 The customer's only motivation to participate in the encounter is to achieve return on investment (ROI) in one way or another.Toward that end, sales engineering increasingly relies on any information technology that can help quantify ROI.This is summed up in the aphorism that "at the end of the day, the customer just wants to know for sure that they will gain A dollars over the next B years (via reduced expenses or increased sales) if they pay C dollars up front for product D."

Another function of the sales engineer is to introduce modified, improved, and/or advanced technology to potential users who may have an application but who have not yet acquired knowledge of the material or technique in question.