My story of Technical to Sales

In the past, many people asked me how I made the transition from a technical to a sales job. Was it an easy transition for someone with zero external customer interaction, for someone who sits in data centers implementing technologies and troubleshoot?

My CHANGE, my transition from Technical to Sales, is a story I recalled when catching up with a dear friend of mine and mentor, Omar Raslan, at Leap 2022 in Riyadh last week, who was the man behind my CHANGE, my transition from Technical to full-time field Sales.

He and I met in 2001 when he was the Lotus Software Sales Leader at SBM/IBM, at the time I was a Network Administrator of Bayer Saudi Arabia and later at Nadec. He is well known among Saudi Arabian customers as well as SBM, IBM, Microsoft, and VMware.

In 2007, Omar suggested my name as his replacement at SBM/IBM when he was considering a career change. I decided it would be a great opportunity for me to prove that I could sell technology I had technical certification in. It was not easy for me to leave all the technical expertise and certifications I had acquired over the years, but I took up the new challenge without hesitation. It is completely different from what I was doing just the other day when given the task of achieving Sales numbers, meeting clients, validating, qualifying, proposing and selling by positioning business value, not the technology itself. Since I was aware of that challenge, I took on the role as IBM Software Sales Leader within SBM (At the time, IBM didn't have a local presence in Saudi Arabia, and SBM was the General Marketing & Sales Representative for IBM). I was soon the face of Lotus software in Saudi Arabia among customers, IBMers, and partners, and I cannot forget the level of support I received from each of them.

Our bond isn’t simply to be defined one as a regular vendor-customer relationship, but rather we were two passionate Lotus Software yellow blooded friends and he was my point of contact on whatever happens on Lotus Software. He used to closely follow my growth in terms of all my Lotus certifications until Lotus Certified Instructor, the highest in that path.

For such a difficult transition, you also need some more turning points. If Ashraf El Guindi, VP of IBM Software at SBM hadn't been there, the process would never have gotten underway. He took a huge risk by hiring a person with no experience in sales at a time when companies hire salespeople with at least 10 to 15 years of experience. He asked me at the time of joining, "How will you sell?" I replied, "I know the technology I am going to sell and I understand it well, you just have to teach me how to sell it". He approved my employment and supported me with an extensive training program. For the first time, I started reading SPIN Selling, attended rigorous training programs such as IBM Sales School, several Topgun Training by traveling across the globe. I worked hard, took several sales certifications, and in a few months, I was awarded as "Lotus Software Topgun" in Dallas, which underlined that my hiring was right. During that 6 years journey, I have also achieved Sales targets and was consecutively part of the yearly hundred percent club (HPC). I cannot forget the unconditional support that my first managers Mejdi El-Khater and Michal Fawal extended for me to become a qualified salesperson.

My decision of switching the career from Technical to Sales helped me not only understand the other side of the business but also understand more about how customers run their business, how they manage numbers, how they lead people, that something I apply today daily at Resemble Systems. Many Technically qualified professionals think twice about whether to leave their technical career and wonder how to transition. My advice is, do not hesitate if you have that aspiration with customer-friendly characteristics and if any mentors identified your sales talent in early years. In my case, way back in 1999 my big boss Mr. Keith Fernandez, Founder & MD of DOTW once said, "Nazeer you could be in Sales", turned out to be a golden tongue.

There is nothing more enjoyable than meeting customers and understanding their business challenges, pain points, and helping them grow their business with innovative technology solutions. Yes, the result matters, so looking at the mirror every day in the morning for the “$” sign is an important aspect of a sales job.