Chris Sheppard

It’s the Dark Side! (You are Correct!)

Yesterday Greg took me aside and asked if I had ever considered Sales. “Sure”, I told him. “I consider Sales and Marketing to be the black agents with which we Engineers must align ourselves in order to keep making cool stuff–a necessary evil, if you will” This is a common sentiment among engineers. He laughed and clarified his question, “No, no. I mean have you considered being a part of our meager sales force?” It was time to come clean. A secret passion for Sales/Marketing lies deep within me. I don’t know exactly how it got there. I imagine long ago I was attacked by something akin to an Alien face hugger. The beast laid the dark seed in my belly that is a desire to sell and market things. Isn’t that where Sales/Marketing types come from? I’ve tried to starve my interest in the dark arts but it stubbornly rears it’s ugly yet charismatic head.

A quick review of the times when people commented on my ability to “sell” things:

Before I transformed my geeky hobby into a career I was a cashier for a Food World show store. Our store was the first in the area to accept credit/debit machines. Before then, people paid for food with paper money and promissory notes called “cheques”. Custmomers were a little apprehensions about charging their groceries so the cashiers were asked to help encourage them to “swipe their cards”. I did not give it much thought or any particular effort. I gave each customer a short 5 point speil I cooked up about the advantages this newfangled technology offered. My fellow cashiers, the office clerks, the “point of sale” developers and even the customers were all astonished at how well I “sold” the concept. At the time I was rather surprised myself but it didn’t seem nearly as note worthy as the latest tricks I picked up from the tech books I was reading on my break.

Several years later ATI invited me to the Embedded Systems Conference. We engineers are usually brought along to help set up demos or answer a few technical questions. The talented sales force is meant to drive the sale. I could not match the likes of them but even untrained unpolished I showed promise. Oh, I made mistakes. The worst was when I gave that cute little brunette from Green Hills a tour of our newest product. (Cute little Green Hills girl: if you are reading this, I’m available! I have plenty more embedded products I can show you!) I was a staple of the trade show crew ever since.

Although my time at Nivis was short I was fortunate enough to partake of their Yuletide hospitality. During the Christmas party I got to talk to our sales force and investors. I told them about what I did and what I thought of their products. I rambled on and on before I noticed they were watching me silently with broad grins. They asked if I was interested in sales.

The last trade show I attended (with Unicoi) another winning performance. I worked in the booth with our Korean partners and they has many, many nice things to say about me.

The plan is I train with Scott for an hour each day to get my proverbial feet wet. The rest of the day I play engineer. If I like sales, I do it. If I don’t, I remain a code monkey. So now I look to Scott, Head of Unicoi HR/Sales/Marketing–I look to Scott and he says to me, “Chris… *Ooo Pah* I am your father. *Ooo pah* Search you feelings *Ooo Pah* You know it to be true.”

I expect soon I will be banned from thinkgeek and forced to liter my office with Successories. Hey, and if any friends or family need any embedded software, well I can get you a steal of a deal!