Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1515304
14 SMT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2024 the customers see you walking the walk, they know, "at guy is going to teach me some- thing today." Marcy LaRont: When do you bring that techni- cal person into the process? Beaulieu: It depends on the customer, but it's more important today than ever and will con- tinue to be so. I've been doing some recruiting with large offshore companies, and they pay a lot of money for a qualified applications engi- neer (AE) because that person is the face of the company. ey might be paying that person $200,000 to $300,000 a year, and they're likely handling a $250 million Apple or Intel account alone. ere may be a salesperson involved as well, but this person becomes the company's expert consultant to the customer. You're also seeing this in more domestic shops. When we started in this business, the experts were the OEMs; they had their own shops and were building these things them- selves. ey would contact the merchant shops and show them how to build it—a real job shop situation. at's mostly gone now. e exper- tise lies in the board shop. at means the AE is a technical salesperson who becomes increas- ingly important. ey are out there talking about the industry. ey're not even talk- ing about their current capabilities, but about what they can do for the customer right now. Johnson: So, to make a sale, you need to build a relationship. To do that, you must increase the expert knowledge at the board shop? Beaulieu: Yes, absolutely. Feinberg: You have to be sure the potential is there to get paid well so salespeople don't want to lose their accounts. In my career, 25-30 years ago, our top salespeople made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on commission, not salaries. ey did whatever it took to keep those key decision-makers happy. LaRont: Compensation for sales has been a battle in every company I've worked with. How has that changed over time? Beaulieu: I really don't know why anybody would be a PC board house sales rep right now. I'm trying to find them, and they all have hor- ror stories. e deals are terrible. ey spend at least 10 months of their own time and money before they see a dollar, especially if it's the higher technology or military stuff. e rep is doing all the marketing, getting the meetings, and working through all their qualifi- cations and surveys. Payment is slow, and oen the board shops get letters to extend the terms to 90 days. e rep gets paid another 30 to 60 days aer that, so it's now six months later, and the commission rates are just 5–7%. I'm losing the ability to convince people it's a good deal. e direct salespeople are doing somewhat better. I'm seeing deals that are $100,000 and 2%. Now, if you're working for a $50–$60 mil- lion shop, that's good compensation for a direct salesperson. But we need reps, and I don't know how we will solve that problem. Johnson: So, if you need reps, and applications engineers are the most effective, does the role of a rep change into more of a technical expert? Dan Feinberg