Why Skeptical Technical Decision Makers Intimidate You

Admit it, skeptical technical decision makers intimidate you. So you avoid cultivating them as clients. When you do that, you dismiss and marginalize yourself professionally. That’s not a healthy professional perspective.

Bottom line: Technical decision makers make you feel “less than” smart. I’m telling you right now: you are not stupid. So let’s explore your (and their) conceptual disconnect.

I understand. It is that fight or flight, lizard-brain mindset. Why put yourself in a situation with those skeptical technical decision makers where you feel completely out of your comfort level – at all times?

I am re-engineering my last question. Why do you feel uncomfortable when selling to technical decision makers? Once you gain a solid understanding of how they think, speak, listen and read, you become more comfortable and confident when working with them.

There are three key reasons why technical decision makers currently intimidate you.

1. There is a sales-engineering interface® disconnect. This disconnect is caused by the composition, semantics, cadence, clarity and tempo of your sales conversations and presentations. You are thinking and speaking like a sales person. They are thinking and speaking like scientists. You are out of sync with your technical audience.
2. Your sales materials are not as credible, relevant and valuable as they need to be. These materials are not comparable to the types of information, presentation format and method of analyses that skeptical technical decision makers rely on to solve problems and determine the business value of your offering.
3. Skeptical Technical Decision Makers always utilize the scientific method when solving problems. In order to validate information and logic, they ask each other killer questions. Anticipating those killer questions completely shuts you down before you even start. Anticipating those killer questions completely catalyzes the technical decision maker.

Technical decision makers do business with sales people who have taken the time to earn their trust and respect. These decision makers are not the targets of sales people in search of low-hanging fruit. These decision makers offer rewarding, lucrative and fulfilling professional relationships to those sales people who take the time to master how to sell to them.

If your professional development goal is to learn how to sell to skeptical technical decision makers, kudos to you. It’s about time you faced your professional stumbling block.

The interesting aspect of this process is that once you learn how to sell to this type of decision maker, your overall sales strategy, process, methods and tools are altered. Your habits are changed. So is your mindset.

Bottom line: Your company’s sales training programs fall short when it comes to selling to skeptical technical decision makers. You know more is involved in gaining professional momentum than simply reading my White Paper and downloading loads of internet freebies.

You are smarter than you give yourself credit for. You are very good at what you do. Chances are you realize you are overdue for a Professional Development Coaching Tune-Up. You didn’t know what – or whom – you were looking for until you read this blog post today.

Chew on this: Believe in yourself. Invest in yourself. Hybridize your skills. Learn how to sell to skeptical technical decision makers.

Babette N. Ten Haken is a strategist, coach, analyst, author and blogger. Her focus: the interrelationship between teams, leadership and culture in technology and manufacturing.  Her Workshops and Professional Coaching Tune-Ups focus you and your teams on context, clarity and confidence in the execution of strategy. Babette’s Playbook of collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business?  is available on Amazon.com.