Isaac Oakeson of the Civil Engineering Academy interviews Mark Wainwright about learning sales for the professional engineering industry and how experts can improve their sales skills to grow their firms and become sales leaders.
Welcome to The Civil Engineering Academy Podcast – your ultimate guide to everything related to civil engineering! Our goal is to support you at every stage of your journey to becoming a successful professional civil engineer, and to help you enhance your career and personal life.
While becoming a true expert in our particular field and subject of interest can lead us throughout our career, being a successful engineer requires much more than being extremely good at our craft. There are people skills we inevitably need to learn, soft skills related to project management we need to understand, and as today’s guest will prove, sales skills.
Today on the show, Isaac interviews Mark Wainwright, a marketing and sales professional with 25 years of experience working for and with professional services firms—civil engineering firms fall into this category. Building upon his past experience in the field, he has now been running his own sales consulting business for the last few years and has helped a broad spectrum of professional services firms with their marketing and business development functions, from civil engineering to architecture to financial management.
By differentiating marketing activities from sales activities and explaining how the lack of a sales culture within the company can hurt the organization’s future work, Mark sheds light on the importance of learning and practicing sales skills at every level of the company. He goes on to mention how engineers can use the skills they already have to become better part-time salespeople, as well as the importance of pricing based on both the effort required from the firm and the value created for the buyer in our long-term, low-volume, high-dollar industry.
Resources (some links are affiliate links)
Mark Wainwright (Website) – https://www.wainwrightinsight.com
Managing The Professional Service Firm, by David Maister – Amazon Link
The Trusted Advisor, by David Maister, Robert Galford, and Charles Green – Click here
To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, by Daniel Pink – Click here
The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, by Blair Enns – Click here
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen – Click here
The Ultimate Civil PE Review Course – https://civilpereviewcourse.com
The Ultimate Civil FE Review Course – https://civilfereviewcourse.com
Check out our Youtube Channel for more content, live sessions, and much more – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPeFLBZ2gk0uO5M9uE2zj0Q
If you need exams, solved problems, or courses, make sure to check out our home base. We can definitely help you on your journey to become a professional engineer. – https://civilengineeringacademy.com
Reach out to Isaac – [email protected]
—
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/civilengineeringacademy/support
As Isaac and Mark discuss, most engineers believe that their career success depends solely on their skills as a technical professional. As a result, many lack the basic skills and experience to lead sales efforts. Learning sales for the professional engineering industry is a critical component of the many skills an engineer will need to be a successful future leader and owner of an engineering firm. Certainly, sales is challenging for most technical professionals, but it can be mastered with the right skills and practice.
Listen to this episode with the player above, or follow this link to the 31-minute episode titled Learning Sales for the Professional Engineer with Mark Wainwright. Mark and Isaac explore the importance of learning and practicing sales skills at every level of the company. They also discuss how engineers can use the skills they already have to become better part-time salespeople.
This podcast discusses the idea of curiosity. The blog post titled The Loss of Curiosity and Intimacy explores how experts lose their sense of curiosity and how they can rediscover it.
About Civil Engineering Academy
The team at Civil Engineering Academy provides the best resources and material to aspiring engineers to ace their exams.
Additionally, they provide career coaching to help with resumes and cover letters, or with an effective LinkedIn profile.
“At Civil Engineering Academy it is our mission to help aspiring Civil Engineers pass their exams and develop the skills to be successful in their careers and in life. We are obsessed with helping you become a professional engineer and find a fulfilling career!”
The Civil Engineering Academy Podcast is the gateway to all things civil engineering! They help aspiring engineers at every step of the journey to becoming a professional civil engineer. Most importantly, CEA helps them boost their careers and lives. The host of the podcast is Isaac Oakeson, PE. Isaac started CEA with the entire goal of helping engineers reach their goals.
If you enjoyed this podcast…
Hosted by John Tyreman and Mark Wainwright, the Breaking BizDev podcast explores business development in professional services firms. Each episode pulls apart and highlights critical marketing and sales activities and strategies that “BD” often overlooks. Breaking BizDev works over the commonly seen yet ill-advised practices in all types of expert firms. And then provides clarity on how firms can think and act differently in their marketing and sales efforts.
If you host a podcast and wish to have Mark join you as a guest, then please send an email. Mark focuses on sales in professional services firms and help busy practitioners sell with confidence. And if you’re so inclined, your thoughts and feedback on these podcasts is always welcome.
Wainwright Insight provides fractional sales management and sales consulting to organizations who want to take control of their pipeline and build future sales leaders—but could use a little, part-time expertise. I work with professional services firms, and the experts in those firms, who need to get better at chasing and winning big deals when the stakes are high.