#297 From Avoiding Sales Role to Becoming the First SE
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
Release Date: 12/25/2023
Promote Yourself to The CEO of Your Life and Career
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
Many of us let our careers happen to us. Imagine if a CEO of a company just LET whatever happens to his or her company happen. They would be fired immediately from their role. But we can go through our lives and careers without being intentional in how we want to live our lives. Instead, if we look at our lives like a startup and we are the CEOs, we can then look at our salary as revenue, our skills as the products that we provide, and our time as the service, then we can look differently at our lives. We can make decisions on what to improve and how.
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How To Prepare for A Customer or Interview Demo
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
This is how I teach my #SolutionEngineers to prepare for their customer demos or their Interview demos. show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show319
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Challenging Perspectives and Learning from Professional Disagreements
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
Last week I mentioned the 10 mistakes that #SolutionEngineers make that drive Salespeople crazy. This week Wesley comes to the defense of these SEs. Wes and I discuss the dynamics and challenges faced by SEs and account managers in tech sales. Wes shares his experiences and disagreements with certain points raised in a previous podcast episode about common mistakes SEs make, such as hijacking meetings and not following up. The discussion touches on the importance of good communication, trust, and feedback between SEs and sales reps, highlighting how effective management and understanding can...
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Top 10 SE Mistakes that Drive AEs Crazy
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
So I’ve been in sales for a while. A few years now, and I’ve worked with several SE either as a sales person, a mentor, or a coach. And we love to joke around and talk crap about salespeople. I mentioned this before but on my first week on the job, I traveled to a quarterly training for both SEs and Sales. We had a common training session (marketing slides) and when that session was over and we were about to split up, my manager (SE manager) stood up and said “SEs stay here, those who have a lobotomy go to the other room.” That’s how I was introduced to sales. It was a joke, and...
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Work Behind The Curtin To Help Your Customers Better
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
I caught up with Chris White on his Linkedin Live show a bit ago. This time he interviews me and we dig into what happens behind the scenes, or at least what should happen behind the scenes to make sure that SEs are successful in front of the customer. Everyone loves what we do on the front end, working directly with the customer, performing, and getting the Aha moment. However, we can not do any of that if we don’t prepare, if we don’t generate leads (even as SEs), or prepare for discovery, demos, and POV. We barely scratch the surface. But it’s a start. show...
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Craving Cold Calls is a Matter of Perspective
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
AI is coming for us all. According to our guest, Anthony Palmoze, he’s heard many SEs talk about BDR being the first to become obsolete. So we jump on a call to dig into what BDR is and see if it will be obsolete, or more specifically, what parts will be taken over by AI. show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show315
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Selling to Sellers and How Solution Engineers Can Add Valu
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
I have my own opinions of what sales engineers should do, and how they should be involved in the sales process. My opinion is that they should be involved, early and often. But I sell in the enterprise market, with a small number of customers. My SE is tied only to me, and the main decision-makers are the users who use the product. So it would make sense that my SE is heavily involved, follows up post-demo, and maintains relationships. But when your product is being sold to other Salespeople, and the goal is to show them how easy it is to use, and the SE that supports your...
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Navigating the Presales Landscape From Green Shoots to Growth
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
Over the many years that I’ve been doing this podcast, we’ve talked about the skills required, how to manage the team, communication, relationship building. But we’ve never discussed the SE Big picture, how external factors like the economy can affect the role, and what moves can be made internally to save money. So I invited John Simpson on this show to discuss that. John is the former head of Solution Engineering for EMEA at Qualtrics do discuss this in more detail. show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show313
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Generate Great Revenue By Using Solution Engineers As Marketing
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
Solution Engineers have a lot on their plate, and I have the pleasure of adding one more thing to that plate...marketing show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show312
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Expand Your Solution and Value Selling through Insight Selling
We The Sales Engineers: A Resource for Sales Engineers, by Sales Engineers
There are so many different selling techniques. I’ve personally been trained in Solution Selling and Challenger Selling. Full disclosure, I love Solution Selling, but hate challenger selling. I’ve also read SPIN Selling and then I noticed that a lot of them are similar, but they are all geared towards salespeople. But Solution Selling was introduced a long time ago. Some say in the 70s, but I don’t have a source for that. Since then, solution selling evolved into Value Selling, and now the latest iteration is Insight Selling. My guest, Sherri Mazza, is writing a book...
info_outlineMost SEs have an aversion to sales, which is why many have been very hesitant to enter the SE world. But as soon as we learn more about it, we understand that SEing is about solving problems which as techies, is what we want.
The same goes for our guest today. Chris Snyder is the first SE within his organization and he’s been thriving at it due to the support that he has, and the ability to get creative.
show notes: https://wethesalesengineers.com/show297