Why I switched from Engineering to Sales

Are you introverted and love nothing more than to write code in front of your machine for hours (hopefully uninterrupted) on end? Do you identify strongly with Bob from ‘We Are Legion’? Does the thought of going into sales kind of make you vomit a little? Well it did for me too. Here’s why I switched.

My entire career up to last April was one centered around engineering. I probably became an engineer because when I was a kid, I did well in school which was the only thing that I really excelled at. I wasn’t great at sports early on and I was kind of an ugly duckling. So the social outcome with the least resistance was essentially to become an introverted nerd. I didn’t have the wisdom to know that discomfort is where growth lies yet. Knowledge didn’t judge, bully, or shame. It just worked! Math, science, and engineering were my special powers. I could command these subjects to predict the future, play tricks on those less mathematically inclined, and wield at least some power and influence that wasn’t otherwise available.

It came with all the tropes of such a childhood, dungeons and dragons, video games, computer programming, boy scouts, and acing every test I could get my hands on except English and literature which confused the heck out of me because there was no formula or system to generate an A. It was so subjective, the yield on effort was low or even random. So an appreciation for that field of study only came decades later when there were no grades involved.

Ok the point. This all lead me down the computer science route which served me well. I worked for big software firms and made great money for two decades. Why switch to sales now?

Well it happened when I made a year’s salary in a single real estate development deal. That flipped a bit in my head.

Knowing this and deciding to do it full time took several years for me still. I wasn’t confident that I just hadn’t gotten lucky. Luck was certainly a part of it too. Consecutive deals were not as lucrative but still great. What forced the situation was my team being canned seemingly out of the blue. Looking back, there were signs, but denial is powerful. So I found myself without a job and a two month cash runway on a random Wednesday.

I am so grateful that it happened. Getting fired was the best thing that happened to me. I had paid lip service to the fact that I could go full time any time I wanted to, but the comfortable familiar gig was safe and warm. It also lacked the ability to grow because of that. I have a good mind, I’m a problem solver, I just needed to go do it. The fear got me too and kept me from leaving earlier. Everything on the other side of building a business was also not becoming available to me because I was sticking around in a comfortable job.

Now that I’m out, there are all sorts of fun things to deal with like health insurance, lead generation, and non consistent cash flow. However, these are all solvable problems when you take sales seriously. The only limit to your income in sales is based on what you can produce in however much time you apply to it. A salary stops at a certain limit no matter how much you contribute. Sales doesn’t. If you keep selling, you keep earning. You have to own your work, and the motivation to get better at it is palpable. You can’t coast, and getting better has real results. It’s like switching off safe mode.

Now being an (former) engineer, I want to go all numbers on everything. The nice thing is that sales adapts to that very well. You can just turn it all into math and dial in your income based on your leads and conversion rate. As you get better, your conversion rate gets higher, and you learn how to generate more leads. With all of the internet marketing tools available today, this can end up being a deep rabbit hole that may turn you into an internet marketer by accident.

I also want to just see if I can do it. I am trying to find areas where I am uncomfortable and stew in them to see if I can get past it to discover what is on the other side. This is way out of my comfort zone, but it’s getting better the more I do it.

The very best thing about sales though is that it forces me to keep up with my network. Now I regularly contact my friends and colleagues with a system. I know it shouldn’t be that way, but the fact that it’s part of my living and I have to put intention behind it means I get to strengthen those relationships and connect people who can help each other that wouldn’t otherwise know. As an engineer I tended to stay in the lab and know my immediate team really well. Now I stay in touch with a much larger network and do my best to help them, know them, and be a friend in their lives.