#177 Making Mistakes and Learning From Horror Stories

Notes:

Most episodes we’ve had in the past come from the perspective of Presales Engineers or those belonging to the Sales Team, today we’ll be looking more into how it’s like working closely with presales engineers from the POV of a company consultant. As sales engineers, what should we be doing less, or doing more of when relating with our customers, account managers, and consultants? Also, what it is like to work as a consultant in a large company, like the one our guest works at? What, really, is the role of a consultant?

In this episode, Vaibhav “VB” Malik joins us to talk about being a consultant. VB will also open up at his attempt at becoming a Sales Engineer, and the one mistake which derailed his opportunity with one specific large employer.

Keys Takeaways:

How VB’s role as an engineer has evolved into being a products engineer, and then a consultant involved in a lot of presales activity work
The importance of actually dealing with the problems of the customers rather than being concerned with how much it will cost them
How Account Managers, Sales Engineers, and Consultants work all in all together
Building your image of trust and credibility toward the teams you work with through the outcomes of your work
The pleasant personalities of sales engineers who do not do their job just to get it done, but to really attend to what their customers need and guide them through the processes
The interesting things he sees and experiences working with and as a presales engineer
His attempt to become a Sales Engineer
What his interview process was for the SE role.
The red flags that he started noticing after the interview process is done
Some tips on stating the range of money you’d like when asked in an interview
What companies need to do to make interviews more meaningful

Quotes:

“Diving into understanding what their problems are makes that price just that much more meaningful.” – Vaibhav “VB” Malik

“The more incentive they have to work with you, the more likely they are to do so.” – Vaibhav “VB” Malik

“The level of the different the number of people that might be attached to a project will differ between the complexity of the product and how customizable it is.” – Vaibhav “VB” Malik