An apprentice Sales Engineer?

by Russell Jay Williamson (February 7th 2021)

Following the news of Amazon taking on 1000 apprentices in the UK*, over a coffee via videocall it raised a question with one of my colleagues:

Would be possible to bring in a fresh-faced teenager into a Sales Engineering / Technical Sales role? This would be straight out of school and into the world of visiting customers in person (I’m ignoring the Covid world for the sake of this argument).

I’ve read several reddit posts where answers to the question “How to get into Sales Engineering” focuses on getting experience as an engineer first. It’s a good argument, but…my colleague and I decided to have the thought experiment:

”If I had to be put in charge of a 16 year old apprentice to become a sales engineer, what would I do?”

Here are some of my own thoughts. I would highly expect that several of the readers would disagree.

The background of the apprentice.

As a minimum the apprentice would need to have fairly good grades from school in the sciences, technology, and maths subjects. They wouldn’t have to be geniuses, nor top of their class. But in order to be successful, they would need to have grade “B” in several of these subjects. I would need to see some evidence that they have a genuine interest in how the world of technology works, and they were able to convert that into some form of success.

It would benefit the apprentice if they were easy to talk to. By this I mean, not be shy to strike up a conversation and talk about whatever subject. If the 16-year-old was shy, it would be very difficult to take them on to get much success in the short term. They will have to be prepared to give presentations in front of people they don’t know, and be prepared to cope being asked questions they don’t know the answers to.

Be hungry for success. This would be the most important aspect I would look for. If a potential candidate was hyperactive, desperate to be rich, travel the world, be ambitious, potentially impatient, and do anything to get what they want, this type of youngster I would snap them up to work with them. It would be a lot easier to calm down and moderate someone’s energy levels to get the best out of them to achieve success, rather than to raise enthusiasm from someone less energetic.

Requirements not necessary would be, experience in the world of work…Yes, I actually said that, I know a lot of people would disagree, but if you trained them right at the start, I think any experience you would expect a 16-year-old to have could quickly become obsolete.

Also, a requirement I wouldn’t look for at the start would be their initial appearance the first day I meet them. If they looked scruffy, less polished, or immature, this is literally cosmetic issues. Changing the appearance of someone to change your initial perception would be one of the easier things to alter.

Before taking on the apprentice

First of all I would need to motivate myself and conclude that I’m going to give up some of my own work time to focus on training this 16 year old. I can’t create my own frustration because of having to help them when I would wish I’m doing something else. Anyone I’m responsible for explaining my sales figures to would also need to be aware that over the first few months my performance may not progress as fast as normal.

Also, for the customers that I know best and have visited a few times, I would brief them on the news that I was about to take on a 16-year-old apprentice. This is the type of customer that I could call up and have a meeting with the following day at short notice if I had a new solution to show them. I would try to get them to buy into the idea of wanting to help the apprentice too. Having customer relationships where there are almost friendships formed can be useful not just to grow sales.

Finally, prepare myself to give a lot of “bad news sandwiches”. Meaning to be able to give the apprentice constructive criticism, but preceded by and ended with a complement.

Day 1

I would plant the seed to the 16-year-old about how they could become very successful in life and their career. I would know deep down, that it’s unlikely that the apprentice is going to be my young padawan for the next 50 years, so I would rather do the right thing and prepare them for the moment when I wouldn’t be their “go to” person. I would also explain the following plan, and push them to believe how much they can achieve in the next year.

Apart from that, on day one I would introduce them to one niche area of our product line up, then get them to send a technical email about it to someone external to my company (obviously checked over first by me). After this I would get them also to call a customer or external sales rep about this very product. I would want to get them involved in dialogue and conversation with people external to the company as soon as possible. The apprentice would need to learn as soon as possible that this job is about communicating externally.

Within the first 2 weeks

After giving them a good technical background and making sure what a product or solution can do for a customer, I would take them on a tour of the manufacturing and design facilities. Even if this is abroad the other side of the world, I would get them to interact with the designers so they get an idea from the start about what it takes to make the product that we are indeed selling.

Week 3

I would organise on the Friday to have a meeting with one of the customers I know well as mentioned earlier. I would tell this customer that they will be getting a presentation (and hence to be a bit soft on the 16-year-old). I would tell the 16-year-old that they will be presenting one of our latest solutions, the advantages to the customer, and be able to also spend two minutes explaining how it is made. I would let them practice to me, but the main point I would aim for is that they need to make it engaging, energetic, and enthusiastic. I would point them towards learning resources such as “how to start a presentation”, and how to make PowerPoint look professional.

After giving the presentation, I would get the customer to ask them questions. The following week, I would then get the apprentice to work with me to create accurate follow up information.

This type of being thrown in the deep end under supervision, being asked questions they don’t know the answers to, and then finding out this knowledge and replying would be the key way we would work moving forward.

Within 2 months

I would hope to have created a confident 16 year old, comfortable to talk to strangers about information they would have only recently have learned.

By this time I would also have taught him business ideas such as sales funnels, how to gather cold leads, having a good LinkedIn social media profile, working with other sales staff, and get them to start to search for these new lines of work.

Within 6 months.

Get this apprentice to work an exhibition stand. Get them on the front line. Get them to work on refining how they talk to customers, and how to learn from questions they may be asked.

Also, we would form a plan together for how each skill of theirs needs to be refined and enhanced. This could include training courses. Every week we would also sit down and get them to assess their own performance. I would promote the idea of “self-reflection”.

Within 12 months

Aim for autonomy. By this time, the apprentice will be about to get their driving test. I would be gradually phasing out how much I support them. Still be on the end of a phoneline to support them, but expecting them to plan their own work week, to go on their own customer visits.

Summary

Some readers may say that this is super optimistic, and that it’s unlikely that customers could engage with a young 16-year-old, maybe still with pimples. But I would hope after a year of being thrown in the deep end, that this initial perception of a youngster being less competent that they would be able to quickly dismiss.

After doing this thought experiment, I don’t believe it is impossible to have an apprentice Sales Engineer like many people would think. I think a good work ethic to continue to learn can quickly can overtake any supposedly required experience that many would class as a prerequisite.

A final point to say is that after the state of the world over the past year, all of us, especially young people will have less experience in the workplace. We shouldn’t use the lack of how many years’ experience someone has as an instant rejection of becoming an employee for your company. In the end, the right character, and work ethic will gain skills that overtake a more “experienced” yet less talented and enthusiastic employee.

*https://news.sky.com/story/amazon-creates-1-000-apprenticeships-across-the-uk-12208676

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