Business Tips

3 things salespeople need to know about coding

August 22, 2022

Salespeople need to know the ins and outs of their products or services to appropriately sell to their demographic. Unfortunately, salespeople in tech are presented with unique challenges, such as explaining complex topics without using jargon or not knowing enough about code.

The truth is, that salespeople need to know a lot about coding to explain how the product or service works to people who aren’t technology savvy. That’s because people in the tech industry that regularly use computers don’t need salespeople; they can compare products themselves.

But even when they do need salespeople, they want you to know what you’re talking about. If you can’t articulate how something works, then you’re going to look like an unknowable fool.

How can coding skills make you a great tech salesman?

While a tech salesperson needs to learn the following skills to be successful, they also need to present these skills during an interview. Use an all-in-one platform for interview prep to prepare.

Finding the optimal tech solution for the client’s pain points

Salespeople need to understand consultative selling techniques to reveal a client’s pain points. You can also figure out how technologically savvy they are based on how they answer questions. Crafting an ideal solution requires enough knowledge of the product’s capabilities.

Selling to people who don’t understand technology

A client that doesn’t understand or care about technology will typically ask general questions, such as “does your product allow me to filter customer emails into one inbox?” These clients aren’t interested in back-end code. They just want to know if it works and how to use it.

Selling to people who do understand technology

On the other hand, a client that does understand and care about technology will be more specific and ask questions like, “can I customize the insight and analytics portion using Python?” You can’t simply answer “yes,” you need to explain how to do it and where to insert the code.

Answering complex technical questions in more than one way

Employers should dedicate a part of in-person or remote sales training to answering complex technical questions in more than one way. A person who doesn’t understand code needs to hear answers that don’t include jargon, whereas a veteran techy will need specific coding answers.

Ensuring post-sales satisfaction and building lasting relationships

While most popular coding languages don’t change, the languages we use will. Salespeople need to stay up to date with industry changes and continuously build their coding knowledge to maintain post-sales satisfaction and build long-lasting relationships with customers and clients.

What programming languages do salespeople need to know?

The coding language you learn will depend on your industry. However, programming languages are separated by types, which indicate how the code is employed and designed.

For example:

Procedural programming languages

Derived from structured programming and provides commands by segregation the program into variables, functions, conditional operators, and statements. Examples include BASIC, C, PASCAL, and Java.

Functional programming languages

Declarative programming paradigm constructed by applying and composing functions. These languages emphasize expressions and declarations. Examples include Scala, SML, Haskell, ML, Scheme, and F#.

Object-oriented programming languages

Based on objects and includes features like inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation, and abstractions. You’ll likely be the most familiar with these languages, as examples include Java, Javascript, Python, and C++.

Logic programming languages

Instead of telling the computer how to do something, logic programming employs restrictions and writes its rules via classes. Some examples include Answer Set programming (ASAP), PROLOG, and Datalog.

Unless you’re working in finance (which uses SQL), you’ll get the most use out of Python, Java, C, C++, JavaScript, Go, R, Swift, PHP, C#, and MATLAB. At the very least, you need to know the coding language your product or service is using to successfully sell to most audiences.

What level of coding skills do salespeople need to have?

Without a thorough knowledge of the product, you won’t be able to answer technical questions or resolve implementation roadblocks. With that said, you’ll need to understand computer architecture and data basics and learn how programming languages and the internet works.

From there, you should practice some command-line basics and build up your text editor skills. Then, learn common phrases associated with your product’s code, like “tags” for HTML.

If you want to go above and beyond, understand the basics of Git and SQL and read about web frameworks and MVC. All of this knowledge will give you a general understanding of coding.

At the same time, you don’t have to do all the heavy lifting, as the engineers will do that for you. As a salesperson, your main job is to provide clients with in-depth product expertise. A basic coding bootcamp or intro coding course will give you the knowledge you need to do just that.