Formlabs wants to bring ground-breaking professional 3D printers to the desktop of every designer, engineer, researcher, and artist in the world.
Brian Nies, Head of Sales – Americas, shares everything you need to know about working on the Formlabs Sales team!
During this video interview, Brian discusses:
- Who is Formlabs?
- Details on the Sales team
- The typical sales process
- The interview process
- Advice for someone looking to join the team
Video Transcript
My name is Brien Nies from Formlabs.
We are a team of highly motivated people who come together to build tools that make it possible for anybody to bring their ideas to life. We control the whole 3D printing ecosystem: the hardware, the software, and the materials. This allows us to solve amazing problems and work with incredible companies, such as helping somebody walk by making a custom prosthetic or working with Ford to help design the new Ford Explorer. At the end of the day, we’re a team building cool tools that meet customer needs and make what they’re trying to do a reality.
We have two primary sales motions. One is when customers reach out to us looking for help. We have a team that handles these leads, answering questions and finding the best solution for whatever the customer is trying to accomplish. The other motion is working with existing accounts to save them time and money by finding great solutions to expand their adoption of additive technology across their organization.
We work with such a wide array of companies. In a single day, we could be working with someone doing CAD modeling and design in the automotive space, and then pivot to working with a medical specialist trying to design a patient-specific device to improve overall healthcare.
What drives our sales process is having passionate, knowledgeable people who take this incredible 3D printing technology and pair it with the needs of our customers—engineers, designers, and manufacturers. By understanding what they do, we can apply our hardware, software, and materials to help them expand what they’re capable of and have an impact on their company. That expertise and engagement is what our sales team does.
A typical inbound sales process starts when a customer reaches out because they’ve seen something about 3D printing or additive technology, but maybe don’t have a lot of background. They might say, “I’m looking at a printer or a certain type of material. I need help.” Our team engages, first trying to understand what they’re trying to accomplish. Once we understand that, we can determine if our products meet their needs. If they do, we design the solution together, they implement it, and hopefully find an amazing outcome.
The other process involves our existing customers, as we have over 100,000 printers out in the world. Sometimes, a core group inside a company uses our technology and has gotten huge value, but the rest of the organization doesn’t know about it. We work closely with those users to identify how we’ve saved them time or money and help them package that information to present to internal stakeholders in other areas of the business, helping them expand adoption and increase overall savings.
The interview process at Formlabs consists of multiple, short sessions designed to give the candidates and us a chance to meet. The sessions are laid out to help us determine things like culture fit, passion, curiosity, technical skills, and communication style. They take different forms—some are traditional one-on-one interviews, some are role-plays where the candidate gets a chance to explain the product. Some sessions are virtual, some in person. Throughout the process, we make sure the candidate meets lots of different people at Formlabs to get a better feel for the company and different perspectives.
For someone looking to join the team, one thing that’s really important is that we’re always looking for smart people who love technology, like to problem solve, like to get hands-on, and also really enjoy interacting with a wide range of people. If that sounds like you, this could be a really good fit.
For anyone with a technical or engineering background, there are really good financial opportunities here. I definitely recommend considering technical sales roles because you can leverage that technical skill, but there’s also a higher upside. There’s salary, but also bonus and incentive-based pay, and clear career progression that can unlock more from a monetary side, all while leveraging your technical skill for high-impact work.
Now is a great time to join Formlabs. In the past year, we launched the Form 4 and the 4L, two industry-leading products that have gotten an amazing, “wow” reception, reviewed by people like Adam Savage. We’re getting amazing customer feedback, and we’re growing—and growing fast. That’s why we’re looking to hire people quickly; we have a lot of customers looking to Formlabs for solutions.
Because we know it’s an important time of growth, we’ve also recently increased compensation. Entering into our Technical Sales Rep position now starts with $90,000 On-Target Earnings (OTE) and goes up as you advance. If you come in as an Account Manager with a couple of years experience, we start at $110,000 OTE and move up from there. Formlabs is a great location, a fun place with a good culture, and a lucrative opportunity. We want you to be you and add to the company based on your unique characteristics and what you’re capable of.
