As most of the early stage companies do not provide any technical training to their salespersons, and they merely repeat what was told to them (see parrot) or must invite an engineer for a customer presentation — the notion of merely using a salesperson to do initial sales presentations is today highly questionable, and even inefficient, given the strong advancements of Chat AI technologies that are perfectly capable of providing solid answers to a technical and engineering focused audience, such as DevOps and Engineering teams.
1) So I guess the question becomes, why are early-stage venture backed start-ups still hiring salespersons to provide basic presentations and PowerPoints online ? How much is this costing the company… needing at least two people for very basic Q&A sessions and this technical qualification step in the sales cycle ?
As the next step is often a PoC , why even bother with needs analysis online if you don’t even understand the technical basics ?
Or put another way, why are early-stage companies not hiring mostly technically oriented (STEM) salespersons to do the work ? In other fields a technical degree and domain expertise are required for customer engagements (see Sales Engineering). Why is this often not the case in Silicon Valley ?
2) Is it not time to acknowledge that most DevOps and Engineering teams, really have a difficult time engaging with sales managers that have no technical background or skill set ? Is this not a type-mismatch situation, and unproductive use of time ? Needless to say isn’t the salesperson feeling a little bit uncomfortable talking about technical details he /she does not understand ??
3) Hey salesperson— why not take a few technical courses and have these paid by your employer so at the very least you have a basic understanding of software programming and network architecture ?
4) As the solutions become more complex, Chat AI agents are and will become perfectly capable of giving a PowerPoint presentation, and will certainly outperform you.
Look at the bright side — the traditional salesperson with the technical training is making a comeback – expense accounts for travel will grow again as the personal relationship and engagement of a human being cannot be replaced to build trust and rapport and a long-term customer relationship.
Chat AI agents and initial online presentations are now something for the Marketing department !