This post is meant for all the Technical Salespeople who want more business from engineers.

The job of an engineer is to solve complex design problems.  As part of the solution, they are often tasked with finding the right supplier who has the product or service that solves a portion of the problem.  This process usually involves:  (1) Research on what technologies are available and (2) Testing different solutions that they have found from vendors.  This process is where the Engineer can save the most money and make design decisions that make or break a product.

As a salesperson, your job is to make sure that Engineers contact you at the R&D stage so that your solution is tested.  Easier said than done!  Most OEM Representatives have more products than their customers realize, and most Manufacturer’s Representatives have 5 or 10 OEM lines that they represent.  So, how do you make sure that Engineers test your products or services?  Below, I have outlined 5 ways to get more leads and more business from engineers that are looking for you right now! Read the rest of this entry »

This post is meant for all the Technical Salespeople using Industrial Interface.

If you’re involved with industrial B2B sales and have not earned business from an Industrial Interface lead, then you are missing out!  In this post I want to teach you how to maximize the likelihood of winning business from the hundreds of engineering and manufacturing firms using Industrial Interface. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is meant for all the Industrial Supplier Firms thinking about e-mail marketing.

If you are in technical sales, this post is for you.  This includes Manufacturing Rep Groups, Distributors, and OEMs who want to get more business from their contact database.  There are a ton of reasons to Email Market and practically no reasons not to.  So, why haven’t you started? Because it seems like such a big task that you don’t know where to start?  Well, I’m here to tell you where you start! Read the rest of this entry »

Every time I ask engineers about resources they use, someone mentions eFunda “Engineering Fundamentals”.  I’ve been here often because the site has good SEO and shows up in searches, but I’ve never been a fan.  I took another look recently and decided that the site has cleaned up it’s act a little, although I still maintain that most topics can be easily found through a Google search.

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I know a lot of people still like to browse online industrial listings even though Industrial Interface will do all that work for you, so we created a great little search engine that indexes 40 of the most popular and comprehensive listings on the web.

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When I got my first job as an manufacturing engineer, my boss immediately told me to get a subscription to Machine Design Magazine. “Awesome!” I thought to myself, followed by, “I wonder how much that’s gonna cost?”

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MatWeb is easily the most comprehensive materials database freely available on the web.  When I used to work as a deign engineer I probably went to MatWeb at least a couple times a week.

As of this post, MatWeb has over 77,000 materials in it’s searchable database, and they are all free to access, although there are advanced features (advanced search, side-by-side material comparisons, data download capabilities) that require you to register for a free account.  Premium accounts cost $100 per year and give you increased search and comparison functionality and the ability to download materials right into your favorite design software. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a lot of free trade magazines available for engineers and designers.  These can be fun to read, and have lots of great pictures to flip through when you’re bored at work.  How often do you actually find yourself referencing one of these free magazines, however, when you have a truly complex technical problem that needs solving?  Probably never.  You search google and you may search some engineering forums, but odds are what you’re looking for is tucked away in an expensive, subscription only, unsearchable academic journal.  So how do you find this information?  Enter DeepDyve. Read the rest of this entry »