While we do love our role as Sales Engineers, our job doesn’t always consist of rainbows and sunshine. Aside from the confusion our position title elicits (are we a Sales Engineer, solutions engineer, or solutions consultant?) and the exhaustion that comes from having to master both sales and technical aspects of the job, sometimes we can’t help but wonder if we’re really meant to be Sales Engineers. Fortunately, we have someone who’s willing to take us through his Sales Engineering journey and his share of struggles and successes.

Join us on today’s episode as we chat with Russell Mohr, the Head of North American Sales Engineering at MobileIron, technical evangelist and mobile enthusiast working for startups and established vendors in the enterprise and carrier space for over twenty years. Russ gives us a no holds barred answers on how he realized he needed to step up his game as a Sales Engineer, how Sales Engineers can put themselves out there, and how to become a better SE leader.

Key Takeaways:

Tune in to the episode and learn:

• How he became a Sales Engineer
• How he navigated the SE world even without having enough resources
• How he realized he needed to become a better Sales Engineer
• The dirty little secret about sales engineering
• How he claimed a seat at the table as an SE leader
• Is it normal for SEs to not be happy in their roles?
• How he wielded the role of SE leader in the company he was in 
• What can SEs do today to put themselves out there?
• How to motivate employees to explore their strengths and passions

Quotes:

15:59 “Finding the right fit has a lot to do with technology, also has to do with culture at the company that you’re working at, the challenges of the job, the ways that SEs are valued at a company, a lot of things have to come together but when they do. it’s a really beautiful thing.”

20:18 “Whenever I did something, especially when I did it the first time, I would share. That helps in an SE’s reputation, then you get to become the expert in whatever that technology is.”

34:43 “We all make mistakes we all learn from them and recover from them… nobody’s perfect, I don’t want anybody to work for me that’s perfect.”

37:57 On finding out your employees’ motivations: “What I’m more interested in is, what do they find interesting about their jobs, what do they wanna do, what’s their career development? You need to feed your mind, build your career and work on the things that are gonna give you satisfaction in the long run.”

39:29 “I’m very happy to help somebody grow into another role at my company. It’s wrong to hold people back, which makes for unhappy people, so I want to help make happy Sales Engineers or product managers, or happy people.”

51:12 On how Sales Engineers can become better: “You need to put yourself out there. I think SEs that do this, they are the better SEs. Raising your hand could also mean collaborating and sharing, sharing your knowledge with the community, publishing an article or a blog, or being on podcasts or writing a white paper. All of these things that just contribute to your company’s success as a whole and your development as a person, that’s what I love in an SE.”

Not So Fire Round

1. What do you love about being a Sales Engineer, or otherwise, being an SE leader?

As an SE leader, Ijust love mentoring people. I just love that relationship, helping them grow, that’s really so important to me. As an SE, I love not only the relationships with other SEs, but also with the sales team, even product management. I love building those deep relationships. I love learning new things, sharing new technology with fellow SEs or new ways to do things and processes that will help them. Those are all things that I really appreciate about being an SE.

2. What would you change about your current role?

I’m pretty happy with my current role. Sales engineering in general, though, I don’t think Sales Engineers are valued enough in almost any company, and I would like to see the equivalent of the SE sales in sales engineering in a lot of companies, because it’s so crucial to making a sale in technology, to moving the needle forward in most companies, yet it’s undervalued, you have VPs of sales engineering reporting up to VPs of sales or customer success. They do not have a seat at the leadership table and I think that really needs to change.

3. What are some books or resources that you may recommend for people that wanna learn more about sales engineering or wanna better their craft?

Don’t just read self-help books. Pick up a novel. Read the newspaper, pick up the New York Times. Read articles, biographies of people that you may admire, and just uplevel yourself as a human. 

4. What separates the great SEs from the not so great or okay ones?

Raising your hand is super important. That means, if somebody asks a technical question and you’re always the guy to answer, after a while, people start to notice that and you become the domain expert. If you raised your hand, I guarantee, you’re on my radar. Maybe I don’t wanna hire you, maybe I’ll think of you for another role, or when I hear about a role outside the company. You need to put yourself out there. SEs that do this, are the better SEs.

5. Where can people reach out to you?

Connect with Russ Mohr on Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/russmohr/

Follow him on Twitter – https://twitter.com/rmohr?lang=en

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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/