Why The Best Software Engineers Learn To Sell
And how it helps them to level up their careers.
Welcome!
Welcome to Developing Skills - Skills for Developers looking to develop their careers.
Tip of The Week: Learn to Sell to Level Up as a Software Engineer
Learning to sell if one of the fastest ways to progress your career as a software developer.
Why?
Because selling is solving problems in a way that it valuable for to the person being ‘sold’ to. And solving problems that matter to your boss, their boss and the business is how you create impact and valuable outcomes for the business.
Selling - and I mean good selling here, not the hard sell you see on TV shows and in the movies - consists of these three steps:
Listening to the other person’s problem.
Understanding what the problem is and the impact it is having on them.
Presenting them with a solution and explaining how and why it is the right solution - using what you learned in 2.
That should be quite familiar to most software engineers:
Our customer (be that an actual customer or a customer representative like a product owner) explains what their problem or desired goal is.
We ask questions to understand and clarify the requirements.
We explain how we will deliver a solution (usually through software) that will achieve the desired goal/solve the problem. In return for the resources (time and money) to do so.
In short, selling isn’t persuading someone to do/buy something they don’t want, it’s solving their problem for them.
Four Ways I May Be Able To Help You Level Up As A Software Engineer:
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Good post, John!
I think we sell all the time.
We sell our design as a solution to a problem. We sell ourselves as the best candidate for a job. We sell our completed project as an artifact demonstrating performing at the next level for promotion.
Our careers are like running a company. You need your sales and marketing, your R&D, your management, creating your internal tooling...
Sales is a universal skill, that comes handy in so many different situations! Including knowing how to show value of ourselves. Love the steps noted down -> they can be used universally.