Why technical experts make terrible salespeople (until they learn this)
The value creation ladder that took me from PhD student to technical sales leader
On April 8, 2019, I hopped on a flight from Montreal to Boston to start as a sales engineer for Imaris software.
Fresh from my PhD defense 2 weeks before, I was excited to put my microscopy background to good use and help customers figure out their analysis projects.
Yet there was a glaring gap: this was my first time doing sales, ever.
I wanted to be prepared so I did what any good scientist does: I researched. I read books. I scrolled LinkedIn. I watched YouTube videos from “sales gurus”.
Each new approach was more confusing than the last.
Everything I found in conventional “sales wisdom” talked about “overcoming objections” and “closing techniques” to convince buyers.
It all felt… manipulative. Like I was supposed to demo and pitch to convince people to buy things they didn’t actually need.
As someone who spent years in research learning to follow data wherever it led, this didn’t make any sense.
Why would anyone buy things after being pitched? Why would they suddenly make a purchase after being “nurtured” through endless emails? Ugh.
It took me years to realize I was learning sales completely backwards.
And the truth is, most technical people absorb the same myths I did back then: that selling means pressure and “convincing” skeptical buyers.
But that’s not what companies actually pay technical sellers to do.
They pay us to create value.
And once I understood what this really meant, it changed everything.
Why real sales is about value
There’s a reason those manipulative “old school” sales techniques continue to persist.
They work. Sort of - let me explain:
High pressure closing and objection handling can motivate people to take action in transactional, one-time sales where there’s no ongoing relationship to maintain.
Did that make you think of a “used car salesman”? That’s what I thought.
If you’ve ever experienced that kind of selling, it sticks in your mind. Why?
Because of the pile of negative feelings you had in the moment. Maybe even immediate regret after signing that purchase agreement.
Yet the car salesman sold the car, got his commission that week, and you never saw him again.
By that measure, it worked (for him).
But these are not the criteria for building a sustainable, multi-million dollar technical business.
Here’s some simple math so you can see it for yourself.
1 happy customer → 2 new customers from referrals.
1 unhappy customer → 8 people warned away (lost opportunities)
(data shows unhappy customers are 3-5x more likely to share their experience than happy ones)
Let’s say we apply that manipulative “close at all costs” approach and we close 100 deals, but 60 are poor fits who regret it later: that’s 480 people poisoned against your brand.
Now do this every quarter. Goodbye multi-million dollar business.
So what’s the alternative?
Creating value.
Instead of pressuring someone to buy, you make their problem feel so clear and the solution feel so obvious that buying becomes inevitable.
And if they don’t have a problem? Or you don’t have the right solution?
You tell them. Then send them on their way to someone who does.
Refreshing, isn’t it?
To execute this well, you need sellers who deeply understand their customers’ world.
This is exactly why technical businesses NEED scientists and engineers like you on their sales teams.
They need your microscopy PhD. Your years spent debugging instruments. Your ability to speak their customers’ language and earn instant credibility.
They need you to use it to create value for their customers.
And they’ll gladly pay six figures for that.
What creating value actually looks like
My working definition of value creation is:
Making a problem feel so clear that solving it becomes inevitable.
To put this into practice, you start by understanding your customer better than they do themselves.
Let’s say you’re selling confocal microscopes to life science researchers. A customer comes to you interested in a confocal.
Most sellers would launch into a pitch: “Here’s our latest model 9000 with 2x the resolution, our new time resolved detector…..”
But not you. Instead, you start asking questions.
You first ask, what are you imaging?
You discover it’s live cells - they’re tracking calcium signaling in neurons.
You then ask, what’s working with your current setup?
You find out: the images are ok and the resolution works well. But they’re losing cells during long timelapses. The phototoxicity is too high.
A slightly evolved seller would at this point pitch their spinning disk as a way to avoid that laser scanning damage. But that would be a mistake. The value isn’t there yet.
No. You keep digging: How often does this happen?
“Over half of our imaging runs are unusable. We end up having to run the same experiments several times”
You continue: “and why is that a problem?”
