BEING THE "GO-TO" PERSON

Over the past weeks, I've been doing a little bit of research in the world of technical sales and solutions engineering. Out of all the tactics and strategies I came across, being the person customers reach out to for any problem seems to be the most effective way to keep customers coming for more and would even make them go as far as referring you or the company you represent without you even asking. If you think about it, it only makes sense that customers would like to trust their business with someone who always has the answer to most, if not all their questions.

I'll make a small-scale example of myself to drive home my point. during my undergraduate days, I was known around my department as the "gadget guy" so to speak, always playing video games during his free time or watching youtube videos about the latest smartphone releases and how they stacked up against each other. This built up a reputation for me (without me even having to plan it), so much so that people came to me to influence their choices on what smartphone to buy, what computer would be the best for their specific use case ( let's not forget I'm a Mechanical engineering major so I was also sought after for many final year projects). Most of these people went ahead to purchase the devices or software I recommended for them and even implement my contributions in their projects. Now, I think it's safe to say that if I was selling those products, they'd wholeheartedly purchase the products from me because of the confidence they have in my knowledge. In a larger setting, where you'd be representing a company as a sales engineer, solutions engineer, applications engineer, field engineer, or any position where you're required to get clients to buy what you're selling, you'd benefit greatly from being the "GO-TO" person.

How do you achieve this? It's quite simple, talk about your customers and potential customers' interests. Yes, I know you want to sell your product or service too, but it can get quite boring if they keep seeing you talk about your products all the time. If your target audience is in the automotive industry, take your time to discuss briefly new technologies in the industry ( This is a given, but for clarity sake let's assume your major outlet is on Linkedin)