Blog
Notes:
Over the course of my career as a Sales Engineer, and while interviewing other SEs on the podcast or coaching and training some of them, I’ve found that our role just keeps on evolving. While we are required to have excellent technical knowledge product and sales skills, there’s a lot more to it than you think, that even new, aspiring, or even experienced SEs still get wrong to this day.
So, in today’s podcast, my co-host Binayak Kanungo and I explore the top five mental hurdles most Sales Engineers run into throughout their SE career and how to overcome them.
Key Takeaways
- Why the customer isn’t always right and how to inform the customer gently and politely about the right way to do things
- What to do when a customer brings up a point that they’re clearly wrong about
- Being a trusted advisor and not an SE who just provides licenses because the customer asks for it
- Why do most SEs think they don’t have anything else to learn
- Different ways on how you can grow as a Sales Engineer
- Binayak explains what impact radius is
- How Ramzi’s impact radius grew by starting a podcast
- Why you shouldn’t do everything your sales reps tells you to do
- Understanding your role as a partner with your sales rep
- The biggest mental hurdle SEs face that should be addressed
Five Mental Hurdles Most Sales Engineers Run into: :
- The customer is always right.
- I don’t have anything new to learn.
- There is no room to grow as a sales engineer.
- I work for my salesperson.
- I can’t make mistakes.
Quotes:
03:18 “The challenge is or overcoming that thought initially that “the customer’s always right”, and learning how to gently and politely inform the customers that they may have been right, but there are better ways now.” – Ramzi Marjaba
03:51 “If a customer brings up a point that you don’t agree with or that they’re not right about, instead of becoming argumentative, take a deep breath, think of where they’re coming from, and try to address that versus getting into a fight with them or agreeing with them that they’re right.” – Ramzi Marjaba
16:19 “The impact radius of a Sales Engineer is quite large. And so there are so many different places within an organization that one can move, I guess, as a Sales Engineer, once they were once a Sales Engineer that they may not be aware of if they didn’t know that was a possibility.” – Binayak Kanungo
17:33 You can grow in your impact radius, as we were talking about, you can affect a lot more than just your team and your customers. Because I started the podcast, my impact radius grew, even within my own company, because now people talk about me in my own companies. – Ramzi Marjaba
18:13 “You don’t have to have a podcast; you just have to do things that are visible and like care to help other people. And your impact radius will grow, your title will not change, but you are growing without within your role.” – Ramzi Marjaba
22:01 “There’s so much power to the whole SE role when done properly.” – Binayak Kanungo
22:41 “Good salespeople know how to leverage their SES.” – Ramzi Marjaba
25:35 “Know what it takes for you to prepare and try to be as prepared as you can be just like, you know, make you feel like you you’re ready for that meeting, whatever it is. But then once you’re there, have fun. Don’t worry about making a mistake. It’s not the end of the world. And if the company thinks that it is and you get fired, then go to a better company.” – Ramzi Marjaba
