This year has been tough for everyone, no exception. Many lives were lost due to the pandemic, some businesses had to shut down operations, and most professionals have had to shift careers and industries just to cope with the changes. This was one of the main reasons we started the Leave No SE Behind Initiative, to connect Sales Engineers who were affected by the pandemic to hiring companies, recruiters, and businesses who needed their expertise on their team. Joshua Smith, one of the guys we featured on the Leave No SE Behind Initiative, shares with us how he was able to get a job during the pandemic.

Joshua Smith is currently the Senior Sales Engineer at Varonis, a cybersecurity company pioneering in data security and analytics. In this episode, he talks about how he was able to bounce back after losing a job due to the pandemic and the highs and lows of starting out in a new company and industry.

Key Takeaways:

Tune in to our conversation and learn about:

• How the pandemic affected Joshua’s career as a Sales Engineer
• What he did right after losing a job and how he found another job in spite of the pandemic
• What influenced his decision to apply to a company in a different industry
• How Joshua felt going into a new role and a new industry 
• How reaching out to his contacts and his trusted circle helped him make decisions easier
• What his interview process was like and how he got introduced to the company
• The main challenge he faced when starting a new role in his new company
• The hard truth most new Sales Engineers ignore when you’re starting out and facing new customers
• What helped him become more comfortable working in the company and the support he received from his colleagues
• How his team handles customer meetings during the pandemic
• Tips and tricks on how to build trust and relationship with your customers 

Quotes:

Why Joshua joined Varonis: “Anyone that ever heard of them had good things to say and the referral I got, I trusted. I didn’t join this company for what I knew about them, I joined this company for what my trusted circle knew about them. And that was enough for me to take the plunge… The pros just got to a point where it seemed like a no-brainer.”

How he handled the interview process: “I approached it like I would approach a new prospect meeting, where I knew who I was meeting with. So I just went out and google stalked them, jumped on Linkedin, see how nerdy they were, see what groups they belong to, see if we had any common associates… to kind of create that comfortable area and then brush your hair, put on a polo, make sure there’s nothing lewd on the background. Approach it like you were gonna go in person.”

On why failure is part of the process: “It’s a learning process, listen, we’re gonna take some new prospect meetings and were gonna bomb and were gonna bomb hard. But then what we do is we have a postmortem call and be like, what could I have done better? What could you have, or what could we have done better?”

How Joshua prepares for customer meetings: “I like to write down questions I hear during meetings so that at the next meeting, I can proactively answer that question before the prospect even thinks to ask it or is about to ask it… When you put someone at ease is when you’re answering the questions that are in their head.”

How to stop overthinking: “We work these things up and make these things like these herculean tasks when all you have to do is just put one foot in front of the other and before you know it, you’ve walked a thousand miles.”

Not So Fire Round

• What do you love about sales engineering or being a Sales Engineer?

Geeking out, experimenting, being able to spin up a lab, trying to break things, right now I’ve got a demo environment on my desktop in there, I beat up a server, and then I can see whats going on. I like to set up things, break things, cause I feel like that’s the best way to learn something , to see how some things work is to break it, see where it broke, see where the blind spots are, cause the bad guys are gonna figure out, they’re already probably have and so I wanna see where I’m exposed and how I can help customers see those new trends.

• What would you change about sales engineering?

Right now, make the pandemic go away so that I can go and meet people in person. What I dislike about the SE process, we’re doing all teleconferences right now, is when the folks on the other end don’t have their camera on. You’re going through a 30-minute demo and it’s just crickets, you’re getting no feedback… I would have the sales rep make it mandatory that everyone has to have their camera on to make my life easy so I can read the people’s faces.

3. What tools, books or resources would you recommend to Sales Engineers?

There was a book I got about being better at getting up in the morning and having more energy in the morning. Our job is so in the brain, that the muscles that need to be the healthiest for us are the body and the mind. The more we find out about sleep, the more I realize it’s really a superfood, it makes us so we can have clear thinking, it makes us so that we can have the ability to go layers deep in conversation with people, and be able to read and comprehend all those things.

The Dark Net Diaries Podcast

• What separates a great Sales Engineer from not so good ones?

Passion and honesty.

• Where can people find out more about you?

Connect with Joshua Smith on:

Linkedin

Twitter 

Github

If you enjoyed this podcast, please support the show by dropping a review or rating on iTunes. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-sales-engineers-resource-for-sales-engineers-by/id1378292171

And if you’ve been affected by COVID as an SE, please check out our Leave No SE Behind initiative so that we can help you. https://wethesalesengineers.com/no-se-left-behind-initiative/