scope:

As technical and commercial advisors of the customers engineers of the sales sector must meet high demands. These refer in particular to the understanding of the customers' problems, the development of customer-specific solutions as well as support in implementing such solutions in their companies. Technical competence and knowledge of market and business economics are not sufficient here.

An Engineer working in the sales sector must have communication skills enabling him to act as an agent between all areas, for business economists and engineers use different terminologies and analyze problems from different angles.

Sales is one of the most crucial sectors of the enterprise, for companies do not actually live on development or production but on the sales of their products and services. Sales engineers are the link between two industrial enterprises which offer or acquire goods or services for the purpose of manufacture, which explains the term of "business-tobusiness". They advise and support the existing customers and attract new ones. They advise the customers on specific products and on the commercial effects the use of the products and services may have. They prepare quotations, conduct price negotiations and observe how the customers' expectations are put into practice. They open up new markets while observing market developments and identify sales potentials. Moreover, sales engineers sell physical products, technical systems, complete plants, IT solutions or services. Profiting from his close contacts with the customer and his communicative abilities, the sales specialist analyzes what solutions may have a positive influence on the value-added process of the customer. As he knows these processes and also the expectations of the customers, he induces sectors of his own company such as research and development, production, marketing and technical service to develop new solutions with a view to permanently improving the customer relationship.

It is a problem with many technical universities in Germany that in engineering sciences the sales and marketing topics are dealt with only marginally. Though sales-specific courses of study are increasingly also offered for engineers, most engineers still have to acquire the necessary sales and marketing knowledge on their own and, in most cases, while working full time. For the career entry working as an account representative may be a choice - the necessary knowledge is in most cases acquired by the "learning by doing" principle. As an alternative, companies with a market orientation offer trainee programs for their junior employees to get off to a systematic career start. Many companies and universities are today aware of the exceptional interest of the sales engineer, and they take account of this by suitable basic and advanced training offers. So sales has become a discipline of engineering which is widely recognized.

The present guideline wishes to support this positive development and to provide all those interested in systematic formation in the sales sector with a guide on the basis of which engi-neers can be optimally employed for sales tasks.