Protolabs

At a glance

• Client: Protolabs
• Industry: Digital manufacturing
• Training format: Tailored in-company
• Focus: Selling to engineers and technical buyers
• Trainer: Graham Hulsebos, best sales trainer of the Netherlands 2025
• Method: 12 sales techniques and 11 scientific topics

Protolabs: from technical quote to advisory conversation

Protolabs is an international specialist in digital manufacturing: 3D printing, CNC machining and injection moulding. Its customers are engineers and buyers who know exactly what they want. How do you, as a salesperson, still add value?

In 2025, I delivered a tailored in-company sales training for Protolabs. The focus was on the conversation with technical customers: not repeating the specifications, but uncovering the question behind the request.

Many salespeople think selling is mainly broadcasting: telling a lot and showing a lot of product knowledge. In this training, participants learned the opposite. Whoever asks the right questions keeps control. Every answer determines the next question, until the customer takes the step to a decision. The 11 scientific topics show why that works.

Asking questions does not just work better, it also makes you come across as friendlier. You give the customer attention, and with the right choice of words you make every question stronger. What customers say themselves, they remember best, and they connect it to you. Together, these techniques make selling much easier.

What this delivers

• For Protolabs: more requests that grow into recurring orders, instead of one-off quotes.
• For their customers: engineers get a counterpart who thinks along about material, volumes and planning.
• For manufacturing: whoever understands the customer's production process wins on value instead of price per part.

Do you want this for your team too?

Does your team also sell to engineers and technical buyers? Then you do not win with specifications, but with the right questions. Who would not want every customer conversation to run deliberately and by system?

The approach at Protolabs fits the in-company sales training or sales training for technology and industry. I tailor every training to your market, your product and your customer.

Want to know where your team stands first? Take the free commercial intake test. Or see other clients and references.