#170 5 Skills That Are Not as Important as People Say

Notes:

I often ask people who are new to sales engineering what their career plans are. Most of them answer to learn coding or public speaking, but rarely do they have a deeper reason or motivation behind learning them. It’s because most job descriptions for Sales Engineers list certain skills and qualifications such as multitasking and persuasion, but these skills are not as necessary as you think.

That is why in this episode, I want to focus on the valuable skills that can help you become an indispensable SE and advance your SE career (without you even realizing it). We will examine situations where you can apply deep work and focus and show alternative skills you can learn to set yourself apart from other SEs.

Five Skills that are NOT as Important as SEs Think they are: :

Coding Skills

People think they need to know coding to be a good SE. There is no need for that. Most SEs don’t need to be able to code because they will not be coding, but rather showing how the product works.

Presentation and Public Speaking Skills

While public speaking might look good on your resume, it won’t help you become a better Sales Engineer. Why? Because public speaking is all about getting ready and then talking, whereas sales engineering is all about discussions where people ask questions you didn’t think about, about how you might learn and improve.

SEs should stop relying on Spray and Pray marketing. Focus on whiteboarding and asking questions. Don’t focus on the public speaking part. Find ways to engage, be relatable, build trust, and allow customers to talk and be in control.

Asking and answering technical questions

Asking questions is a lot more important than answering technical questions. We need to answer the questions, but as SEs we need to be able to ask follow-up questions to better understand our customers’ situations.

Skills of Persuasion

People hate to be sold, but they love to buy. The goal is never to persuade anyone but to show them the best product fit for them. The way SEs do that is by demo-ing, answering questions, solving customer’s problems, and becoming their trusted advisers.

Multi-tasking Skills

True multitasking is a myth. Those who think they can handle many tasks all at once aren’t getting more done.

Multitasking wastes time and leads to a lack of focus. A more important SE skill is focusing. The ultimate guide to getting more deep work done is by focusing and doing less. Focus, do your job effectively, and move onto the next.

Quotes:

04:39 “You have to be better at doing conversations than doing presentations.” – Ramzi Marjaba

12:53 “Being able to do deep work and being able to focus is a much better skill than multitasking.” – Ramzi Marjaba

08:18 “Answering technical questions is not the “end all be all”. It’s asking follow-up questions – that’s the most important skill that you should have as a Sales Engineer.” – Ramzi Marjaba

13:23 “Efficiency without effectiveness is useless. You can be efficient at the wrong thing but being able to focus will allow you to be more effective.” – Ramzi Marjaba