Janne Korhonen: Why Every Specialist Must Learn to Sell

Janne V. Korhonen has been working in technical sales roles within multiple organisations in IT industry for over last 10 years. He has founded Sales Engineering Finland, world’s first and largest meetup group focusing on technical sales and marketing. In his book “Sales Fundamentals for Technical Specialists” Janne has been able to summarize sales fundamentals in an easily consumable way for technical specialists.

 Why every specialist must learn to sell

There is a saying “Nobody is as bad in selling as a Finnish engineer.” To make a contribution to the Finnish technology companies, Janne founded Sales Engineering Finland meetup and he gradually started to write his book.

Today there is a paradigm shift. Customers find a lot of information on Internet without contacting any salesperson. When they talk with companies, they expect a subject matter expert to guide them, consult them and give them technical advice.

How to enable a specialist as a “star” salesperson

Top management has their power from the owners of a company. Salespeople get power from their relationship with the customers. Specialists get power from being the ones who can do the real work.

For a specialist to learn to sell, they must also get some power from the customers. Top management must enable this shift. Only after that, with some coaching and practice specialists can become good at selling.

Related: Effective Sales Conversations and Presentations

Favorite quotation

“Analyze the results, not the actions you have not yet taken.” — Jani Aaltonen

Recommended book

The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict by The Arbinger Institute

Routine to Shine

* Take a cold shower in the morning.

* Read children books aloud. Express the emotions with your voice and body language.

Links

Janne’s book “Sales Fundamentals for Technical Specialists”

Janne at Twitter

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