Robert Seviour, Engineer / Experienced Salesman / Sales Trainer

Robert Seviour teaches sales skills to engineers and a diverse range of industry delegates at his ‘Selling for Engineers’ seminars.

It’s been a long journey from the beginning of his career as a ‘hands-on’ mechanical engineer. “I probably would have stayed in engineering if a friend had not talked me into joining a direct sales organisation.

There it was all different - what counted was sales figures, not technical matters -. It was a whole new world to me. To my surprise I enjoyed selling and was good at it. There's nothing like the buzz you get when you bring in a big order." 

Robert began his working life at a company called ‘Power Frequency Heating Ltd. in the London suburbs. Later he formed his own sales-led business ‘Robert Seviour – Energy Control Systems’ which installed ‘smart’ heating controls for large houses and small commercial premises. An offshoot of this activity was to design and fit solar heating systems for domestic hot water.

In 1988 Robert sold the business and accepted an invitation to become North American agent for Structural Polymer Systems, a manufacturer of epoxy adhesives and composite materials. He re-located to Vancouver, Canada and developed from zero a client base of users of this company’s products. The job involved finding new customers and teaching them how to use these advanced materials. 

Five years later he was asked to return to the UK and help another technical company develop their sales. This business was an installer of high-tech communications equipment, the personnel were all engineers with no experience of sales. Robert coached them in the process of customer acquisition.

The success of this operation led to an invitation by other companies within the Thorn group to repeat the same sales course with their divisions. For a year Robert travelled throughout the UK bringing weekly coaching sessions to Thorn engineers and salespeople. The products Thorn supplied included security systems and the design of aerospace equipment. The demand for sales training within technical companies was strong and Robert ran courses for large and small organisations throughout the UK, Europe and the USA. There were many well known companies, including Schlumberger, British Aerospace, IBM and Scottish Power. Since 1993 he has presented the ‘Selling for Engineers’ course over 600 times. 

Robert enjoys travel, has lived in six countries and apart from English, he speaks fluent French and German and is studying Spanish. He intends to continue working in his particular niche, technical sales development, and remains open to new challenges. 

Robert can be reached at email:   robertseviour (at) gmail.com.