Sales Engineer at a Medium-Sized Company

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Florian Koppe works as a Sales Engineer at Knick in the Sales Department and tells us why he chose Knick and what his working day looks like:

At Knick, I can touch the products with my hands

Before applying, I knew Knick as a manufacturer from various projects that I had to deal with professionally. At first, no one would assume that a company which has been a successful specialist for analytical measurement and interface technology for more than 70 years has their headquarters in this corner of Zehlendorf, in the middle of a residential area. What I considered particularly interesting about Knick as an employer was the fact that it is a family business. Here I can touch the products directly due to the physical proximity to the production site. All departments are well networked, you know each other well, and you can always speak to each other easily and quickly. Due to the flat organization, the decision-making processes are short and comprehensible.

Sales cannot be studied, customer understanding is what‘s important

At Knick it is particularly noticeable that we have two different product areas, one is the analytics area and the other is the interface area. Our team is responsible for the sales region North-East Germany and I support our field sales force as technical sales engineer together with an industrial clerk from the office. Many of our customers already know our products, but we still need to choose the suitable devices to meet the customer’s requirements. I advise our customers by phone and formulate quotations. In the analytics area, for example transmitters, components, cables and sensors must be matched for the best fitting solution. For longer period projects, we also need to check if the requirements can be met with our standard products or if a new development needs to be initiated. That’s where the mentioned short communication channels are very convenient for my daily work. We are the distributors, but being close to product management, design, development and production departments, I can pass on customer feedback directly. The challenge as a sales engineer at Knick is to understand the products and to use them in the sales sense with their advantages and applications. In sales, you should also be able to “keep many balls in the air”: A customer calls, while the orders are on the table for processing and next to your desk stands a colleague with a question. In my opinion, you cannot study sales, because the customer understanding is what‘s important and each customer has different requirements and preferences.

Interface between the company and the market

In my previous career, I have already occupied some sales-related positions, such as in export or as a key account manager. I’ve always been technically interested, but I did not want to work as a designer or developer after studying. That’s why I decided from the start to study industrial engineering, because that’s where I could combine technical know-how with market understanding.