Which manufacturers sales personel have the most technical knowlege on their products

[brunstar]

Which manufacturers sales personel have the most technical knowlege on their products that they are selling without using the technical department?

[Greengrocer]

Very few if any. These days sales people are emplyed to sell, buy lunches and act as facilitators.
In a company I used to work we were called "Sales Engineers". Question was were you more sales or more engineering orientated. Different customers would require different things from their sales eng / reps. Alot depended on the individuals background.
Today it seems that most reps are just that - reps. Most do not have an engineering background and some don't know much about anything A/C apart from being able to make 10 sales vists per day to satisfy their companies call rate quota. Jeees.

[Brian_UK]

Are you doing all of these polls so that you can find the easiest sales job to apply for ?

[Greengrocer]

Are you doing all of these polls so that you can find the easiest sales job to apply for ?

Nope. My days of working for larger companies / corporations and all the politics, inter dept rivaly, sucking up to the bosses etc have long gone. I work for myself now. Now I have all the manufacturers sales reps / eng's visiting me! The boot's on the other foot & it's interesting to see the different types of guys (& girls) that come to see us and what tactics they use to try and win our business.

[brunstar]

No Brian, i am a refrigeration mechanic and electrician and want to prove a point, as a lot of sales personel miss sell product and i am left to pick up the slops, i am trying to tell sales that if the job is looked at by a technical person it will be sized and designed correctly and there will be no need to fix up problems on jobs after installation if someone with knowledge was to help the dealer and not just sell a box!

[Brian_UK]

I take your point Brunstar but also it is the responsibility of the designer of the system to ensure that it is fit for purpose.

If you are expecting the sales staff in an AC wholesaler to design your system for you then I would ask, how much are you paying them for this service ?

Before you ask for this service do you check to see if they have any professional indemnity to cover their design service.

I don't know your experience and I am not calling into question your capabilities but as a general thought or as a fresh Poll question "Do you have enough knowledge to specify an air conditioning installation?" or "Would you know if the installed equipment is suitable for the demanded load?"

[brunstar]

Hello Brian,
Yes with my qualifications i would be able to size and apply correctly as this is what i spent my learning life doing.
I have not just been trained to do so..
and would have not written a poll like this.
Yes, i do see what you are getting at too Brian, but the professional specifying the job should know how to spec properly also as that is their job, otherwise my mother would be able to be a HVAC specifier and contract it out and actually do nothing.
I see all the points and i love this discussion. I like seeing peoples views and opinions.

[Brian_UK]

<snip>
Yes, i do see what you are getting at too Brian, but the professional specifying the job should know how to spec properly also as that is their job, otherwise my mother would be able to be a HVAC specifier and contract it out and actually do nothing.
I see all the points and i love this discussion. I like seeing peoples views and opinions.
Quite true and I suppose what I was trying to say without saying it ;)

I think that perhaps your question should expand into - do you trust the specifier to have got his calculations correct or has he (she) (they) passed the buck to an incompetent supplier?

[brunstar]

that is true also, a lot of the time a company can have all the lisences for the job but the qualifications and level of workmanship will vary drastically as a lot of the time the companies that have a high turn over of sales may be attractive to the sales personel but as the work is sub contracted out lot of the time the installation quality drops dramatically as they can sell faster than they can install resulting in slap happy sub contractors being used and their work not monitored..
i agree with you Brian, too many variables.

[chillerman2006]

No Brian, i am a refrigeration mechanic and electrician and want to prove a point, as a lot of sales personel miss sell product and i am left to pick up the slops, i am trying to tell sales that if the job is looked at by a technical person it will be sized and designed correctly and there will be no need to fix up problems on jobs after installation if someone with knowledge was to help the dealer and not just sell a box!

Our salemen are first class, full of technical knowledge and have masses of support.

The main problem I see for salesmen is trying to compete with others that are offering the baseline minimum to do the job required, rather than offering equipment that can comfortably do the job and more, levels of redundancy are often not common place unless they are required for business critical applications.

This then in turn leads to upset customers when the inevitable breakdowns accur.

If a good level of redundancy is supplied with all installations, then breakdowns would be just a formality and not so urgent, leaving us all to get a good nights sleep and the ability to switch units off when servicing is required:D

[beagle]

Distributors and to some extent manufacturers are falling behind on the technical know-how of their staff in general, be it internal sales, trade counter or sales engineers, purely because they won't pay the money that such knowledge deserves. I've been lucky enough to work in wholesale and contracting and there really wasn't a huge gap in the level of knowledge between the two that there is now. The (far too many) years ago that I started in the industry it was hugely advantageous to have a baseline understanding, these days if you look pretty, can pick up a telephone and grunt you've got the job. The old saying is true though, pay peanuts, get monkeys, if you knew what the going rate is for an internal sales adviser in air con wholesale right now it's probably come as a huge surprise, and less of a surprise to see anyone with half a brain moving into contracting. There's exceptions to the rule of course but finding them is proving harder all the time.

[Sridhar1312]

As long as quantity are the target technical takes back seat.There are instances of people selling Vapour absorption machine(Diesel Fired) was installed awhen diesel was selling at Indian Rs.11 a litre today diesel at Rs.33 a litre makes the VAM Chiller unviable and energy guzzler.