You can plan for that.
If a salesperson sells the wrong size… or misses a rule or promises something you cannot manufacture.
Now you go back to site, change the order, rebuild parts, pay freight twice…
Not to mention the customer is pissed.
On a $12,000 job you are not down $400, you are down the whole thing, plus two weeks of your best technical guy fixing it.
One mistake costs a slice… while the other costs the job and reputation.
Give both sides the same system#
So don’t try to make reps technical, or technical people into reps.
That takes years.
Give them the same system instead.
The rep gets the rules, prices and options built into the visual quoting system, so they can’t sell something wrong… the system just will not let them.
The technical person gets the sales steps and the visuals in that same quoting system, so he moves the customer forward without becoming a salesperson.
Both get better at the thing they are bad at.