By looking at my background (Bachelor in Chemical Engineering, Years in Energy industry, Selling Chemicals…) You might wonder… What this person can bring to a Tech Company? And I’m here to tell you: There are much more similarities than you might think.
Chemicals are not the all the same
When you think about Chemical products, you might consider those lab reagents, Acids, base, some weird type of salt… And you are not wrong. But you are looking at the wrong side. You are looking at the Commodity type of chemicals. Chemicals that are all the same. The concentration might vary, but at the core, a sodium hydroxide is a sodium hydroxide. But that is not the kind of Chemicals I’ve spent a long time working with.
Specialty Chemicals
Specialty Chemicals are compounds or a mix of compounds tailor made to attend the customer needs in the customer environment.
To understand what is the best for them, we need to best understand what the customer needs to be solved, how it must be solved, what are the surrounding concerns. Build a trust relationship with the customer where not only they trust us to ease them into a solution, but they trust we will give them the necessary support.
I need to be in touch with the The Lab (Developers Team), to understand exactly what we can offer with the technology we have so far. And most important, what are the advances we can hope to see in the future. I need to know the time line of new features they are working with, so I can prepare the customer, or the prospects on what can be our next steps!
I’m in touch with the Marketing team, to give them my view of the customer side and what they want to see from us. Giving feedback in what were their responses to other campaigns and what are the changes we can do going further.
Getting the subscription
Getting a sale is great, getting a contract is better, getting a customer is perfect!
We also need to sign contracts with our customer where they “subscribe” to our chemicals. But the work doesn’t end there. I also need to onboard the customer in the new Chemical they are using. Usually going to their facilities or simply following up from afar to troubleshoot any problem they might have and how to best navigate this new addition to their work environment.
Customer Success
After the onboarding is done… We need to assure the customer is happy with our service. Regular meetings to check on the health of our Supplier/Customer relationship, an open communication channel so they can ask for help, someone who can be the focal point and bridge between their needs and our solutions! Those are all me!
Skill set
All of those are just within my work directly with customer. I also have to hunt new prospects, update my CRM with all my interactions new opportunities, negotiate ALL THE TIME, keep a clear and open communication with all the teams I have interface, Manage multidisciplinary projects within the Company… All in a days worth of work in strategic sales
Now tell me… Did you knew so much of Saas looked like working with Chemicals?
Chemically remote, 1
Su
- This post was supposed to be up on Monday, but I had a last minute doctor’s appointment. But now everything is ok, and we’re back to the normal schedule! ↩︎
Remotely Su 