“Well… each experiment uses 3 days of cell prep plus microscope time and the actual imaging day. We’re trying to finish this project for an R01 renewal in 6 months but we’re not sure we’ll be able to make it at this rate.
There it is. They’re not shopping for a confocal.
They’re stressed out racing against their grant deadline. And they desperately need someone to help them fix the 60% experimental failure rate standing in their way.
Your spinning disk confocal just happens to do this by imaging at much lower light levels. And it’s well within their lead time and budget.
Value: created. Requisition: already sent to procurement.
Notice what made this work? Your deep understanding of microscopy, neuroscience, academia, grants… gave you the unique power to see this from your customer’s point of view. And communicate in a way that resonates.
The value creation ladder that will power your technical sales career.
Now this is where it gets interesting.
Value creation goes beyond just selling someone a piece of technical equipment.
It’s the full framework behind your entire commercial career.
At each stage, you’re creating value for exponentially more people. And your compensation grows proportionally.
Level 1: Individual Value (Getting in)
Who you’re creating value for: 1 hiring manager.
The first person you create value for? The sales manager who will hire you.
When you interview for that first sales role, you won’t just talk about your STEM background or your [insert instrument name] skills. You dig into their problems.
“What’s the biggest challenge your current team faces with technical customers?”
“How do your best sellers approach academic vs. industry customers differently?”
Then you show them how your background solving specific technical problems will help you create value for their customers (in both segments!)
You’re not just asking for a job. You’re demonstrating you can create value from day 1.
That’s how you get in the door.
Level 2: Scalable Value (1:1 Sales)
Who you’re creating value for: 10s of customers directly
Having landed your sales role, you’re now creating value one customer at a time.
Real discovery conversations. Impactful demos. Clear problem-solving.
Collecting a steady stream of purchase orders and quarterly commissions.
As you do this with enough customers, you’ll start seeing patterns.
You’ll develop repeatable frameworks for the solutions you sell and figure out the best approach to create value for each customer type.
Your technical expertise becomes a reliable engine for translating customer problems into solved outcomes.
Level 3: Multiplied Value (Management)
Who you’re creating value for: 100s of customers (through your team)
Your value creation skills compound once you can teach other sellers how to create value effectively.
Now you’re coaching reps through their first discovery calls.
Showing them how to spot the real problems underneath surface-level requests. Teaching them to translate technical features into customer outcomes.
That’s exactly how I became a sales manager in 2022 and took over the team I originally started on in 2019.
Your value is no longer limited by your own 1:1 customer interactions. It multiplies with each seller you train, and every customer they help.
This is the transition to management, and your compensation reflects it.
Level 4: Systematic Value (Leadership)
Who you’re creating value for: 1,000s of customers (through scalable systems)
At the top of the value ladder, you’re building systems that create value at scale.
You’re not just teaching individual sellers to create value. You’re designing:
The entire sales process
The infrastructure that supports it
The customer success culture that powers it all.
As Regional Manager - Americas for Imaris software, I built our regional go-to-market strategy from the ground up, unifying our new business, renewals and customer success motions with exactly this kind of level 4 thinking. The frameworks became the foundation for our other global teams’ commercial approach.
You’ve turned value creation into a repeatable system that works whether you’re in the room or not.
This is where compensation grows to the next level, along with your ability to shape entire organizations.
All because you’ve mastered creating value and learned to multiply it systematically.
Your next steps
Wherever you are on the value creation ladder, the path forward is the same:
Learn to create more value, for more people.
That’s exactly what this newsletter will teach you.
Every Sunday, I’m breaking down the frameworks, questions and strategies that help technical sellers move up each rung of the value ladder:
How to create value in your cold outreach and interviews to land that first role
(I broke down exactly what that looks like in this previous piece)
How to translate complex technical tools into clear customer value
How to coach and develop technical sellers to multiply your impact
How to design sales systems and processes that scale
Real examples and frameworks. From someone who’s done it before.
If you’re a scientist or engineer looking to build commercial skills for a six-figure sales career, subscribe below.
See you next Sunday.
Alexei
P.S. I also work 1:1 with technical sales professionals and leaders to accelerate their climb. Learn more here.
What’s your take? Thoughts, questions, or ‘but what about...’ moments?
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