You're losing deals because you can't quantify what you're selling.
I've watched hundreds of Sales Engineers walk into technical calls armed with feature lists, architecture diagrams, and perfectly rehearsed demos. They answer every question. They handle every objection. They walk out feeling confident.
And then the deal stalls.
Here's why: nobody bought what you were selling because you never told them what it was worth.
The best Sales Engineers I know don't just demonstrate capability. They quantify impact. They translate technical features into financial outcomes. They speak the language of the buyer, which is dollars, time, and risk.
If you can't put a number on the value you deliver, you're asking your buyer to guess. And when buyers guess, they default to "no."
Here's how to fix it.
The Problem: SEs Speak Tech, Buyers Think Money
Most Sales Engineers are phenomenal at explaining how something works. They can walk through integrations, explain security controls, diagram data flows, and troubleshoot edge cases in real time.
But when the CFO asks, "What's this worth to us?" they freeze.
Because they've never been taught to quantify.
Here's what happens:
- You explain the feature: "Our platform automates patch management across your entire environment."
- The prospect nods: "That sounds useful."
- The deal dies in procurement: "We're not sure this justifies the cost."
You never connected the feature to a financial outcome. You never quantified the cost of not solving the problem. You never gave them a number they could take to their budget committee.
Here's the shift: every technical capability you present must tie to a quantifiable business outcome.
The formula is simple:
- What does this feature do? (Technical capability)
- What problem does that solve? (Business pain)
- What is that problem costing them? (Quantified impact)
- What does solving it unlock? (Financial benefit)
If you can't answer all four, you're not ready to present.
The Framework: Quantify Every Conversation
Let's make this repeatable. Here's the framework I teach every SE on my team.
Step 1: Identify the Cost of the Problem
Before you can quantify your solution, you need to quantify their pain.
Most SEs skip this step. They assume the prospect knows what the problem is costing them. They don't.
Ask these questions in discovery:
- How many hours per week does your team spend on [manual process]?
- What's the average hourly cost of those resources?
- How many incidents like this happen per month?
- What's the revenue impact of [downtime / delay / error]?
- What's your cost per security event?
Do the math with them. Write it down. Make it real.
Example:
"You said your team spends 15 hours per week manually triaging alerts. At a blended rate of $75/hour, that's $58,500 per year in labor cost alone. And that's before we factor in the incidents they miss because they're buried in noise."
Now you're speaking their language.
Step 2: Translate Features into Financial Outcomes
Every technical feature has a financial proxy. Your job is to find it.
Here's the translation table:
Feature → Financial Outcome
- Automation → Labor cost savings + error reduction
- Faster processing → Time savings × cost per hour
- Reduced downtime → Revenue protected × uptime improvement
- Better visibility → Risk reduction + faster incident response
- Integration → Elimination of duplicate tools or manual handoffs
- Scalability → Cost avoidance (hiring, infrastructure, licenses)
Example:
"Our automated patch management eliminates 20 hours of manual work per month. At your current labor cost, that's $18,000 per year. It also reduces your vulnerability window from 30 days to 48 hours, which cuts breach risk by 93% based on industry data."
You just turned a feature into a financial case.
Step 3: Build a Value Calculator
Don't make your buyer do the math. Build a simple calculator they can use to quantify the impact for their specific environment.
At minimum, your calculator should include:
- Current state costs (labor, incidents, downtime, inefficiency)
- Future state improvement (hours saved, incidents prevented, uptime gained)
- Financial impact (cost savings + revenue protection + risk reduction)
- ROI timeline (payback period, 3-year value)
This doesn't need to be a complex spreadsheet. A simple Google Sheet or even a one-page document works. The goal is to make the math transparent, repeatable, and defensible.
Pro tip: Let them input their numbers. When they build the business case, they own it.
Step 4: Anchor to Industry Benchmarks
Your prospects don't always know what good looks like. Give them context.
Use benchmarks to quantify impact:
- "The average cost of a ransomware incident in your industry is $1.8M. Our platform reduces dwell time by 70%, which industry data shows cuts breach cost by half."
- "Companies your size typically spend 35% of IT labor on reactive firefighting. Our clients reduce that to 12% within six months."
- "The average MSP operates at 22% EBITDA. Our top clients are running at 32% because they've automated 60% of tier-1 work."
Benchmarks give your numbers credibility. They turn your claim from opinion into data.
Step 5: Quantify the Conversation in Real Time
Here's the advanced move: quantify during the call, not after.
When a prospect describes a problem, do the math on the spot.
Example dialogue:
Prospect: "We're spending way too much time on manual reporting."
You: "How many hours per week?"
Prospect: "Probably 10 hours across the team."
You: "Got it. So that's roughly 500 hours per year. At a blended cost of $80/hour, that's $40,000 in labor cost. Our reporting automation typically eliminates 80% of that work, which would give you back $32,000 per year and free up your team for higher-value projects. Does that math feel right to you?"
Prospect: "Yeah, that tracks."
You just reframed the conversation from "nice to have" to "$32K per year."
That's quantification.
The Real Play
Sales Engineering is not a technical support role. It's a value articulation role.
Your job is to make the invisible visible. To turn abstract capabilities into concrete outcomes. To give your buyer the financial clarity they need to say yes.
If you can't quantify it, you can't sell it.
Here's what changes when you quantify every conversation:
- Deals move faster because buyers can justify the spend
- You command higher prices because value is clear
- You disqualify bad-fit prospects earlier because the math doesn't work
- You build credibility with the economic buyer because you speak their language
- You close more deals because you're not asking them to guess
Start here:
- Audit your last five technical calls. Did you quantify the problem? Did you quantify your solution?
- Build a simple value calculator for your top use case.
- Practice translating your three most common features into financial outcomes.
- Ask one quantifying question in every discovery call this week.
Clarity beats effort. Numbers beat features. Every time.
Your move.
